Exit interviews aren’t a waste of time
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thought when leaving a job, “Why bother giving honest feedback? I’m leaving anyway.” Hey, it’s not your problem anymore and you’re on your way to a new (and hopefully better) situation. And although exit interviews might be the dumping ground for years of pent-up frustration, if done thoughtfully and intentionally, companies can find nuggets of validity, or at least concerns to be looked at more closely, to make improvements.
Too often, exit interviews fail to actually do what they are supposed to: improve retention and produce useful information. According to Harvard Business Review, the top reasons why they don’t meet these goals are data quality (which is dependent on the employee feeling comfortable enough to be honest and candid on their way out the door) and a lack of consensus on best practices (retention goals and strategies start WAAAAAY before an exit interview and many companies may avoid the discomfort of having meaningful conversations before a two-week notice pops up).
If you think exit interviews are a waste of time, I’m here to convince you otherwise. Here’s three reasons exit interviews benefit your company:
Understanding employees’ perceptions of the company and leadership
You can take it with a grain of salt, but is there valid information given by the employee about job design, capacity, unrealistic expectations, working conditions, culture, and peers? Is there a toxic manager in your midst that wasn’t brought to your attention? Do your managers need more training and development? The exit interview is a rear-view mirror approach, but still helpful in explaining why employees leave. Sort through what’s shared and use it as an opportunity to explore and dig deeper with the goal of improving motivation and effectiveness.
Uncover issues related to HR processes
HR is more than handling performance issues, benefits, and payroll. A more strategic HR approach understands that plenty of organizational processes and practices can factor into an employee leaving. Is HR not able to deliver on those strategies because of capacity? A lack of urgency and importance from leadership? Overwhelmed with employee relations issues when some supervisor training and development could help mitigate some of those issues? Source what is shared by the departing employee to learn about where the company could have done better and advocate for changes with leadership.
Accepting that your company isn't perfect
Your company will never be perfect and there’s always room for improvement. Exit interviews should go beyond the individual’s immediate experience and be used to identify trends and themes. Is this the third time you’ve heard this specific supervisor is a micromanager? Did someone else in this department mention frustration with complicated processes? Has another employee expressed feeling a lack of recognition prompted them to start looking elsewhere? You don’t have to put every recommendation into action, but be on the lookout for patterns and have a method for elevating the concerns you’re seeing. If your company utilizes some kind of annual review or strategic planning, exit interview data should be included as part of the recruitment and retention strategy.
So if you’re going to do exit interviews, do it right. Make it one piece of a larger recruitment and retention strategy, which can include insights into your employees’ experience, reveal problems in the company, and shed light on the competitive landscape out in the market.