The purpose of an exit interview goes beyond simply understanding why people leave your company. A successful and effective exit interview is one part of an overall listening strategy; using the exit interview in tandem with stay interviews is the ideal approach to help your organization improve overall business results by boosting engagement, creating a more positive workplace, and increasing retention.
In today’s competitive and dynamic business environment, success depends on your organization’s ability to learn, analyze, and adapt using important data. While this data can come from many different sources, exit interviews are key in obtaining some of the most valuable insights into improving business outcomes.
According to Gallup, 91% of employees leave their jobs to find work elsewhere. While an exit interview can’t help you hold on to an employee who has already decided to leave, it can help you understand how to retain your other top employees and improve job satisfaction and performance.
In this article, we’ll discuss more about what exit interviews are and why they are crucial for your business, as well as offer insights into how to conduct successful exit interviews.
What Are Exit Interviews?
The concept of an exit interview is quite simple. They are generally one-on-one interviews or conversations you have with an employee on their way out.
The purpose of an exit interview is to ask questions so you can better understand the employee’s experience and get to the root cause of why they have chosen to leave the company. The information you gather from such interviews can provide valuable insights into how your organization is or is not adequately supporting your staff and what you can do to improve employee satisfaction and experiences.
Why Are Exit Interviews Important?
Exit interviews are important because they can reveal information that you might not otherwise be privy to. Employees currently employed at your company and who want to stay will be less likely to tell you the entire truth about their experience. However, during exit interviews, because the departing employee is no longer invested in their role within the organization, they are more likely to give you honest feedback.
Useful information you can discover from exit interviews can include:
- Poor management practices
- Gaps in employee training
- Issues with company morale or workplace culture
- Unfair practices
- Communication gaps
- Harassment issues
- Insufficient policies
- Issues with workload and time constraints
- Gaps in employee benefits
Because many employees who leave are doing so to work somewhere else, exit interviews can also offer insights into what your competitors are doing differently to attract talent.
The information revealed in exit interviews is important for many reasons. It can help you retain top talent, improve company culture, foster communication and productivity, increase the effectiveness of training programs, and improve company policies.
Who Should Conduct Exit Interviews?
According to Harvard Business Review, it’s best to have someone who is at least one step removed from the employee conducting the interview. If you have a direct manager or supervisor conducting the exit interview, the departing employee is less likely to be honest.
A human resource professional is an excellent choice for conducting the interview, and if possible, a neutral third party is even better.
Tips for Successful Exit Interviews
There is technically no right or wrong way to conduct an exit interview. However, how you conduct the interview, how you prepare, and what questions are asked can play a role in how successful the interview will be. Below are some tips to ensure you are gaining the most helpful insights.
- Create a formal HR policy for your exit interviews so your employees know to expect them when they leave.
- Attempt to conduct exit interviews with as many termed employees as possible, however do not make participation mandatory. There is value in including involuntary terms in the exit interview process, however the questions you ask need to be tailored accordingly. This is when a neutral, third party can come in handy.
- Make sure the departed employee understands what will be done with the data and who will see it.
- Ask open-ended questions that prompt more than a yes or no answer.
- Focus on questions that are directed at making improvements and positive changes.
- Do not ask about specific people or incidents as this can feel like a form of gossip. However, if the employee speaks up about a certain staff member concerning discrimination, sexual harassment, or criminal behavior, be sure to investigate the issue.
- Alongside a practice of conducting exit interviews, it’s important to note that these processes are often most effective when also conducted in combination with stay interviews. Stay interviews are conducted while an employee is still working within the organization to discover what improvements could be made to increase their satisfaction at the company. Conducting stay interviews alongside exit interviews shows that you care about all of your employees, not just the ones who are leaving.
Use Feedback to Improve
Conducting exit interviews is a vital, beneficial practice. However, the work doesn’t end when the interview is complete; it is equally important not to let the feedback “sit on the shelf” without further consideration. Rather, analyze the data and use it to implement changes, if needed. This not only improves the workplace for your employees, but it shows that you take genuine interest in their experience.
Creating Thriving Workplaces Starts with Understanding Your Employees
The best way to create more positive, thriving work environments is to better understand your people — your most valuable assets.
At Combined Resource Solutions, we help organizations gather invaluable insights so they can make data-driven decisions for improved business outcomes. We not only do this through our Exit Interview programs but also through Stay Interviews, Pulse Surveys, Leadership 360s, Training Effectiveness Surveys, and Engagement Surveys.
Our goal is to help you cultivate positive and productive workplaces where employees are more motivated to stay. We offer customization through targeted solutions and continuous support.
If you are struggling to retain your employees, we can help! Contact us today to get started.