By Finn Bartram, Editor of People Managing People
Exit interviews are needed because they offer a deeper look at workplace culture, day-to-day processes, management solutions, and employee morale.
When correctly implemented, exit interviews enable companies to assess the overall employee experience within an organization and recognize opportunities to improve retention and engagement.
If companies are not already completing exit interviews, I have put together key factors employers should consider the value exit interviews can bring to their company and how to implement them.
Staff retention
Replacing employees is a costly endeavor. Studies have suggested each time a business replaces a salaried employee it costs six to nine months’ salary on average, this has cost US businesses more than $1 trillion overall.
The key factors that contribute to the true cost of losing an employee can include recruitment, onboarding, loss of productivity, training, reduced or lost business, administrative duties, and cultural impact.
Holding exit interviews when an employee hands in their resignation, not only does it offer an opportunity for the business to identify the reason they’re leaving, but it can also result in the company creating a more positive work environment and protecting the organization from risk.
However, unless you have a process in place, you may not ever know that reasoning and therefore you’re most likely unable to stop it from happening again.
Not only this, but the importance of an exit interview lies in its ability to help generate positive change. Getting honest, uninhibited insight is the real trick when it comes to collecting feedback.
Employees may be reluctant to upset their manager when giving constructive feedback, that’s why departing staff can be potentially useful.
Exit interviewees are generally more forthcoming because they’re not worried about pleasing anyone in the organization.
Improve culture and performance
When an employee leaves a business, their reason for doing so can vary widely. However, the atmosphere of a workspace can often influence an employee’s mindset and growth.
A recent study showed 74 percent of employees said culture is important to them and almost 60 percent said they would take a job with a competing company if the culture was better.
Providing a positive work environment goes far beyond the actual space and includes corporate culture and leadership too.
That’s why exit interviews are important as they can offer departing employees an opportunity to give an honest opinion on the company and more likely to give a candid assessment of the culture which results in more accurate insights about the organization.
These useful insights can be used to better improve the company’s culture going forward and employee morale, which in turn can reduce employee turnover.
To allow this to happen you must positively approach exit interviews. I would recommend using a neutral representative in an exit interview instead of the soon-to-be-ex employee’s manager as this will enable them to be more honest and forthcoming and it’s always best to keep exit interviews confidential.
When treating departing staff with respect and gratitude during exit interviews, makes existing employees feel positive about their workplace.
Prioritizing issues raised
As mentioned previously, it can be hard to get a true sense of how employees feel about the company culture or their co-workers when they’re employed.
Employees may feel uneasy complaining to managers or senior leaders about their conflicts. So, just because you’re not hearing about it, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not happening.
Exit interviews can highlight a multitude of different issues affecting the company. By these being uncovered, it allows senior leaders to tackle any issues that may need immediate attention reducing the risk of it happening again.
For instance, almost 60 percent of workers who quit in 2021 used ‘feeling disrespected’ as a reason to quit and at least a third used this as a major reason to leave. If this isn’t resolved quickly, it could result in losing more employees.
Improve learning and development strategies
Sometimes employees leave their position because the role isn’t what they envisioned. Aligning expectations is a key aspect of engaging employees.
It’s something that needs to be done right from the recruitment process and reinforced at every performance review.
However, this doesn’t always happen, and you find you keep losing staff to job dissatisfaction despite your best efforts.
If this does keep happening, it might be worth reflecting on how you’re presenting roles in your organization to prospective applicants. This is one of the major benefits of an exit interview, its ability to allow you to step back and look at the bigger picture.
In this way, exit interviews can provide the insight you can use to improve your onboarding process for new staff. It’s important to set realistic expectations of what your would-be employee’s day-to-day experience will be like.
Tips for conducting an effective exit interview
There are a variety of ways to conduct an exit interview. Businesses should be able to provide employees with a few different options to find a method that suits them best. This can be a questionnaire, face-to-face, over the phone or a combination of a couple.
Employers also need to be mindful of who conducts the exit interview. It should be someone from a neutral position concerning the employee, as this can help them be more forthcoming with their reasoning for leaving.
An HR representative can be a neutral option in most cases but if you don’t have an HR department, a manager from a separate department is also a good choice.
When scheduling an exit interview, you should try to conduct the interview as soon as possible after the employee’s hands in their resignation as their reasoning for leaving is fresher in mind.
Preparation is key when conducting an exit interview. Although you don’t want to make the exit interview look scripted, make sure you cover all your basis.
Using an exit interviews question template is a great basis for exit interviews but you will want to tailor these to the specifics of your organization and your employee.
Once the interview’s complete, the qualitative feedback should be recorded and categorized in an organized way. This then allows you to accumulate a valuable amount of data over time which you can use to spot trends of why people are leaving.
And finally, try to keep exit interviews to a maximum of an hour. It should feel like an informal chat and not an interrogation.
