Exit interviews are an incredibly effective HR tool that can help you assess the health of your organization.\u00a0 Yet in many companies, it\u2019s a tool that is used sparingly or not at all.\u00a0 Or it\u2019s used in such a perfunctory manner that it doesn\u2019t really produce any useful information.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it takes time and effort to conduct a good exit interview, and the company may not want to invest that time and effort in an employee who is leaving.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t see the value in exit interviews or if you don\u2019t know how to use them effectively, please continue reading below.\u00a0 We\u2019ll try to explain why they\u2019re valuable and how to conduct them so that they yield useful information.<\/p>\n
Exit interviews: the gold standard for determining how satisfied (or dissatisfied) your workforce is.<\/strong><\/p>\n First, exit interviews are not for everyone.\u00a0 They should be used only for \u201ckeepers\u201d . . . people you really wanted to hold onto.\u00a0 People who are fired for poor performance or who are laid off are going to be hurt and angry and are unlikely to give you the sort of thoughtful, useful, helpful insights that you\u2019d hope to get from an exit interview.<\/p>\n Still, why expend the time and effort to conduct exit interviews?\u00a0 When someone announces their intention to leave, why not just tell them, \u201cDon\u2019t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out\u201d and send them on their way?\u00a0 Because good people are hard to find and hard to keep.\u00a0 And because turnover, particularly among people whose service you value, is expensive . . . very expensive when you consider the lost productivity and efficiency the company will suffer while a replacement is found, hired, trained, and gets up to the speed of his or her predecessor.\u00a0 If, through a good exit interview, we can learn as much as possible about why a valued employee is leaving, we can take steps to prevent other valued employees from leaving for the same reason(s).<\/p>\n OK, so how do we conduct effective exit interviews?\u00a0 Here are a few tips:<\/p>\n The exact questions and the way they are worded should be a reflection of the interviewer\u2019s style and personality, but here\u2019s what you want to learn:<\/p>\n This list of questions could go on forever, but you get the idea.\u00a0 We want to know the reason . . . the real reason . . . a valued employee is leaving the company.\u00a0 We want to know if there\u2019s anything we could have or should have done to prevent the employee from leaving.\u00a0 We want to know if whatever conditions, issues, or concerns have caused this employee to leave might cause others to leave as well.\u00a0 If so, we want to know what we can do to address those problems so that they don\u2019t cause further employee defections.<\/p>\n As noted earlier, exit interviews take time and they take effort, but done properly, they can give you the insights to your organization you need to shape it into the organization you want it to be, and an organization that people won\u2019t want to leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Exit interviews are an incredibly effective HR tool that can help you assess the health of your organization.\u00a0 Yet in many companies, it\u2019s a tool that is used sparingly or not at all.\u00a0 Or it\u2019s used in such a perfunctory manner that it doesn\u2019t really produce any useful information.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it takes time and<\/p>\n\n
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