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For busy managers and business owners, the employee exit interview process can be hard to nail down and get right. Employees aren’t always parting with their employers on the best of terms, and tensions can run high.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the common pitfalls that organizations face during an employee exit interview. I’ll show you simple solutions to some of the most frequent mistakes I see employers make in the process, so you can make the most of the opportunity to improve.
RELATED: Why Exit Interviews are Worth It >>
For employers, one of the biggest pain points in exit interviewing is that it’s incredibly tough to know if you’re getting full and accurate responses to your questions.
This allows your departing employees the opportunity to tell their own story, in their own words. Asking questions such as “Did you enjoy working here,” will be more likely to garner a truthful story about an employee’s reasons for leaving than a more targeted question, such as “What didn’t you like about communication with your manager?”
Don’t forget that you can always use the phrase “tell me more about that” to pull more information out of a story.
Often, employees will either (1) choose not to participate in their employee exit interview or (2) participate but fail to give their full and honest opinion. One of the most common reasons for either of these two scenarios is that employees don’t feel comfortable opening up to their interviewer.
Expressing to the interviewee that their responses won’t be shared using their name (unless you’re required by law to report a crime) is important, but whether the interviewee trusts the interviewer may come down to who the interviewer is.
If an employee is going to have to confront the person who is the very reason (or at least part of the reason) that they’re leaving, they’re much more likely to open up about the workplace stressors that caused their exit. If possible, have a neutral party conduct the exit interview.
Small businesses and start-ups often don’t have full Human Resources departments, but there is still likely to be a manager or supervisor that doesn’t work with the individual one-on-one who can help gather feedback. When in doubt, it’s okay to ask the employee who they would feel comfortable speaking to and provide a short list of options.
Employers are lucky when they’re able to collect accurate and helpful feedback from departing employees. It’s important to put those insights to use—but if you’re only asking anecdotal questions, you might not be getting insights that can translate to action.
This can be easier than you think! Try questions like “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your compensation package.” As long as you mix these questions in with open-ended items that allow an employee to tell a story, you should be able to pick up a few measurable insights that can be tracked across time and through departments.
Ultimately, these answers can be used to have meaningful conversations with your current employees and empower your retention initiatives.
RELATED: Know Before They Go - How to Ease the Pain of Employee Departures >>
We mentioned above that it’s important to let interviewees know their answers will be kept confidential--unless you’re required to report a crime. Do you know when you can use confidential data from exit interviews (i.e., in anonymized ways, or in the aggregate) or when you must share exit interview information (i.e., when you’re made aware of certain alleged crimes)?
Exit interviews can be a legal landmine. Every small business should be equipped with the knowledge of how to conduct an exit interview while steering clear of potential compliance problems.
Axcet HR Solutions is proud to serve as, among other things, an HR compliance expert to small businesses and lean organizations that are focused on growing and scaling their core business. At Axcet HR, we understand your mission and are here to take care of the details.
We’ll work with you hand in hand to go over your complete exit interview process, helping you select questions that get to the core of the insights you’d like to uncover in a way that's efficient and compliant.
When it comes to employee relations, retention, compliance, and more, the human resources and employee relations experts at Axcet HR Solutions have you covered. Exit interviews are just the beginning of what we can help with at Axcet. To find out how we can help your small business, reach out to our experts today.
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