the value of exit interviews

May 10th 2018

You’ve just been handed a resignation letter, and it’s come out of left-field.  You’re a tad puzzled as to why the employee has decided to move on, so why not find out by doing an exit interview!

Exit interviews give you the opportunity to do exactly that.  Conducting an exit interview is one of the most worthwhile exercises you can do to assess employee satisfaction and improve staff retention.

But why do you care what an outgoing employee really thinks?  There are loads of reasons why you should care, including that the employee now has free rein to say what they really think!

It is an opportunity to get the inside scoop on exactly what your employees think of their role, the culture and the working environment.

Through well structured questions, you can delve into the reality versus the expectation of the role, any training gaps that exist, the effectiveness of internal relationships at peer level and with management, and the overall culture of the organisation.

Our top tips are:

1. Wait a week or two post resignation to take the sting out of the moment, and give the employee an opportunity to gain perspective and speak constructively, with less emotion.
2. Engage an external facilitator for the exit interview to reduce the risk of the employee saying what they think you want to hear. The most open, honest and unfiltered feedback is likely to be delivered to a third party, like us!
3. Look for patterns. One isolated comment about being over-worked doesn’t indicate a culture of excessive workloads, however if you see a trend in this being a reason why people are leaving, then it may well be something to look at.
4. Use the information you get. Don’t just file it away to gather dust.  The real value in conducting exit interviews is the change that can be implemented as a result of listening to this feedback.

Tags: exit interviews, hr process

Category: exit interviews