Exit interviews provide insight into problems

By James Evans

If your employee turnover rate is too high, or you are losing employees you want to keep, you might consider incorporating exit interviews into your procedures. Exit interviews are face-to-face discussions with employees leaving your company. They are valuable for two reasons:

1. They allow an employee an opportunity to vent or to give any ideas he may have without being judged. When an individual leaves your company, you want him to leave with a good feeling about the way he was treated during his exit. Remember that an ex-employee may run into your customers, suppliers, current employees and potential employees after leaving the company. Anything you can do to have an ex-employee say good things about your company is worth the effort and an exit interview is a great tool to accomplish that.

2. You might actually learn something. This is critical: if you cannot go through this process without getting angry or defensive, ask someone else to do the exit interview.
For best results, conduct exit interviews a few days prior to the employee's last day. If you wait until the last day, the employee may cancel and you have no date to reschedule. More importantly, on the last day the employee is often distracted, perhaps because leaving is an emotional experience, but also because he may have a lot to do on the final day.

At the beginning of the meeting, always tell the person that if there are things he would like kept confidential, he just needs to let you know and you will honor that request if at all possible.

Only ask a few questions and then follow-up for details. Try these:


• Tell me the first time you thought that this might not be the place/company for you long-term. Asking the question this way will keep the employee from saying he got a better offer, is going to a job closer to home, etc. You want to find out why he was even interested in looking for other opportunities.
  
• If you were in your manager's position, what would you do differently? This is better than just asking what he liked or didn't like about the company. By asking what he would do in the role, it makes him a little more accountable for his answer.
  
• If you were opening your own business, who are the people working here that you would want to hire for YOUR company? People seem much more open to answering this than they are if you ask who the top performers are in the group. They personalize it as they consider having their own businesses.
  
• Who wouldn't you have working in your own company? Some will refuse to answer this, but by this time in the interview they are usually loosened up a bit.
  
• When you go to your next job, what will you tell them about our company? You want the person to actually hear himself saying good things about the company. There is something about getting someone to say something out loud that they remember. If the last thing a person tells you is that the company has a great atmosphere and great benefits, it may influence him to not go out and trash the company.
  
• If you could give your current supervisor/manager just one piece of advice, what would it be? Sometimes this one question will make the entire interview worthwhile. You may learn there is something specific that the supervisor does that sabotages his own efforts to be successful; also, by limiting this to one suggestion, you find out what's really important.
  
• Can you tell me anything else about your experience here that might help me in my efforts to not lose good employees in the future? This is just an open-ended question to allow the employee to say anything he had on his mind that you may not have asked about.
  
• After the interview is over, exchange some pleasantries, wish him luck and say goodbye. As soon as possible, record any notes and prepare comments for the employee's manager.

Exit interviews take time and you will get a lot of information that is not credible or useful. However, the gems you occasionally unearth make the process worthwhile.

Editor's Note: James. W. Evans, www.evanscss.com, is a human resources consultant with more than 20 years of experience. He is based in Metairie.