Employee-Rated Employer of Choice Program > Tools & Resources > STAY Questionnaire

STAY Questionnaire

Is your company doing a good job retaining employees?

1. Strategic Leadership

   Sometimes a company has such a compelling and inspiring vision that people want to stay to see it fulfilled and make a contribution to it. Again, you can ask current employees what they think the company mission, vision, core values, strategic priorities are. If they don’t know, then chances are their involvement is minimal in the strategic planning of your company objectives.

2. Frontline Management

   The single most important factor of employee satisfaction according to recent research on work-life balance is the behaviour and attitude of the person to whom the employee reports. It appears that otherwise outstanding workplaces can be considered negative by the persons whose immediate supervisor is seen as unsatisfactory. Also, outstanding supervisors can make an otherwise unattractive workplace appear positive.

3. Workplace Culture

   The “look and feel” of a work environment alludes to workplace culture and has more to do with a sense of fitting in and feeling comfortable than anything else.  If an employee does not feel like he/she is fitting in, it’s likely that employee will not stay on.

4. Workplace Balance

   People leave organizations for many reasons. One that is becoming more noticeable is the failure to balance work with the rest of one’s life. The average number of hours devoted to work has been growing rather than diminishing. Stress levels are rising.  Not paying attention to these employee symptoms could lead to employee fallout.

5. Compensation and Benefits

   What is the level of pay in the company? Is it below, equal to or above that of competitors? All other things being equal, people will leave for more money. What about benefits? How do they stack up?  As a first step, be aware of what your competitors are paying and make the necessary adjustments.

6. Job/Work Design & Structure Job

   structure influences job satisfaction. The more that a job offers the following characteristics, the more motivating it is...
   • Skill Variety: Jobs that demand many skills are more interesting than those that demand few skills.
   • Task Significance: People seek meaning in their lives and their work. We want to know ‘why’ we do what we do and we want the answer to be meaningful.
   • Whole Job: People want to do the full cycle from beginning to end. Jobs that are broken up into mini-tasks that are each assigned to a different person may be easier to control but they are boring.
   • Empowerment: The more people get to decide how they do their work the more empowered they feel. If they have to run to a supervisor to get help with every situation that doesn’t fit the norm, they will feel less empowered.
   • Direct Feedback from the Work Itself: People need to know how they are performing relative to expectations, standards, goals, averages, and objectives, among other forms of measurement.

7. Learning and Development

   Companies that invest in training and development activities are more likely to report increased profits and shareholder value than companies that do not (American Management Association 2001 Staffing Survey). The opportunity to learn, grow and develop on the job and throughout a career is important to many employees. Companies that are most successful have employee learning embedded in the organization’s culture and operations. Here’s how they do it:
   • They develop and promote internal career paths for employees and identify the training and skill development required to move up in the company. 
   • They make supervisors’ coaching and mentoring a priority and part of the supervisors’ job requirement. 
   • They support informal learning in the workplace. 
   • They provide tuition support for employees.

8. Workplace Diversity

   Look at the diversity in the community where you have your company.  Your workforce should mirror what is out in your community.

Once you have completed the diagnosis of your company’s capacity to get people to stay, go to Step 4 Summarize, Plan and Monitor and enter your conclusions in the Implementation Planning Worksheet.