It is well known that many companies are challenged in their diversity recruiting efforts, but it can be even more challenging for companies to retain their valued diversity employees. As we slide further towards what seems to be an inevitable recession, more companies may have to cut back on benefits and perks, many of which are used as incentives to attract and retain diversity employees.

With shrinking budgets, human resources professionals are going to have to find new ways to retain diversity employees. Enter the retention interview, a new tool that is being used by human resources professionals to find out how diversity employees feel about where they are going in the company and to identify any warning signs that they might want to jump ship and move on to the next best thing.

Retention interviews are essential to maintaining a company’s long term diversity strategy and must be part of an ongoing dialogue between a diversity employee and his or her manager to be truly effective in the long term. Retention interviews are similar to exit interviews in that their purpose is to gather data for improving working conditions and retaining diversity employees, but they occur in the course of employment of a diversity employee rather than at the end.

The main challenge of the retention interview is to encourage the diversity employee to be candid about his experience at the company and in his suggestions as to how the company can improve. While exit interviewees typically are more candid because they have nothing to lose (they’re out the door anyway), diversity employees may feel that if they are 100 percent candid in a retention interview, it might adversely affect their position and future opportunities with a company.

The good thing is that a substantial amount of retention interview response anxiety that a diversity employee might have can be mitigated by developing a successful and ongoing dialogue with all employees, not just diversity employees. An ongoing dialogue with employees will help employers retain their valued diversity employees while at the same time building honest relationships where candid feelings on diversity issues can be shared.

Employers should strive to establish a successful ongoing dialogue with diversity employees by building a workplace culture is supportive of diversity. Many employers wonder why diversity employees leave them, especially when they consider that they have expended great effort and capital to create a diverse workforce.

One reason is because many employers don’t evaluate whether their work environment is welcoming to individuals of diverse backgrounds and cultures. In order to create a truly diverse workforce, diversity employees must feel that they are included despite having different cultural backgrounds and communication styles.

Inclusion is a key factor in retaining diversity employees, because if they don’t feel included, they will quickly leave for somewhere else where they do. Retention interviews should be used to find out the perceived level of inclusion felt by diversity employees, and that information should be used to make the necessary adjustments to create a greater feeling of inclusion in the workplace.

Immediate supervisors of diversity employees must be educated and equipped with effective employee retention skills and strategies, because most employees tend to leave individual supervisors rather than companies. A manager who helps all of his employees achieve success and consistently clears up problems for workers will likely have little or no retention problems, create a troupe of loyal employees, and receive nothing but positive feedback from diversity employees in retention interviews.

As managers schedule and perform retention interviews with their diversity employees, they need to notice particular trends that are revealed through these interviews. Diversity employees may reveal problems with a specific work situation or supervisor through the retention interview, and managers must take immediate action to rectify the situation. They should also follow up at a later date to find out from the diversity employees whether or not the situation has been resolved.

Most importantly, retention interviews need to be less like an interview and more like a two way conversation. Diversity employees must feel comfortable with the retention interviewer and feel like what they tell the interviewer may actually lead to a change for the better. They also should feel that the retention interviewer is a listening ear who will do his best to make their experience better for diversity employees at their company. After all, if any employee does not feel good about his employer, it is only a matter of time before he jumps ship.

Retention interviews can be a creative tool that employers can not only to retain diversity employees, but also to find the right ways to create a more inclusive atmosphere in the workplace.