A team leader in a Cairo bank resigns after four years. HR books a twenty-minute exit interview for her last afternoon. She says the offer was better, thanks everyone and leaves. Six months later two of her strongest colleagues follow, and their forms say the same thing: a better opportunity.
The exit interview did its job. It just did it too late, and it asked someone to be honest at the moment she had the least reason to be.
The short answer: a stay interview is a short one-to-one conversation in which a manager asks a current employee why they stay and what might make them leave. An exit interview asks someone already leaving why they are going. Good stay interview questions ask what people look forward to, what they are learning, why they stay and when they last thought about leaving. Good exit interview questions cover the trigger, the manager, growth, pay and what would have changed the decision. Stay interviews let you act in time. Exit interviews show patterns.
Stay interviews vs exit interviews: the difference
| Stay interview | Exit interview | |
|---|---|---|
| Who you ask | Current employees, especially those you cannot afford to lose | People who have resigned or already left |
| Who runs it | The direct manager | Not the direct manager: a more senior manager, HR or a third party |
| When | At 30, 60 and 90 days for new joiners, then at least once a year | Before the last day, or a few weeks after leaving |
| What you get | Individual risks you can still fix | Patterns across many leavers |
| Main weakness | Depends on trust in that manager | Too late for the person, and leavers soften what they say |
The timing comes from the Work Institute's 2025 Retention Report, which also shows why the two belong together: when stay interviews say people want career growth and exit interviews say lack of progression is why they left, you know where to act first.
The obvious answer, and why to test it
The obvious answer is that exit interviews tell you why people leave, so they are enough. Test that.
Many companies run them, few use them. Everett Spain and Boris Groysberg surveyed executives for Harvard Business Review (2016). Dawn's summary reports more than 200 executives in 35 countries: about 75% said their companies conduct exit interviews, about 71% said HR handles them and about 19% said supervisors do. Asked to name a specific change that came from exit interview feedback, fewer than a third could.
Leaders do not trust what they hear. In the Work Institute's survey of 88 HR and operational leaders (December 2024 to January 2025), only 8% strongly agreed that their exit interviews reveal the true reasons employees quit, and only 6% said they always conduct them. Candour has been a research question for decades: Giacalone, Knouse and Montagliani (1997) studied what motivates and what prevents honest answers from people who are leaving.
There is no trial evidence that they reduce turnover. A Cochrane systematic review by Webster and Flint (2014) searched for controlled studies of exit interviews in healthcare and found none that met its criteria. It concluded that there was no evidence yet that exit interviews reduce turnover, although they may give useful information about the work environment.
The conversation came too late. Gallup, writing about US employers in 2019, reported that 52% of voluntarily exiting employees say their manager or organisation could have done something to prevent them from leaving. And 51% said that in the three months before they left, neither their manager nor any other leader spoke with them about their job satisfaction or future with the organisation.
That is the case for stay interviews. We found no controlled study of them either; the evidence is from practitioners. But a question asked while someone is still deciding can change the outcome. On their last day it cannot.
Who should run each one
Stay interviews: the direct manager. Richard Finnegan, whose method SHRM publishes, describes a stay interview as a structured discussion a leader conducts with one employee. HR should run them only in exceptional cases, he argues, because the best results come when leaders hear directly how their people want to be managed. His rules: one-to-one, never in a group; in person where possible; about 20 minutes; never attached to a performance appraisal; and cascaded from the top, so the most senior leader interviews their own team first.
Exit interviews: anyone but the direct manager. Spain and Groysberg recommend that second- or third-line managers conduct exit interviews, mixing structured questions, which show trends, with open ones, which surface the unexpected. The Work Institute goes further out of the line: over 90% of the exit data in its 2025 report was collected after people had left, by the institute as a third party.
When hierarchy makes candour harder
Where hierarchy is steep, telling your manager you have thought about leaving can feel risky, and telling them they are part of the problem can feel impossible. We know of no published data on candour in stay or exit interviews in Egypt, Saudi Arabia or the UAE, so treat this as a design risk, not a statistic. Our article on why employees leave in MENA covers the wider picture.
- Ask about the future, not the manager's faults. "What would make your job better?" is easier to answer than "What am I doing wrong?"
- Give people a second channel. An anonymous pulse survey or a neutrally run focus group carries what people will not say face to face.
- Take the exit interview out of the line. Use a skip-level manager, HR or a third party, plus a short form a few weeks after the last day, when the reference is safe.
10 stay interview questions
Questions 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9 are Finnegan's five, as SHRM publishes them. Listen far more than you talk, and follow up with "Give me an example" or "Tell me more".
| # | Question | What the answer tells you |
|---|---|---|
| What keeps them here | ||
| 1 | What do you look forward to each day when you commute to work? | What gives the job energy, so you protect it |
| 2 | Why do you stay here? | The real retention reasons |
| 3 | What are you learning here, and what do you want to learn? | Whether growth is happening or stalled |
| The work and the manager | ||
| 4 | What part of your work would you happily give away? | Tasks that drain people |
| 5 | What can I do to make your job better for you? | One concrete action for you |
| 6 | How do you prefer to get feedback and recognition from me? | How to manage this person |
| 7 | What gets in the way of doing your best work? | Process, tools or decisions that slow people down |
| Risk | ||
| 8 | Where do you see yourself in two years, and can that happen here? | Whether their career plan fits inside the company |
| 9 | When did you last think about leaving, and what prompted it? | The live trigger, if there is one |
| 10 | If a recruiter called tomorrow, what would make you listen? | What a competitor could offer that you do not |
Do not argue with any answer. Write down the exact words and agree one or two actions.
12 exit interview questions
Use these in a conversation with a neutral interviewer, or as an exit interview form sent after the last day. Ask the same questions every time, so answers compare across leavers.
| # | Question | What the answer tells you |
|---|---|---|
| The decision | ||
| 1 | When did you first start thinking about leaving? | How long the problem ran unnoticed |
| 2 | What was the main reason you decided to leave? | The stated reason, to test against the rest |
| 3 | Was there a moment that made up your mind? | The trigger, often not the main reason |
| The work and growth | ||
| 4 | Was the job what you were told when you joined? | Gaps between promise and reality |
| 5 | Did you see a next step for yourself here? | Career visibility; career development was the top reason in the Work Institute's 2024 US exit data, at 18.9% |
| 6 | Did you have what you needed to do the job well? | Tools, workload, staffing |
| The manager and team | ||
| 7 | How would you describe your manager's support? | Manager quality, read across many leavers |
| 8 | Did you feel your work was noticed and valued? | Recognition gaps |
| 9 | Could you raise problems before you resigned? | Whether a safe channel existed |
| The offer | ||
| 10 | What does your new role offer that we did not? | What really pulled them |
| 11 | Was pay a reason, and if so, the main one? | Pay versus the polite "better offer" |
| Looking back | ||
| 12 | What could we have done to make you stay? | The fix, in the leaver's words |
Between interview rounds, run an anonymous survey: our employee survey templates include manager feedback and work environment questionnaires in English and Arabic.
Turning answers into action, and protecting confidentiality
A question nobody acts on teaches people that honesty is wasted.
- Write a stay plan within a week. One or two actions per person, agreed with them, with a date.
- Log themes, not names. HR keeps stay and exit themes in one place: career, manager, workload, pay, recognition.
- Report by team, above a minimum size. Never report a group so small that one person can be recognised. In small units, wait for several leavers before naming a pattern.
- Compare stay and exit themes. A theme in both is your most urgent risk.
- Tell people what changed. "You told us X, we did Y."
Set the confidentiality rules before the first conversation and say them out loud. Who sees the notes? For stay interviews, you and HR; for exit interviews, HR or the third party, with leadership seeing only themes. Quote exact words only when the speaker cannot be identified. And keep stay interviews out of appraisals: once an answer is used against someone in a rating, the next interview will be empty.
Your next step
This week, book a 20-minute stay interview with the person in your team you would least like to lose. Ask questions 2, 5 and 9 above, write down their exact words, and agree one action before you leave the room.
Frequently asked questions
What are good stay interview questions?
Ask what the employee looks forward to, why they stay, what they are learning, what would make their job better and when they last thought about leaving. These are Richard Finnegan's five, published by SHRM. Add career plans and what a competitor could offer.
What is the difference between stay interviews and exit interviews?
A stay interview is held with a current employee, usually by their direct manager, to fix risks before the person decides to leave. An exit interview is held with someone leaving, ideally not by their manager, to find patterns across leavers. Stay interviews prevent; exit interviews diagnose.
What questions are asked in an exit interview, and how should I answer them?
Common questions ask when you started thinking about leaving, the main reason, your manager's support, whether you saw a career path and what would have made you stay. If you are leaving, be specific and factual, describe patterns rather than people, and say only what you are comfortable having recorded.
Is there a stay interview or exit interview template?
Yes. The 10 stay and 12 exit interview questions above work as a template, and the exit set works as an exit interview form. Ask the same questions every time so answers compare.
Who should conduct an exit interview?
Not the leaver's direct manager, who may be part of the reason. Spain and Groysberg recommend second- or third-line managers. HR or an independent third party also works, and a short form a few weeks after the last day often gets franker answers.
Sources
- Spain, E. and Groysberg, B. (2016), "Making exit interviews count", Harvard Business Review, April 2016. hbr.org
- Dawn (2016), "Exit interviews lead to few changes", Dawn, 13 June 2016 (summary of the HBR survey). dawn.com
- Work Institute (2025), "2025 Retention Report: employee retention truths in today's workplace", Work Institute (US exit interviews; survey of 88 leaders). info.workinstitute.com
- McFeely, S. and Wigert, B. (2019), "This fixable problem costs U.S. businesses $1 trillion", Gallup, 13 March 2019. gallup.com
- Webster, J. and Flint, A. (2014), "Exit interviews to reduce turnover amongst healthcare professionals", Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2014(8), CD006620. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Giacalone, R. A., Knouse, S. B. and Montagliani, A. (1997), "Motivation for and prevention of honest responding in exit interviews and surveys", The Journal of Psychology 131(4), 438-448. doi.org/10.1080/00223989709603531
- Finnegan, R. P. (2023), "How to conduct stay interviews: core features and advantages", SHRM, 15 November 2023. shrm.org
- Finnegan, R. P. (2023), "How to conduct stay interviews: 5 key questions", SHRM, 15 November 2023 (excerpt from The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention, 2nd ed., 2018). shrm.org
Know someone who should read this?
Share it on LinkedIn with a post that is already written. You can change it before you publish.
Follow GoldinKollar on LinkedIn