Tis the season for thankfulness. Let’s show our employees and favorite non-profit organizations our gratitude. How can you show your employees appreciation and retain them in return? Research shows that companies should perform self-reflection and attend to employee retention with as much energy as typically used for recruitment and hiring. Retaining current employees through engagement and internal promotions is better and cheaper than hiring new employees. An average turnover costs about 20% of an employee’s salary for non-senior positions and costs up to 213% to fill highly specialized, senior level positions. Therefore, to continuously rehire due to high levels of unexpected turnover means great financial burden on the company.

It is no surprise why employees are leaving: the annual salary increase for the average employee being about 1%, incentive programs lacking, and companies not pivoting to support the growing number of remote employees. Explore the worth of retention initiatives.

Show employees your appreciation by listening to how they feel their job is going; don’t wait until it is too late during an exit interview. “Stay interviews” are a proactive, informal tool to gain employees’ unique perceptions of their work environment, giving you a chance to retain them. Their answers will show if they are looking for career growth or happy with what they’re doing. Use their responses to make appropriate changes to encourage them to remain with your organization. While you might not always like their responses, their feedback will ultimately save your organization money, power, and time. Feel free to modify these “stay” interview questions to best fit your specific organization and specific employees.