When a valuable employee resigns unexpectedly, one of the first questions a leaders asks is: Could we have known earlier?
The next question is usually more urgent: Who else might be considering leaving?
A stay interview is one way to understand what employees value about their work, what concerns them, and what might encourage them to remain.
But there is an important distinction between having a conversation about retention and measuring the alignment factors that put retention at risk.
A stay interview helps leaders explore what an employee is willing and able to share. The OpenElevator Stay Survey provides something different: measurable information about how well the working environment meets each individual’s priorities and how naturally specific people work together.
Both approaches have value. But they answer different questions.
For CEOs and senior leaders facing costly employee turnover, understanding that difference can change where they focus their attention, which conversations they prioritize, and what they decide to do next.
What Is a Stay Interview?
A stay interview is a structured, one-to-one conversation between a leader and an employee about their experience at work and what would make them more likely to stay.
Unlike an exit interview, which happens after someone has announced their decision to leave, a stay interview takes place while the employee is still part of the organization.
The purpose of a stay interview is to understand what leaders can do to strengthen employees’ engagement and retention.
Typical questions include:
-
What do you value most about working here?
-
What would make your work more fulfilling?
-
Are there opportunities you would like to pursue?
-
What could we change to improve your experience?
-
What would make you more likely to stay?
These conversations can be valuable.
They create an opportunity to discuss expectations, explore individual concerns, and agree on practical adjustments.
But the information depends on what the employee communicates, how the questions are asked, and how the leader interprets the answers.
A stay interview does not independently measure a particular individual’s intention to stay.
It certainly does not generate comparable Values Alignment and Interpersonal Alignment scores across a team.
That is where the OpenElevator Stay Survey provides additional bias-free information.
Stay Survey vs. Stay Interview: The Essential Differences
Not all stay surveys are designed alike. Some simply collect feedback about why people remain with an employer.
The OpenElevator Stay Survey is a structured assessment with a powerful algorithm built to measure long-term engagement.
Here is how it differs from a conventional stay interview.
| Question | Stay Interview | OpenElevator Stay Survey |
|---|---|---|
| What matters to the employee? | Explores priorities through conversation | Identifies individual work priorities through a structured bias-free assessment |
| Are those priorities being met? | Explores the employee’s description of their experience | Measures Values Alignment delivering metrics that quantify retention risk and guide best practice |
| How well do two people fit together? | May explore their experiences of the relationship | Provides bias-free Interpersonal Alignment scores, that show ease of collaboration in existing and potential working relationships |
| Which team members need attention? | Depends on information gathered and interpreted across conversations | Quantify retention risk and recommend specific data-based action |
| Where should leadership focus first? | Requires interpretation of interview discussions | Provides prioritized findings and practical recommendations based on data |
| What comes next? | Agree actions with the individual | Use measured findings to guide targeted conversations and actions |
The difference is not only that one approach involves listening and the other involves data. The difference is what each can reliably establish.
A conversation can reveal concerns and help leaders agree on solutions, but includes bias from all parties involved.
An alignment assessment can identify measurable differences between individuals and working relationships that conversations cannot quantify.
What Does OpenElevator Actually Measure?
The OpenElevator Stay Survey focuses on two dimensions that are the key to employee retention.
1. Values Alignment: Is the Work Environment Providing What Matters Most to the Individual?
Values Alignment is not about whether employees agree with the company’s mission, corporate values, or business goals.
It measures how well the actual work environment provides what matters most to each individual.
Employees differ in their priorities.
One person may particularly value job security. Another may prioritize opportunities to use their skills. Someone else may place greater importance on advancement, meaningful work, or a good relationship with their manager.
OpenElevator’s methodology draws on four fundamental human needs:
-
Safety and Certainty
-
Contribution and Purpose
-
Growth and Significance
-
Connection and Belonging
The assessment identifies individual priorities and measures how well the working environment meets them.
OpenElevator uses a Values Alignment threshold of 80 based on years of data. Scores below that threshold warrant retention attention.
This provides leaders with something more specific than a general engagement score.
For example, two employees may have similar overall alignment scores but value entirely different aspects of their working environment.
Giving both the same retention incentive would overlook those differences.
2. Interpersonal Alignment: How Well Do Specific People Fit Together?
Interpersonal Alignment measures how naturally two individuals work together.
This is not a rating of whether an employee or manager is good or bad.
It is a measure of the fit between the particular people involved.
An employee may have strong Interpersonal Alignment with one manager but weaker alignment with another.
Both managers may be highly capable. The employee may be an excellent performer.
Yet the relationships can have different compatibility scores.
OpenElevator uses 85 as its preferred Interpersonal Alignment threshold. Scores below that threshold identify working relationships that may require more deliberate management.
By examining manager–employee and colleague relationships, leaders gain a clearer understanding of where collaboration is likely to come naturally and where additional effort may be needed.
The relationship is the unit of analysis, not the perceived shortcomings of either person.
This information can support retention decisions, internal moves, promotions, and hiring decisions involving specific teams.
What Does a Leader Actually Gain? An Example From a Real Team Assessment
The practical value becomes clearer when we examine actual results.
OpenElevator has published an anonymized summary of a real team assessment.
The assessment involved seven employees and their team leader.
The leader wanted to avoid further surprise resignations.
The published summary retains the original assessment scores and findings while using fictional names and removing identifying company information.
Finding 1: Two Employees Had the Same Values Alignment Score
Two employees, Casey and Gray, both received a Values Alignment score of 80.
That is at OpenElevator’s threshold.
Looking only at those scores, a leader might reasonably conclude that both employees deserved similar attention.
But the assessment revealed important differences.
Casey’s individual priorities included:
-
Reasonable job security
-
Opportunities to use skills
-
Advancement opportunities
-
Work/life balance
Gray’s priorities included:
-
A good relationship with the manager
-
Reasonable job security
-
Opportunities to use skills
-
Meaningfulness of work
Both employees required attention, but their priorities were different.
And that was only part of the picture.
Finding 2: Their Working Relationships Were Very Different
The Interpersonal Alignment results added another dimension.
Casey had six of seven working relationships scoring below 85.
This included the relationship with the team leader and most coworkers.
Gray had only two of seven working relationships below 85.
Gray’s compatibility with most colleagues was stronger. The relationship with the team leader was one of the pairings requiring attention.
These results changed how the leader could approach the situation.
Casey’s findings called for broader attention to working relationships alongside individual priorities.
Gray’s findings called for a more concentrated focus on the manager–employee relationship, meaningful contribution, and opportunities to use skills.
One assessment revealed two different situations.
Finding 3: The Recommendations Were Different
For Casey, the recommendations included clarifying business stability and expectations, examining opportunities to use existing skills, discussing realistic advancement, and addressing collaboration across several relationships.
For Gray, the recommendations focused more heavily on the relationship with the leader, making work more meaningful, improving opportunities to use skills, and communicating business context.
This is where the commercial value of the assessment becomes tangible.
The leader was not simply told that employee engagement needed improvement.
The results identified:
-
Who needed attention: Casey and Gray.
-
Where alignment differed: Across individual priorities and specific working relationships.
-
Which issue to address first: Broader relationship difficulties for Casey, with a more focused manager relationship priority for Gray.
-
What to do next: Different conversations and practical adjustments for each employee.
These are recommendations from a real assessment, not claimed outcomes from completed interventions.
The example demonstrates what structured alignment information can give a leader that an aggregate engagement score or an unstructured set of conversations may not provide.
See the actual two-page OpenElevator team assessment summary.
What Did OpenElevator Reveal at UBS?
The same approach has been applied in a larger organization.
Following a restructuring at UBS, a team head inherited a substantially changed team and needed to make important decisions about retention, working relationships, and team stability.
The team consisted of 34 people.
The leader faced an immediate challenge: performance information could show who was delivering results, but it could not establish how well individual needs were being met or how naturally particular people would work together.
OpenElevator’s assessment provided more specific information.
The findings identified:
| Finding | What the assessment revealed |
|---|---|
| Values Alignment | Nine employees showed weaker alignment between what they valued and their work environment |
| Manager–employee fit | Six relationships with the team head fell below OpenElevator’s preferred Interpersonal Alignment threshold |
| Priority retention concerns | Three employees stood out with the strongest combination of alignment and relationship-risk findings |
| Team collaboration | Differences in interpersonal compatibility that could inform working arrangements and internal moves |
These findings gave leadership a basis for decisions that could not be established from performance reports alone.
They also highlighted why the same response would not be appropriate for everyone.
At the team level, recommendations included more consistent management recognition, clearer information about the organizational outlook, and reviewing total compensation.
At the individual level, the appropriate response depended on the person’s particular alignment findings.
For some, development or recognition deserved attention.
For others, the relevant issue involved a particular working relationship.
In certain circumstances, internal moves or additional backup coverage could be more appropriate than an aggressive retention intervention.
The department subsequently stabilized, although that outcome should not be attributed solely to the assessment.
The demonstrated value was earlier visibility into where leadership attention was needed, allowing more deliberate decisions about retention and team stability.
Read the OpenElevator UBS employee retention case study for the full account.
Why Not Simply Conduct Stay Interviews With Everyone?
Stay interviews can be valuable. The issue is not whether leaders should speak with their employees.
They should.
The more useful question is whether conversations alone provide all the information leaders need.
Consider the anonymized assessment described earlier.
A stay interview with Casey might have revealed a desire for greater job security, development opportunities, or better use of existing skills.
A stay interview with Gray might have revealed the importance of meaningful work and the relationship with the manager.
Those conversations could have helped the leader understand each person’s priorities.
But they would not have generated Casey’s seven relationship-specific Interpersonal Alignment scores or established that six were below OpenElevator’s threshold.
Nor would they have established that Gray had stronger measured compatibility across most of the team.
A leader could ask employees about their working relationships. Their answers could provide useful context.
However, subjective descriptions are not equivalent to independently measured compatibility scores.
This distinction becomes particularly important when a leader manages several people or inherits a team they do not yet know well.
The leader needs more than a collection of impressions.
They need a way to identify where alignment warrants attention and which conversations should take priority.
The Stay Survey helps establish where to focus. Stay interviews and one-to-one conversations help leaders explore the findings and agree on action.
The two approaches are complementary, but they are not interchangeable.
How to Use a Stay Survey and Stay Interviews Together
The strongest approach is to use each for the purpose it serves.
First: Measure Alignment
Begin with a structured assessment of the team.
OpenElevator’s Stay Survey establishes individual priorities, Values Alignment scores, and Interpersonal Alignment between relevant people.
These results help identify which individuals and relationships deserve closer consideration.
Leaders do not need to infer risk from employee silence, reduced participation, changes in tone, or other observable behavior.
Those observations cannot reliably establish alignment or resignation intentions.
Second: Review the Results Privately
OpenElevator provides a private leader debrief, connecting the assessment findings with specific recommendations.
The discussion helps the leader understand which concerns appear most important and what practical actions may be appropriate.
For example, two people with the same Values Alignment score may require very different responses because their priorities and working relationships differ.
This is why interpreting the results matters as much as collecting them.
Third: Hold Targeted Conversations
Once leaders understand the findings, they can conduct more purposeful one-to-one conversations.
Rather than asking every employee the same generic retention questions, discussions can focus on the issues relevant to that individual.
For someone who places a high priority on using their skills, an appropriate question might be:
“Where do you feel your skills are being used best, and where are they underused?”
For someone whose results highlight meaningful contribution, the discussion might explore whether the role provides enough opportunity to make the contribution they value.
Where the findings identify weaker Interpersonal Alignment, the conversation can focus on how the two individuals can work together more effectively without blaming either person.
The goal is to translate assessment findings into practical agreements.
OpenElevator’s One-to-One Framework provides a structure for these discussions and subsequent follow-through.
Fourth: Agree on Actions and Follow Through
A retention conversation is only useful if relevant findings lead to consideration of realistic actions.
These might include clarifying expectations, improving opportunities to use skills, addressing an important working relationship, or reconsidering how responsibilities are allocated.
Not every alignment concern can be resolved completely.
But leaders are better equipped to make decisions when they understand what matters to the individual and where a particular working relationship may need support.
Can a Stay Survey Predict Who Will Resign?
No assessment can guarantee that a particular employee will resign or specify exactly when they will leave.
OpenElevator identifies lack of alignment findings which are highly correlated with retention risk. Its purpose is to give leaders earlier visibility into circumstances that may warrant intervention.
A lower score is not proof that someone has decided to leave.
It is information that helps leaders decide where attention may be justified.
Equally, strong performance is not proof that someone will remain.
Employees can continue meeting expectations while experiencing important alignment gaps.
This is precisely why retention cannot be managed through performance reviews or behavioral observation alone.
The value of measurement is not certainty about the future.
It is a better basis for decisions before the future is decided.
What Is Included in the OpenElevator Stay Survey?
The complimentary OpenElevator Stay Survey offers leaders a way to assess one important team without committing to an organization-wide initiative.
It includes:
-
One selected team of up to 10 participants.
-
A five-minute assessment for each person.
-
No team meeting required.
-
Values Alignment and Interpersonal Alignment findings.
-
A private leader debrief with practical recommendations.
Once the participants complete their assessments, OpenElevator reviews the findings with the leader privately.
The discussion focuses on where the team appears stable, which employees or working relationships warrant attention, and which actions deserve consideration.
The leader receives actionable assessment findings rather than simply collecting another set of survey responses.
For an executive who has experienced unexpected resignations, inherited a new team, or needs greater confidence about team stability, this provides a practical starting point.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Stay Survey better than a stay interview?
They serve different purposes. A stay interview explores an employee’s experience through conversation. OpenElevator’s Stay Survey measures Values Alignment and Interpersonal Alignment, providing comparable, relationship-specific information and recommendations. Both can be useful when applied appropriately.
Can a stay interview identify manager–employee fit?
A stay interview can explore how an employee experiences a working relationship, but it does not produce an objective Interpersonal Alignment score. OpenElevator measures compatibility between particular individuals without treating either person as inherently good or bad.
Does the OpenElevator Stay Survey show which employees are at retention risk?
It identifies alignment findings that help leaders determine which employees and working relationships warrant attention. These findings support retention decisions but do not guarantee that an individual will resign.
Does OpenElevator replace conversations with employees?
No. The assessment helps leaders determine where to focus and what to investigate. Targeted conversations and appropriate follow-through remain important for deciding how to address the findings.
Start Your Stay Survey
If you are concerned about costly employee turnover, the most important question is not whether your employees are performing well today.
It is whether you have enough information to understand where retention risk may be forming and what you can do about it.
A stay interview can start an important conversation.
The OpenElevator Stay Survey gives you measured alignment information to help decide which conversations matter most.
Start with one team of up to 10 people. Five minutes per participant, no team meeting required, and a private leader debrief with practical recommendations.
