Skip to main content
Commsy creative stuff straight to your inbox

Blog

Should I stay or should I go … ?

< Blog home

Should I stay or should I go … ?

It’s a question that employees the world over will ask themselves at some point.

These moments present a big opportunity for organisations to understand what drives these dilemmas. So why aren’t we capturing them? It’s a mystery!

We might discover why a colleague chose to leave if they reveal their reasons on a public review site like Glassdoor. You may get to hear the gossip through the grapevine internally. Or maybe they’ve shared their thoughts in a more formal conversation. Exit interviews can tell us where we went wrong, what we could have done better and how we should have tried harder. But they often end up being a futile flashback to a missed opportunity. 

 

Are we in the Upside Down? 

Surely, we ought to be exploring the issues our employees are facing before they leave rather than waiting until it’s too late! That all sounds a little upside down and back to front!  

The detail we can glean from stay interviews is likely to be much richer and way more compelling than after thoughts from an exit interview.

When we ask the right questions stay interviews can help us to…

  • Understand the drivers and motivations of our employees
  • Help them feel content and more inclined to stick around
  • Identify damaging patterns or potential areas for change

Kate Bates, Chief People and Culture Officer at Workwell is an avid supporter of the stay interview: “It’s a great concept and helps people to normalise feedback, sharing their frustrations. Conducting stay interviews has helped us as a business to make some adjustments to support employees’ asks and it’s enabled us to retain some people that may otherwise have decided to go. Retaining talent, listening to our staff and in turn supporting the skills within the business.”

 

With all that good stuff in mind, here are five ways we can make the most of stay interviews:

 

Beat it!

People may feel uncomfortable about opening up in a group environment or in front of colleagues or managers. Keep it private by kicking out anyone that doesn’t need to be there and reassure people that their responses will remain anonymous. Stranger things inspired roundels in red and black with faceless shadow in cloak with the wording 'reassure people that their responses will remain anonymous'

 

Atmosphere

Linked to that, you’ll want to create the right space for people to share their thoughts openly and honestly. Set the tone from the start: this is an open forum where your views and opinions will be valued and appreciated. And keep things clear and consistent to help identify themes and trends.

Kate adds: “During the stay interviews I conducted I asked all 30 people the same 10-12 questions to keep things consistent. They gave feedback on gaps in how they were inducted, some training and job understanding and shift patterns they didn’t like.”

 

You spin me round

Stay interviews are not an opportunity to ‘defend’ the organisation or to put a positive spin on things. It’s a moment to listen intently and respond appropriately. So don’t try to brush over or sugar-coat the gloomy stuff. Stranger things inspired roundels in red and black with faceless image in baseball cap and cupcake with the wording 'don’t try to brush over or sugar-coat the gloomy stuff.'

 

We’ll meet again

Don’t treat this as a one-off moment. Stay interviews should be happening regularly to maintain those open lines of communication and spot current trends and sentiments. Plan ahead and devise a strategy that allows for a consistent and standardised approach. 

 

Never ending story

The rich information we gather is just the start of the story. Taking ongoing action comes next. A study by Karian and Box revealed that a 74% level of engagement was achieved from UK employees who say leaders DO listen to their feedback in contrast to a shocking 28% level of engagement from employees who say leaders DON’T. So in addition to listening, make sure you commit to an action plan that addresses the issues raised and keeps people informed through a range of channels that include senior leadership comms. 

 

In conclusion…

To quote the wise words of Dustin Henderson:

“You say we should never stop being curious, to always open any curiosity door we find. Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?”

Exit interviews have their place and should be part of the employee journey to leave the gate open for potential returners – research shows that ‘Boomerang employees’ are on the rise. LinkedIn data reveals they accounted for 4.5% of all new hires among companies on the social platform in 2021, up from 3.9% over the same period in 2019. Stranger things inspired roundels in red and black string of lights illustration with the wording 'get curious and have these conversations at the right time'

But too many leavers have admitted that they simply weren’t open and honest in their exit interviews for fear of burning bridges or causing other repercussions.

Let’s all get curious and have these conversations at the right time. Perhaps we can avoid some employees and organisations going their separate ways. Stranger things have happened!

 

By Caroline Roodhouse for Alive!

 

“The guys at Alive understand the complexities of our business which means we don’t need to explain the detail of every project or design piece – they’re already on it, which keeps things moving and delivers the results we need.”

Emily Stoten — Head of Marketing, Selecta

“I feel like they own and care for the project as much as we do! I would not use anyone else for my creative work and think Alive is ahead of the game.”

Jo Hobbs — Communications Manager

“Thanks for all your help. We are delighted with the campaign, both in terms of the creativity and messaging but also the thought taken over the rollout of the materials. All looks absolutely fabulous!”

Sarah Crowdy — Campaign and Media Officer Communications, South East Water

“We went to ‘Alive’ for ideas on how to run a specific employee program in Europe. Alan and his team were brilliant in coming up with fresh, creative and practical approaches. The team took charge and executed brilliantly. We are pleased with the progress made so far and hope to have the same level of partnership and commitment going forward.”

Sobha Varghese — Tata Consultancy Services

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

“Our mission was to update the DASA brand visuals to better reflect our innovative and forward-thinking organisation. After receiving numerous pitches from different branding agencies, Alive stood out with their clear passion and understanding of our identity and goals. We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Alive Team who provided expert guidance and injected some much needed creativity into the project; resulting in an accessible and engaging new brand that we are immensely proud of.

Thank you again for all the work you have done with us!”

Lianne Springer — Communications and Engagement Lead - Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA)

“Alive wowed us during the pitch process and they didn’t stop wowing us throughout the whole project. Every person we worked with at Alive were so friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they do. They have worked with us to really understand what we do and have created a new brand and website that really stands out from our competitors. Thank you!”

Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

“I think the team have done such a brilliant job, particularly with responding to our requests. It's one of the best mental health videos I've ever seen. Very proud to be associated with your exemplary work. Thank you so much.”

Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

“We have worked with Alan, Caroline and the wider Alive With Ideas team for many years. In that time, they have provided a dedicated service that is second to none. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to bringing our brand, communications and stories to life. And would recommend them to anyone looking for creative communications support.”

Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

“This is brilliant. I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the team who worked on this. You all understood exactly what we wanted to communicate and why, and then managed to do it in a way that was far better than anything I could have imagined. I’m a bit choked up to be honest!”

Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

“Each time I work with the team, I am always stunned at the effort and creativity that goes into each detail and am always eager for the end result. The team is extremely accommodating and always provide a fresh approach to our projects that elevates our communications materials!”

Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

“What I really appreciate about Alive is that they work with us as partners, and care as much about getting it right for our patients as we do.”

Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

“Alive are unique in how much they deeply listen and invest in you and your ideas. I have not come across a company that listens as much as they do to ensure your needs are understood and met (actually - they always exceed my needs and expectations). Everyone I recommend Alive to has an equally brilliant experience. When you work with Alive, you are not only getting some genius creativity brought into your life, you are also hanging out with some of the best examples of human beings I’ve ever known.”

Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

“Alive helped us create a video of our response to the floods of winter 2019. Our Chief Officer received messages from all round the country praising us for it and was really pleased with both the video and the response to it.”

Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Alive were professional, friendly and great to work with. Most importantly they were creative, helping us to bring an extremely important safety campaign to life.”

Jack Grasby — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“This looks amazing - brought a smile to my face scrolling through it :-)”

Jack Ford, Head of Marketing — streamGO

“Our company is fun, we have great brands, but most importantly we’re all about our people – and I wanted an agency who would understand that and help us bring it to life through our website and other comms. Straight away I felt that Alive ‘got’ us and provided the creative inspiration exactly where we needed it, as well as the technical expertise to deliver a well-functioning website.”

Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

“If you are looking to improve creativity and build teamwork, I highly recommend a session like this for your team. No matter where you are in your creativity journey, a workshop like this can give your team a boost of energy and ideas to invigorate their creative thinking.”

Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

“Alive were there to help when we were working every hour to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. They gave us the creativity, ideas and support we needed to deliver campaigns which empowered our residents in the most difficult time most of us have ever seen, personally and professionally. The team understood what we needed, worked closely with us and delivered fast without any compromise on quality. Working with Alive has been a joy in the darkest of times and I have no doubt will have helped to save lives. Thanks team x”

Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

“We got 'Alive' involved to help us shift mindsets across our organisation and they delivered! Using simple, clear and creative ideas the team have delivered us a campaign which has seen a dramatic increase in idea sharing and development. They’ve also played a significant role in creating a culture of shared success. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again, in fact, we already are!”

Gavin Buckle — B&Q
Alive logo