In a modern working environment, there will always be employees who choose to leave, but employers can make this loss productive, improve business strategy and help retain staff in the future by carrying out a thorough exit interview.
What is an Exit Interview?
An exit interview is a formal discussion between a company (or HR consultant) and an employee who has decided they want to leave the business.
At its core, the interview will try to understand why the employee wants to leave, with the objective of collecting information to prevent it from happening again.
Why Exit Interviews are important?
If done well, exit interviews can give you great insights into your business and help with employee engagement and satisfaction. You may find that staff in these interviews are more honest and forthcoming when offering feedback than those who remain under your employment.
If you are experiencing high staff turnover, then something isn’t working properly. Exit interviews are a good way to discover what the problem is and to fix it. It may be too late for employees who are already leaving but it can help you put in place a strategy to reduce your staff turnover and ultimately bring down costs. They can help you repeat good experiences for other employees and help you avoid repeating the bad ones in the future.
It’s vital that you always approach an exit interview in a positive manner. Remember that it’s also a great opportunity to ensure the relationship with your employee is left on a positive note. You never know, they might want to come back one day…
Key Exit Interview Questions to ask
To make the most of your next interview, try out these questions to get a clearer picture of why an employee is leaving:
- Why did you start looking for a new job?
- What circumstances led to you accepting the new position?
- Did you feel that you had the tools to do your job well?
- How would you describe the company culture?
- What could we have done to keep you here?
- Did you discuss your reasons for leaving with anyone at the company prior to resigning, such as your manager?
- How can our company improve training and development programmes?
Overall, it’s important to think of the exit interview process as the employee’s opportunity to provide healthy feedback, based on their personal experience. It should not be influenced by any presumptions you may have.
Before conducting an exit interview, it is best to get the process right. A process template will help you make sure all the correct topics are covered, consistency is always maintained, your conversations remain productive, and everyone is appropriately prepared. Rosa HR can provide a template for this purpose.
It’s always best to conduct an interview face to face. You can ask for written feedback from an employee but they might be a little less frank if you’re asking them to fill in a questionnaire. Schedule any meeting at the very end of your employee’s notice period or contract end, normally just a few days prior to that date. And, where possible, have someone who isn’t your employee’s direct line manager conduct the interview. It’s also good practice to let them know they don’t have to answer all your questions and to ask if they mind any information being shared with other management.
Review Collected Data
Once the interview is complete and you have said goodbye to the departing employee, review your data. See if there are any trends and keep it to compare with any outgoing employees in the future.
It is best not to act upon the feedback of just one employee, unless it is urgent. Keep collecting answers from your exit interviews to build a bigger picture of where you need to improve, then create an action plan to start making changes where needed.
Please get in touch with Carrie if you need help implementing an Exit Strategy or you have any queries on this matter