Your employee retention rate can tell you a lot about your company and its culture. If you’re not tracking this information, you may still notice when employees begin looking for other jobs or quitting around the same time, but you may not know when this happened to pinpoint the cause. HR professionals are constantly placed in difficult positions, like hiring and firing employees and performing exit interviews when employees resign.
One thing to keep in mind is that HR should always perform the exit interview; the employee’s direct manager should never do it because it may prevent them from being completely honest about their experience at the company. Conducting effective exit interviews can help you learn about the internal health of your organization and find issues that must be resolved to retain your best employees. Here’s how HR professionals can get the most out of an exit interview.
Prepare Thoughtful Questions
Since the exit interview should be used to determine why you’re losing a valuable employee and how to stop it in the future, you must come up with questions that can provide you with honest feedback. Exit interview questions should discuss an employee’s reasons for leaving, level of engagement, and whether or not they’d recommend the company to others.
The exit interview is a good time for employees to discuss issues they’ve had at the company, so you should expect some complaints. However, you should also follow up with a question about their recommendations for fixing any issues they bring up.
For example, if a relatively new hire quits because they found a new job, you could ask what made them continue seeking new opportunities after being hired. Their answer may provide you with valuable insight into your hiring practices. For example, a new hire might resign because they were already in talks with a company before you presented them with an offer. This may potentially highlight that your hiring process takes too long, allowing employees to continue discussions with other prospective employers.
When coming up with questions, be prepared to ask about the good and bad experiences to ensure you get the best answers to improve your HR strategy.
Make Participation Easy
Employees who have already resigned or put in their two weeks may not be excited to go to an exit interview since they’re already thinking about their next job. However, making an exit interview easy and convenient will make them more likely to participate. Remember, employees will slowly become less emotionally invested in a company as their end date nears, so conducting an exit interview as soon as possible can help capture their attention while they’re still relatively invested.
In addition, you must respect their time. During their final two weeks of employment at your company, employees will be trying to finish up projects or train their replacements. A long exit interview process could frustrate them, and they may not participate if it takes too much time out of their day.
Try to Get Honest Feedback
Many employees, whether or not they’re leaving a company, are wary of the human resources department; they simply no longer believe HR wants to help them since they work for the employer, not the employees. Since employees don’t always trust HR, you must give them the sense that their honest feedback is safe and won’t come back to hurt them. Unfortunately, if your company has a reputation for retaliating against individuals who speak out, you’ve already lost their trust.
Share how the feedback will be used to gain an employee’s trust. Most employees simply want to know that their feedback will positively impact the company and their coworkers. You should also have the interview conducted by HR rather than a direct manager.
Always Share Feedback
If you want exit interviews that mean something to the company, the feedback must be shared with the appropriate parties and acted on. Of course, now and then, you might get a few disgruntled employees that don’t speak for everyone else. However, in most cases, if one employee is struggling due to management or other internal issues, they all likely are. Sharing feedback with managers can help them understand why they’ve lost an employee and allows the entire company to brainstorm how to prevent it in the future.
You can make your exit interview results more impactful by using other data from the organization. For example, if an employee shared information about a toxic manager during their exit interview, you must know whether or not it’s true. You can look at past exit interviews and data surrounding that manager to determine whether their employees are more likely to leave the company or stick around.
In addition, you should use this opportunity to determine how employees feel. If there was a complaint during the exit interview, you must see if other employees feel the same. You can learn about your current employees by conducting “stay interviews” used to prevent potential problems in the future.
While sharing feedback is a good start, you must be prepared to act on it. For example, if you’ve received multiple complaints about toxic culture, and the employee leaving the company is leaving because of the culture, it’s time to devise a plan to improve the issue.
Don’t Burn Bridges
Unfortunately, many employers take it personally when an employee leaves. While an employee may be leaving because they dislike their boss, it’s more likely they simply found a better opportunity, so there’s no reason to take it personally. Instead of getting angry when an employee resigns, discuss why they’re leaving to determine whether or not there’s anything you can change within your organization.
In addition, even though you may feel an employee is leaving you hanging until you can find a replacement, don’t make their last two weeks more difficult. Instead, consider telling the employee you’d be happy to have them back if they chose to leave their next position, especially if they’re a good employee with a great track record.
Final Thoughts
Exit interviews are the best way for employers to improve their business and company culture. Employees with other opportunities are more honest than those staying because they don’t have a fear of losing their jobs. Getting honest feedback from employees leaving the company can help you make beneficial changes throughout the organization to improve the health and happiness of all your employees.
Ashley Nielsen
Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music.