Build a Stay Interview Form That Turns Answers Into Actions
Build a stay interview form that saves each conversation and tracks every follow-up action until it is done.
Build a stay interview form for my warehouse supervisors to run five-question check-ins with forklift operators and save each interview to a table.
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What the Manager Needs in the Room and After
A stay interview form guides one conversation with one employee, then keeps what the manager promised in view until it is done.
Five questions, same wording every time
The manager asks what keeps someone here, what might make them leave, what they would change, what they want to learn next, and what the manager should do differently.
One theme on the answer about leaving
Tag that answer as pay, schedule, growth, or workload, one theme per interview. Across a quarter, the tags add up to counts HR can read without opening a single record.
Promises saved with an owner and a date
Anything the manager agrees to look into becomes an action before the form is saved. Open actions stay on a list sorted by due date, and closed ones keep the date they closed.
A reminder before each new hire hits day 90
The app emails the manager 7 days before a new hire's 90th day, with the stay interview form linked. Start dates come straight from the staff table, and nobody keeps a calendar.
Records in a database you own
Each interview is a row with the employee, the manager, the date, and the five answers. Connect it to your HR system through its API, or query the table yourself when HR asks.
Code export for an existing HR stack
On paid plans, export the full code to your GitHub repository and run the stay interview app next to your HR tools. Host it where you choose and keep building on it from there.
What Happens After the Meeting
Rotating nights get an owner who follows up
Abeni Cassar supervises the night crew at Dunmarra Logistics and runs each stay interview from a tablet on the dock. Forklift operator Kellan Moss said rotating nights might make him leave. She tagged that answer Schedule and saved an action to ask operations about a fixed day shift, owned by her and due Nov 25.
window.awbMockup = { warehouseShifts: "I supervise the night crew at a distribution warehouse. Build a stay interview form I fill in on a dock tablet with five questions: what keeps you here, what might make you leave, what you would change, what you want to learn next, and what I should do differently. Tag the leaving answer as pay, schedule, growth, or workload, and save any action I promise with an owner and a due date.", newHiresAtDay90: "I run HR at a credit union, and every new teller gets a stay interview on day 90. Build the stay interview form with the same five questions, read each start date from my staff table, and email the branch manager 7 days before day 90 with the form already showing the teller's name, role, and start date.", promisedActions: "I manage HR for a group of hotels. Build a list of every action managers promise in stay interviews, with the employee, the action, the owner, the due date, and a status. When an action is still open after its due date, email me with the owner and the employee named.", districtThemes: "I work in HR for a school district with 9 schools. Build a dashboard over the stay interview forms for support staff that counts the theme on each answer about leaving: pay, growth, schedule, or workload. Show the number of interviews this fall and a bar for each theme." };
On day 83, a reminder reaches the branch manager
Every new teller at Ledgemoor Credit Union gets a stay interview on day 90. The app reads each start date from the staff table and emails the branch manager 7 days ahead. Thea Corlett got hers for Juno Oyelowo on day 83, with the form already showing his name, role, and start date.
Past its due date, an open action reaches HR
Bram Kessel, a general manager at Stellwick Inns, promised front desk agent Lark Kimbrough a seat in a revenue management course by Oct 30. The date passed with the action still open. Any action open after its due date goes by email to Odile Vasko, the HR partner, with the owner and the employee named.
Pay leads every theme at 23 of 64
Okeby Schools ran 64 stay interviews with support staff across 9 schools this fall. Each answer about leaving carries one theme, and the HR dashboard counts them. Pay came first with 23, then growth at 17, schedule at 14, and workload at 10. HR took the pay count to the January budget meeting.
How to Create a Stay Interview Form
Seven steps to create a stay interview form that records each conversation and keeps every promised action moving until it closes.
Have the employee's direct manager hold the conversation one on one, since that manager is the person who can act on the answers. Book it on its own date. SHRM advises that stay interviews should not be add-ons to performance-appraisal meetings.
Write the five questions once and read them the same way in every interview. Fixed wording lets answers from the night crew and the front office sit side by side. Keep each question open, and leave rating scales for a separate survey.
Pick four themes for the answer about leaving: pay, schedule, growth, and workload. Keep the list short enough to tag during the meeting. Add a fifth theme only after a quarter of answers that fit none of the four.
Anything the manager offers to look into gets an owner and a due date before the form is saved. Keep each action small enough to close within a month, such as asking about a shift change or booking a course.
Put the questions and themes into one prompt, along with the action fields. Emergent builds the stay interview form and the database behind it, plus the action list managers work from. Change a question later by asking in plain English.
Ask for a heads-up email 7 days ahead of every new hire's day 90 interview, and a yearly reminder for everyone else. Then add the rule that sends any action still open after its due date to the HR partner.
Interview a colleague with the form before managers start, tag the answer about leaving, and save one action due the next day. Check that it shows on the action list, then let it go overdue and confirm the HR email arrives.
Why Build Stay Interview Forms With Emergent?
A notes document holds what an employee said. It cannot chase the course a manager promised, or count how many people named pay.
|
Jotform | Google Forms | Typeform | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How you build | Describe it in plain English | Templates, editor, AI generator | Editor, with Gemini drafting on some Workspace plans | Templates, editor, AI assist |
| Where responses live | A database table you own, plus any integration | Jotform account | Google Sheets | Typeform account |
| Response limits | No response caps | Monthly submission caps by plan; the form stops at the cap | No limit | Monthly response caps by plan; the form closes at the cap |
| Code ownership | Full code export to GitHub on paid plans | None | None | None |
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