When employees leave (‘exit’) and terminate their employment with a company, it’s important that employers view these times as opportunities to get feedback. In fact, I believe that employee exit interviews should be used as a tool to improve a business’s human capital strategy.
And many companies do not take advantage of these exit interviewing opportunities. Unfortunately, they are cheating themselves out of gaining valuable information.
When companies conduct exit interviews, they can acquire significant information that can affect their business and they can do so inexpensively. For instance, after gaining exit interview feedback, a business can identify factors that influenced employees to voluntarily leave.
If your company holds an inferior position to your competitors in terms of salary and benefits, you may need to know that. If employees are leaving because of supervisory or company cultural reasons, you will want to learn more about that. And, likewise, you will want to know what employees found to be of value while working for your organization.
The following sample questions are ones that most businesses can use in their exit interview with a soon-to-be former employee:
- Did you feel prepared for this position?
- Was on the on-boarding a smooth process?
- Was the training adequate?
- Did you find the ramp-up time as acceptable?
- Did the company communicate effectively?
- Do you have any complaints or suggestions for improvements?
In fact, answers to question number six above may be the single most important piece of information that you can gather.
This next point is very important. Does the employee seem angry or frustrated?
A business can gain a distinct advantage should it learn of any potential legal problems looming over the horizon. For instance, could an employee be planning a discrimination charge or a lawsuit?
So exit interviews are a way not only for you to probe further regarding some of these issues. But also if the employee is leaving in an unhappy state-of-mind, then an exit interview allows them an opportunity to vent frustrations, and perhaps even to diffuse the anger.
Exit interviews also allow you an opportunity to document the employee’s reason for leaving your company. This way, too, you can review these statements in the future, if there are any discrepancies regarding the separation.
When companies implement exit interview programs, there are a variety of formats that companies use such as:
- Conduct a formal face-to-face interview, which a designated company representative uses a structured interview type of questionnaire.
- Sit down and have a casual conversation.
- Send a post-employment written questionnaire.
There are pros and cons for each type of format, but there are also some general mistakes that can be made regardless of how the process is handled. Among them:
- Relying too heavily on the data gathered from exit interviews; remember it’s only one source of information. Instead, companies should also look to employee focus groups, annual surveys and other similar analytical tools in order to evaluate a variety of employee concerns.
- Addressing the task with a closed approach. Instead, keep an open mind and use an open approach. The interviewer needs to be able to drill down on any comments that are unclear.
- Designating an inappropriate person to conduct the interview. The interviewer should be one who has developed a level of trust with the employee. It does not have to be the employee’s manager; it could be a neutral manager, or even an outside or outsourced vendor. Regardless of who is doing the interview, you want the employee to feel comfortable in providing both positive and negative comments. You do not want them or current employees to think that their feedback could create future repercussions or some form of retaliation.
- Violating a confidence. Companies must maintain confidentiality with this kind of information. Employees need to be secure in knowing that information they pass along will not be compromised.
All in all, you want to create an environment of openness, and employees should know that what they say will not be used against them in some way. And you should avoid placing too much weight on any one individual response. Employee responses should be put into perspective and evaluated with other information gained through other tools, as specified in the first bullet above.
Finally, remember to store exit interview information in a separate file; this information should not be filed with the employee’s personnel file.