Regardless of how well your company is run or how high your employee morale is, there will inevitably come a time when an employee chooses to leave your company to move on to something different. When an employee decides to leave your business, it’s important to understand why they’re resigning so that you can address any potential concerns.
Sometimes when one person leaves a team, it can have a resounding effect, meaning others may follow suit. By conducting exit interviews with individuals leaving your company, you have an opportunity to encourage others to stay. In this article, we’ll discuss what exit interviews are, how to properly conduct one as an employer, and why they’re important.
Key Takeaways
-
An exit interview is an informal meeting where a member of the company, typically HR, and an employee who has decided to leave the business have a conversation about their reason for resigning.
-
Exit interviews should happen face-to-face and be more informal than an interview so that the employee feels at ease to share their concerns.
-
To get the most out of the exit interview, decide beforehand what type of feedback you’re looking for, and if there are any specific questions you must ask to get there.
What Is an Exit Interview?
An exit interview is typically a relatively informal meeting where a member of the company, typically HR, and an employee who has decided to leave the business have a conversation about their reason for resigning. The objective of this interview is to better understand why the employee is leaving to better improve how the company operates.
Exit interviews should happen face-to-face and be more informal than an interview so that the employee feels at ease to share their concerns. Exit interviews are a great way to also ensure the employee who is resigning feels heard and appreciated before they leave the company. It’s a good way to ensure the relationship remains on good terms.
Why Are Exit Interviews Important?
Exit interviews are part of your hiring process. When you employ people who are likely to leave with no plan to retain them, you can waste time and money on recruitment and lose important company knowledge and skills in the process. Exit interviews are important for the following reasons.
-
Explaining an employee’s resignation. The worst thing an organization can do is ignore and not discuss the resignation of an employee with their broader team. By conducting an exit interview, the employer will have an explanation as to why the employee chose to leave.
-
Insight into company problems. Sometimes when you’re working on an executive or leadership team, you may not have insight into issues across different teams. Exit interviews give you the opportunity to understand more about what might be frustrating to individual teams and their members.
-
Gauge company culture. Company culture is one of the most important things you can maintain to keep retention at a reasonable level. Exit interviews can help you better understand what the culture is like and what your employees like or dislike about it.
What Makes a Good Exit Interview?
You may want to decide beforehand what type of feedback you’re looking for. Perhaps it’s direct feedback for the management team, or perhaps it’s a broader understanding of why the employee chose to leave their team. Whatever the case, be sure to tailor your questions so you can gain greater insight into your company.
Consider the following when developing your exit interview questions:
-
Have purpose. Be sure you’re articulating the reason for the exit interview when you sit down with the employee who is resigning.
-
Thank the employee. Be sure to thank your employee for their commitment and hard work for your company.
-
Encourage open dialogue. Be receptive to the feedback you hear, even if it’s negative. Don’t shy away from asking hard questions, especially if they can reveal a failure within the business.
-
Track trends. If you have more than one or two employees who decide to leave, it’s a good idea to track your findings so that you can better understand what areas of the business need work and so you can measure future improvements.
-
Listen more than you speak. It’s important your employee feels heard, especially if you want them to be honest with you. You’re not there to defend the business or justify decisions, you are simply there to listen.
What Are Some Good Exit Interview Questions to Ask?
As mentioned previously, it’s a good idea to decide what you’re looking to get out of your exit interviews before you begin. Remember, even if you think you might know why someone is leaving, there may be a different, underlying reason you can dissect in the interview. Here are some questions to start with.
-
What prompted you to begin looking for another job? This question may provide you with details that you can track as common themes. If five people suggest they’re leaving because of low industry pay, this is something you can resolve and fix before more employees leave.
-
Would you ever consider returning to the company? Depending on the reason for resignation, it’s always a great idea to keep employees on good terms with the company in case they ever decide to come back. Understanding what factors would lure the employee back are important to develop better retention strategies, too.
-
Did you feel you had the resources to do your job well? This is a good question to ask because it seeks a better understanding of how supported this employee felt. The answer that comes from this question can help you create an immediate proactive response, whether it be inadequate training or insufficient communication.
-
How do you describe the company culture? Exit interviews can give you a good view into the culture your company has. This question can help you identify trends to identify real concerns such as hierarchy issues, communication issues, lack of clear job responsibilities, and more.
-
Did you feel management recognized your contributions? This is another important question to ask during an exit interview to understand if your employees are feeling appreciated and supported by management. One of the biggest drivers of workplace happiness is being appreciated for a job well done.
-
Do you feel your job description changed since you were hired? Depending on the job title, the demands of a certain position may evolve over time but shouldn’t be dramatic. It’s important to understand if that job has shifted dramatically so that you can better hire for this position in the future.
-
Did you receive proper training to be successful in your position? Checking in on employee training is important. Without proper training, you set your employees up for failure. An exit interview is a perfect place to ensure employees feel like your training program is living up to its promises.
-
What was the best part of your job here? This is another one where you can consolidate feedback into themes. This will give you a better understanding of what you’re doing well and what specifically employees appreciate about the environment in which they work.
-
Where can we improve? Although this question is a bit open-ended, it’s an important one to ask. You’ll want to listen here to understand any struggles your employees had with specific supervisors, processes, or initiatives. You can also add follow-up questions here about their satisfaction with specific things related to their job.
-
Did you have clear goals and objectives? A lot of times when an employee is unhappy, it’s because they don’t have clear goals, objectives, or job responsibilities. Identifying this as a possible area of concern is important in order to change for the better.
-
Did you receive constructive feedback from your manager? Feedback is so important for employees, so they don’t feel like they’re just another cog in the wheel. Management should make feedback a priority for their teams, and if they’re not, it’s good to identify this as a potential issue in an exit interview.
-
Is there anything else you’d like to add? This is an important note to end on for the exit interview. It gives your employee the opportunity to cover anything they may have missed in your line of questioning and provides them space to give feedback if they so wish.
Exit Interview Questions FAQ
-
What are some good exit interview questions?
Some good exit interview questions include why the employee is quitting and what made them look for a new job.
-
How do you conduct a good exit interview?
Good exit interviews focus on the company and constructive feedback that will help improve your company, employees, and processes.
-
What do you do with exit interview answers?
After assessing your employee’s experience in their exit interview answers, you may want to compare and contrast their answers to other exit interviews to identify opportunities to improve retention and employee engagement.
- Post-Termination
Author
Caitlin Mazur
Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.
