Using Stay Interviews to Boost Employee Retention in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is currently facing a staff shortage crisis, causing employees to burn out and leave their jobs quickly. As an employer, you know that retaining employees is crucial to your organization's success and bottom line.

One way to effectively retain employees is through a stay interview. Stay interviews are a powerful tool that can help you gain insightful information from employees and help you identify potential issues that could impact retention. In this article, we will delve into how stay interviews can benefit healthcare employers and discuss ways to implement them.

What Is a Stay Interview?

A stay interview is a one-on-one meeting that occurs between an employer and their employee. Stay interviews are designed to help employers learn more about their employees' job satisfaction, career goals, and other relevant information.

Stay interviews are an excellent retention tool because they help employers identify potential issues before employees decide to leave their jobs. These interviews can be used to help uncover any areas of concern or any opportunities that could be utilized to boost employee satisfaction and decrease turnover rates.

Using Stay Interviews as an Employee Retention Strategy in Healthcare

Healthcare employers must find ways to retain employees. There is a significant cost associated with employee turnover, including the cost of finding and hiring new employees and training them. As a healthcare employer, you need to implement retention strategies that work.

Some effective employee retention strategies in healthcare include:

1. Create a positive work environment

2. Offer competitive compensation and benefits

3. Provide opportunities for professional development

4. Listen to employees' concerns and address them promptly

All of these can be accomplished through stay interviews. For example, stay interviews give managers and supervisors the insights they need to create a positive work environment. Healthcare is a unique industry in that negative experiences among customers (patients) can be seen as the norm, especially in trauma units. However, stay interviews can help ensure these negative situations do not translate to an overall negative work environment.

Stay interviews also allow managers and supervisors to discuss compensation issues with their staff. Many healthcare providers struggle with staffing shortages due to inadequate wages and benefits packages, but stay interviews can help address this issue by providing a forum for employees to express their concerns.

In addition, stay interviews allow healthcare employers to discuss career development options with employees and identify training opportunities that may help close any potential knowledge gaps. Front-line healthcare workers know what it takes to do their job well, and stay interviews provide the platform for managers to ask meaningful questions about how they can help employees reach their professional goals.

Lastly, stay interviews allow healthcare providers to learn more about their employees’ workplace satisfaction. This allows managers and supervisors to address any issues or complaints in a timely manner, which can help prevent employees from leaving the organization.

Stay Interview Questions

As an employer, asking the right stay interview questions is essential. This will help you uncover key insights into employees' job satisfaction, which can lead to important changes that could impact retention rates.

Some effective stay interview questions that you can use in the healthcare industry include:

1. What factors make you want to stay in your current role within this healthcare organization?
2. What areas of your current job weigh most heavily on you emotionally?
3. What motivates you to provide the best patient care possible?
4. Are there any areas of your team's dynamics that make you more or less likely to stay at this healthcare organization?
5. Are there any educational or professional development opportunities that would be helpful for you to reach your career goals?
6. Do you feel valued and appreciated by your patients? By your supervisor/manager?
7. How well do you think this organization meets your needs for work-life balance?

The most important thing to remember when designing your stay interview questions is that you want to lead the conversation in a positive direction while still addressing the employee's concerns. It can be easy for stay interviews to turn into a venting session, but ultimately the goal is to find out what the deciding factors are for your employees staying or leaving.

By taking the time to conduct stay interviews with your staff, you can gain valuable insights into how to improve employee retention in healthcare. Stay interviews provide the platform for managers and supervisors to better understand their staff's job satisfaction, which can lead to important changes that could impact turnover rates in a positive way. Armed with this knowledge, healthcare employers can create an environment where employees feel valued and appreciated, which can improve employee retention in the long run.

Practical Adjustments to Stay Interviews for Healthcare

The healthcare industry is unique in many ways. To ensure stay interviews are successful, it may be necessary to make some practical adjustments. We will review the top 5 most pressing barriers to conducting stay interviews in healthcare and solutions for each.

Problem: Varying Shift Times

In healthcare, employees and their leadership do not always have overlapping shift times. This can make it difficult to schedule one-on-one meetings.

Solution: Virtual or Asynchronous Feedback

Utilize virtual tools like video conferencing or surveys that employees can complete at their convenience. This can let employees know you still want their input despite not having the opportunity to meet in person.

Problem: Limited Resources

Healthcare providers are often stretched thin when it comes to resources. It can be difficult to allocate time and budget for stay interviews.

Solution: Break Up the Interview

Make sure to use the time you do have for stay interviews efficiently. Be clear about your expectations ahead of time, and come prepared with a list of questions. You may even make them a part of the normal weekly or monthly workflows, asking only a few questions at each touchpoint.

Problem: High Turnover Rate

As mentioned earlier, the healthcare industry has an especially high turnover rate due to staff shortages and job dissatisfaction. This can make it difficult to track employee retention and focus on stay interviews.

Solution: Use Data to Maximize Efficiency

Gather data about turnover rates and use that information to pinpoint areas where stay interviews could be helpful. Focus on the departments with the highest turnover rate first. This can help you identify trends and potential problem areas that need to be addressed quickly.

Problem: Solutions Take Time

Ideally, stay interviews should be done regularly with each employee. However, due to the amount of time it may take for solutions to become apparent, this can be challenging.

Solution: Report on What Has Been Done

Make sure to report back to employees about what has been done with their feedback. Even if the solutions take time, it’s important to let them know that you listened and are taking steps towards improving employee retention in healthcare.

Even in healthcare, stay interviews can be a valuable strategy for improving employee retention. By making adjustments to the traditional stay interview process, healthcare employers can gain insight into their employees’ job satisfaction and create an environment where they feel valued and appreciated.

Solving Staff Shortages in Healthcare: Start With Retention

The stay interview is an important tool for healthcare employers to use when it comes to employee retention. It allows managers and supervisors to get to know their staff on a deeper level and identify areas where they need improvement. By engaging in regular stay interviews, healthcare employers can create a positive work environment, provide competitive compensation and benefits packages, offer development opportunities, and address employee concerns promptly.

Explore our Resource Center for more employee retention tips, ideas, and best practices.