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Work Institute researcher conducting a structured telephone interview with an employee

Employees will tell the truth. They just won't tell you.

Hear why people join, stay, and leave. Independent interviews across the employee lifecycle give you honest feedback, with reasons coded and ranked so you know where to act.

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It is hard to act on a rating. You can act on a reason. The only way to get to the reason is to ask why and to be someone the employee is willing to tell.

What this is

Research conducted by people, at every point where an employee decides something.

Voice-of-Employee Research is how Work Institute listens. Trained, independent interviewers talk with the people closest to the experience: candidates who turned you down, new hires in their first months, employees you cannot afford to lose, and the people who have already resigned. Interviews are conducted by phone, online, or in person, and the interviewee leads the conversation.

Every response is classified into a research-grade taxonomy of reasons (ten categories, each with its own sub-themes) so what people say can be counted, compared, and ranked. The result is not a score. It is a clear picture of what is happening in your workforce, why, and where the leverage is.

Who it's for

HR and people leaders who already run exit surveys and want a better signal; executives who need an objective read on why turnover or disengagement is happening; and organizations evaluating a research partner that does more than collect data.

  • Nearly 1M employee interviews conducted since 2000
  • Three ways to participate: phone, online, or face to face
  • 10 categories of reasons, each with coded sub-themes
  • Independent third party, so people say what they won't say internally
The research

One method. Six points in the employee lifecycle.

The interview does not change much from study to study. The population does. Each one answers a different question leadership is asking.

Exit Interviews

Why are people leaving — really?

Independent, structured interviews with employees after they resign, when they are free to be candid. Our flagship research since 2000, and the reason organizations first find us.

  • Conducted after departure, by phone, online, or in person
  • Every reason coded to the ten-category taxonomy
  • Reported by manager, location, role, and tenure
Talk with an expertGet the exit interview guide

Stay Interviews

What would make our best people stay?

Structured conversations with current employees (especially the ones you cannot afford to lose) about what is keeping them, what is wearing on them, and what would change their mind.

  • Third party, so answers are not filtered for the manager
  • Measures intent to stay alongside the reasons
  • Used to act before a resignation, not after
Talk with an expertGet the stay interview guide

Onboarding Studies

Where does the first year break?

Feedback from new hires at the moments that decide whether they stay (after orientation, at 30 days, at 90 days) so the onboarding process can be fixed while the cohort is still here.

  • Timed to your onboarding milestones
  • Open-ended follow-up on every rating
  • Pairs with first-year exit interviews
Talk with an expertGet the onboarding studies guide

Candidate Experience Research

Why did they turn us down?

Interviews with candidates who declined your offer or dropped out of the process. The front end of the lifecycle, and the earliest point at which turnover can be prevented.

  • Interviews, not a post-application survey
  • Reveals how the process and the offer are perceived
  • Improves acceptance rates and hiring quality
Talk with an expertRead: Why first-year attrition starts pre-hire

Employee Engagement Studies

What conditions are we creating?

A workforce-wide study of the four conditions that drive engagement (organization, manager, team, and job) with the why behind every rating. Engagement is a choice; this shows what makes people choose it.

  • Mixed-method: ratings plus reasons
  • Baseline, then tracked over time
  • Feeds directly into action planning
Talk with an expertGet the employee engagement guide

Pulse Check-ins

Did the change we made actually work?

Short, focused check-ins between larger studies (after a leadership change, a restructuring, or an action plan) to confirm what moved. Fewer questions, faster turnaround, same rigor.

  • Targeted to one population or one change
  • Run on a cadence that fits the question
  • Keeps the trend line honest
Talk with an expertGet the pulse survey guide

Most organizations begin with one study (usually exit interviews) and add stay or onboarding research once the first causes are on the table.

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Depth of approach

Not all listening is equal. The depth you choose sets the depth of what you can act on.

We meet organizations where they are. But better method produces better insight, and better insight produces better action and it is worth knowing where the next step pays off.

  1. Survey feedback

    Quantitative ratings, delivered fast and broadly. Useful for spotting a trend. Limited for understanding why the trend exists.

    A score, and a direction

  2. Structured interviews

    Human-led conversations with a consistent protocol. Every rating is followed by a why, and every why is coded so it can be counted.

    Reasons, ranked by how often they appear

  3. Research-led analysis

    Patterns across cohorts, tenure, and time, read against what nearly a million interviews have taught us about why people stay and leave.

    Where the leverage is, and for whom

  4. Insight plus action

    Findings connected to action planning, leadership development, and accountability, so the data changes what leaders do next.

    A measurable change in the trend line

Which depth fits depends on the question you are trying to answer and how much is riding on it. We will tell you plainly where we think you should start.

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How it works

From the first conversation to the first finding.

  1. Scope

    Agree on the question and the population.

    Which employees, which moments, which method. We design the interview instrument around what you need to decide, not around a template.

  2. Interview

    Our researchers do the listening.

    Trained, independent interviewers conduct the conversations by phone, online, or in person. The interviewee leads. Nothing is filtered through HR or the manager.

  3. Analyze

    Reasons are coded, counted, and compared.

    Responses are classified into the taxonomy, broken out by manager, location, role, and tenure, and read against our research on why people stay and leave.

  4. Partner

    We walk leadership through what it means.

    A findings briefing with the patterns that matter, the two or three causes worth fixing first, and a path into action planning if you want the help.

Every study is scoped to your question. There is no proposal at the end of the first call unless you ask for one.
Why Work Institute

What is different when the research firm is also the advisor.

Plenty of vendors can collect exit data. The difference is what happens to it.

  • Researchers, not survey software

    A trained interviewer asks the follow-up question. Coding is human-led. What you receive is themes leadership can act on, not a spreadsheet of free text.

  • Independent, so people are candid

    Employees protect references and spare their managers. With a third party, the reasons change — internal and external interviews disagree about why people left far more often than leaders expect.

  • Read against nearly a million interviews

    Twenty-five years of coded interviews tell us what is ordinary, what is unusual, and what tends to move. Only a small fraction of organizations share the same top reasons for leaving, so we never assume yours.

  • We help you resolve, not just diagnose

    Findings hand off to action planning, leadership development, and workforce strategy inside the same firm. No 'here is the data, good luck.'

Listening is the first of three steps. The other two are what make it worth doing.

See the full approach 
Your questions, answered

What leaders ask before they bring in a research partner.

“We already run exit surveys.”

Keep them. A survey collects ratings; an interview surfaces reasons. Bring us last quarter's report and we will show you, in one conversation, what it is not telling you.

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“Can't software or AI do this now?”

Software is good at analysis. It is poor at the front end (earning a candid answer from a person) and the back end: deciding what the pattern means for your organization and what to do about it. That is where we spend our time.

How we listen
“Is it worth the investment?”

Three in four departures are preventable when the causes are known early. Retain a handful of the people you would otherwise have replaced and the research has paid for itself. Run your own numbers first if you like.

Run the Cost of Turnover numbers
Proof, adjacent to the claim

Organizations that listened, then acted.

View all case studies 
Health system
−34%
first-year nursing turnover

Exit interviews with first-year leavers traced the problem to onboarding and unit leadership. The system rebuilt orientation and realigned supervision and turnover fell across departments.

Read the case study 
Children's hospital
4,000+
exit interviews, five units turned around

Interviews with high-performing nurses who had left produced unit-level action plans. Critical-role turnover fell by as much as a third, and the reasons people gave for leaving shifted away from supervisors.

Read the case study 
Regional healthcare
−32%
turnover, roughly $940K a year recovered

Telephone exit interviews plus quarterly interviews with current and new employees identified four fixable areas: communication, benefits, pay structure, and onboarding. Each was addressed, and turnover followed.

Read the case study 

We are the mechanism that gives employees a voice. The organization's job is to be worth telling the truth to.

The Work Institute belief
The next step

Tell us who you need to hear from. We'll tell you how we'd ask.

One conversation with a retention expert, not a salesperson. Bring the question you are trying to answer and, if you have it, whatever your current exit or survey process is producing. You will leave knowing which research fits, what it would show you, and what we have seen in organizations like yours.

  • Scoped to your question Exit, stay, onboarding, candidate, or engagement — we will say which, and why.
  • An expert, not a rep You will talk with the people who run the interviews and read the data.
  • No proposal unless you ask for one If a study makes sense, we will say so. If it does not, we will say that too.

Talk with a retention expert

We reply within one business day. No automated sequence.

We don't sell or share your information, and you won't be added to a drip campaign.