As an employer, it can be difficult to learn that one of your employees is resigning. The silver lining is that you can get useful, actionable information out of your offboarding process and departing employee. That’s where exit interviews come in.
Typically, when someone is leaving their job, they will have no reason to be dishonest about the challenges they’ve encountered working at your company. The exit interview is therefore the best place to learn about your organization’s faults and to ultimately improve retention in the future.
In this article, we look at some exit interview best practices and example exit interview questions that you can adapt to your organization’s needs. Let’s get started!
What is an exit interview?
An exit interview is a meeting between an employee who is leaving a company and a manager or member of the HR department. The purpose of the meeting is to collect feedback from the employee about their experiences working for the organization towards the end of the offboarding process. The goals of an exit interview are to understand why the employee is leaving, to identify areas where the organization can improve, and to collect data that can be used to make future staffing decisions. Exit interviews typically involve a discussion about the employee's job satisfaction, their thoughts on the organization's management, and their suggestions for improving the workplace.
How to conduct the best exit interview
Be mindful of these exit interview best practices to make sure you are getting optimal feedback from the departing employee.
- Schedule an exit interview within a week of the employee giving written notice. This will ensure the colleague is still engaged in their workload.
- Offer the colleague multiple exit interview format options (written, phone or in-person) and allow them to pick the format they are most comfortable with.
- If the associate opts for an in-person or phone interview, have an HR representative conduct the interview. Allowing a manager or direct supervisor to conduct the interview can leave the colleague feeling intimidated and uncomfortable about answering certain questions.
- Create a comfortable and safe environment to encourage the colleague to open up about their experiences and reasons for leaving. Reiterate that all feedback is confidential and provide a private area to conduct the interview.
- End the interview on a personal and positive note. Thank the employee for their time and wish them success in their future endeavours.
Remember! With limited time left in their role, departing employees are busy organizing their desk for the replacement employee and preparing for their next big chapter. Keep your exit interview questions brief to ensure better engagement from the colleague.
Example exit interview questions
The best exit interview questions are consistent ones. By asking all departing employees the same questions, you’ll be able to collect more accurate data and better understand what motivates your employees to leave. If you ask departing employees varied exit interview questions, you’re unlikely to get any coherent data and will not get a clear picture of what needs fixing at your organization.
Your company will need a set of exit interview questions specifically developed for your needs, however, these example questions are a good place to start:
Exit interview questions about the onboarding process
These questions are good to start with as they will give you an idea of your departing employee’s journey through your company in chronological order. They also give you an important insight into how to improve the experience for new employees and incoming talent.
- Were you given enough support when you first started your job?
- Were your roles and responsibilities explained to you in enough detail?
- Did you feel comfortable approaching colleagues and managers if you didn’t understand something?
Exit interview questions about compensation
Questions about salary, benefits, and job perks are key if you want to understand whether your employees are being lured to other companies by better compensation packages. This is a rare opportunity to see whether your employees think they’re being compensated fairly for their work!
- How competitive was your salary and benefits package?
- Which benefits and perks did you enjoy the most?
- Do you think your compensation package was fair considering your work responsibilities?
- What other benefits would you have liked to receive?
Exit interview questions about leadership
As the saying goes: People don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. If you want to know if this is the case at your organization, you should ask your exiting employee about their leaders. These questions will make it easier for you to detect ineffective or toxic managers before they drive more employees to resign.
- Were you given clear instructions throughout your time at the company?
- What were your manager’s shortcomings?
- How could your manager have improved?
- Did you receive regular feedback from your manager?
Exit interview questions about company culture
Company culture has become more important to employees over the last few years. Diversity and inclusion, employee safety, and engagement are just a few of the aspects that you should strive to keep a close eye on if you want to retain top talent.
- Did you face any discrimination during your time at the company?
- What do you think about the company’s diversity and inclusion initiatives?
- Did you feel safe while working at the company?
- How would you describe the company culture?
Exit interview questions about quitting
You need a clear understanding of why your employee is quitting. If the previous questions didn’t give you the answer you were looking for, these should be direct enough for you to see exactly why your employee decided to leave your company.
- Why did you decide to leave the company?
- Did something specific happen that pushed you to make the decision?
- How long have you been looking for another job?
- Was your manager aware that you were looking for work elsewhere?
Use exit interview data to improve your organization
The exit interview is one of the most important tools that your HR department has at its disposal. By collecting data from employees who are leaving your company, you can gain valuable insights into the overall health of the organization. However, simply collecting the data is only half the battle. The other half is making sure that the data is compiled, analyzed and presented in a way that will be meaningful to those who can make changes within the organization.
According to the Adecco Group findings, resigning employees can trigger a “quitting spree”, with 50% of workers who have seen others quit deciding to also quit in the next 12 months. That’s why you should make sure there is a robust plan of action in place to address critical issues highlighted by exit interviews!