Whether you call it the Great Resignation or the Great Reshuffle, companies are scrambling for solutions to stop the exodus of top talent in search of better opportunities. The answers they’re seeking may be just an exit interview away.
Exit interviews aren’t new and they aren’t uncommon. In fact, one estimate says 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies do them. But holding exit interviews and conducting them effectively are two different things.
“Managers frequently steer the exit interview away from the truth of the matter,” says Mark Logan, a business startup and scale-up adviser, “to avoid having to face or record a negative reason for the employee’s departure that could impact upon the manager’s ego or reputation.”
Yet a well-conducted exit interview gets to the heart of why an employee is leaving even if the reason is uncomfortable to hear. It also provides insight that can stop the next employee — and the one after that — from departing, potentially saving your company hundreds of thousands of dollars, with the cost of replacing an employee ranging from 50% to 200% of their salary. Insights into the company’s culture can also help you make changes that increase employee engagement and improve the overall experience of your talent.
Exit interviews can also aid your recruitment efforts. They can show departing employees that you care about their well-being, turning them into cheerleaders for your organization who are willing to sing your praises to potential candidates in their networks.
The key to productive exit interviews is creating a process that elicits the information you’re looking for, encourages employee participation, and reassures employees that their honesty is appreciated and will be acted upon. Then it’s up to your organization to leverage the insights you get. These best practices can help you achieve those goals.
1. Come up with questions that draw out the most valuable responses
The feedback you receive is only as good as the questions you ask. In the report, “Why Understanding the Exit Experience Matters,” Glint suggests that exit interview questions encompass topics such as the employee’s reasons for leaving, their level of engagement, and their willingness to recommend the organization to other employees.
You might also ask how their colleagues feel about the company, potentially gleaning valuable insight for employee retention. If the employee voices complaints, ask if they have any solutions for the problems they raise.
Be sure to ask about the good, as well as the bad, such as what they liked most about your organization or what your organization does well, as that information can also be taken and built upon.
2. Make it easy and convenient for employees to participate
Departing employees aren’t exactly breaking down the doors to share their thoughts on the companies they are leaving. According to the Glint report, onboarding surveys have an average response rate of close to 80% while exit survey response rates fall between 30% and 70%.
Capture feedback as quickly as possible. Employees often become less emotionally vested in the company in the days and weeks after giving notice. During an employee’s last week, they may simply be going through the motions. If you ask employees to conduct exit interviews as soon as possible after they’ve announced their plans to leave, they may feel more inspired to do so.
Respect your departing employees’ time. An employee’s last couple of weeks with the company can be hectic with projects being reassigned, as well as other tasks related to offboarding. A multipage exit survey may make a departing employee’s eyes glaze over. Glint suggests identifying a short set of questions that reveal the employee’s reasons for leaving rather than a longer list of questions soliciting information that is “nice to know.”
Come up with a plan for remote talent. With many employees working from home these days, don’t forget to prepare a strategy that captures feedback from those you can’t meet with in-person. The Society for Human Resource Management recommends conducting a video conference call so you can see the employee’s body language and their facial expressions while they are answering your questions. With email surveys and text responses alone, you can’t leverage your emotional intelligence.
3. Give employees a sense that providing honest feedback is safe
Some departing employees may fear they risk burning a bridge if they tell the truth. “Exit interviews are perfunctory,” says international tax lawyer Charlie Middleton. “Companies routinely retaliate against whistleblowers. They are not looking for the truth.”
Reassure employees that their honesty won’t be used against them, especially if that employee has criticisms against the organization. Jane Oates, president of the employment-focused nonprofit WorkingNation, said a company that is serious about learning from exit interviews “is going to make that interview as comfortable as possible for you so that you are fully aware that there’s not going to be any retaliatory efforts.”
Share how feedback will be used. Let employees know their information will be acted upon to make improvements to the company. Also tell them who will have access to their feedback. Giving employees some measure of anonymity may increase their likelihood of being honest.
Select the right interviewer. Employees may not feel comfortable being honest with their immediate manager if they have negative feedback, but a second-line manager — their manager’s supervisor — may be able to elicit more of the truth. The National Institutes of Health recommends having someone not in the chain of command at all conduct the exit interview, as that person will be more neutral to what the employee has to say. Glint suggests giving employees a choice between, say, a manager or an associate from HR.
4. Share the feedback with appropriate parties and act on it
One of the most important practices when it comes to conducting effective exit interviews is using the information to implement change.
Integrate exit results with other data. Glint recommends looking at the data holistically with other key company insights such as performance ratings and engagement surveys to discover the areas in which your company is falling short.
See if current employees feel the same. One way to use information gleaned from exit data is to inquire whether current employees feel the same way by conducting stay interviews. The feedback given in exit interviews can be used to craft the questions that you ask current employees. This may help you ward off potential problems that lead your star employees to leave in the near future.
Have a plan to share the insights. Don’t sit on the information. Come up with a systematic approach to sharing the data with leaders in the organization, such as through quarterly updates, suggests Deb Muller, CEO of employee relations technology firm HR Acuity.
Final thoughts
Employers have so much more to gain from exit interviews than departing employees do. For that reason, it’s up to you to encourage employees to share what your organization is doing right and, just as important, what you are doing wrong.
For employees to feel vested in the exit interview process, make sure they know their honest opinions are valued and will help the organization become a better version of itself.
Employees who know their input is appreciated may be more inclined to leave the organization on good terms, increasing the likelihood that they will speak well of your company to others or even possibly come back one day.
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Topics: Company culture Small business Recruiting strategy Employee retention
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