A Long Goodbye: How to Conduct an Effective Exit Interview

There is much controversy over exit interviews and their usefulness. Some experts believe they serve no purpose and invade an employee's privacy. Others see them as helpful tools that provide much-needed information. For those who feel exit interviews are useful, they also note that they can only be effective if conducted in a proper manner.

Understanding the Purpose of the Exit Interview

In the simplest of terms, an exit interview is a formal process by which an employer discovers from departing employees why they're leaving an organization. The benefit of gathering this information is to then review and analyze it to determine if there are any trends or patterns that might shine light on problems within the organization and reasons for employee turnover. The ultimate goal is to correct any issues and implement new strategies to increase employee retention and reduce employee turnover.

The traditional way of conducting an exit interview is to have employees speak face-to-face with a human resources representative during their final days of employment. However, some organizations find this method less-than-successful because many departing employees are too busy wrapping up their final projects or feel uncomfortable speaking freely and honestly.

Therefore, an alternative is to conduct the exit interview either by snail mail or via the corporate Intranet. Asking ex-employees to respond via mail after they have left adds the benefit of distance between them and their past employer, often resulting in a more honest response. However, motivation to return the exit-interview form tends to be low. On the other hand, allowing departing employees to respond privately by corporate Intranet prior to their last day can often net good results. In some cases, employers utilize both in order to cast the widest net.

Conducting an Effective Exit Interview

Regardless of how your organization decides to conduct exit interviews - face-to-face, snail mail, Intranet, or a combination of these - there are definite steps upon which most experts agree.

• Privacy: This includes using a neutral third party - usually human resources - to conduct face-to-face interviews. Exiting employees are more likely to share honest information if they do not feel there will be future repercussions.
• Voluntary: Exit interviews should not be forced on any exiting employee. This process should be completely voluntary and conducted at a time of the employee's own choosing during the final week of employment.
• Location: Because you will be asking questions that require the departing employee to be honest, make sure the interview is conducted in a comfortable, private location out of earshot of coworkers.
• Questions: While "yes"/"no" and multiple-choice questions are helpful, it's also important to have open-ended questions, which allow employees to express their opinions and ideas.
• Follow Up: Once the face-to-face interview is over or exiting employees have submitted their form by mail or via the Intranet, follow up with the information. Don't collect it if you have no intention of using it. Some experts also recommend following up with employees after a small period of time (i.e., 30 days) has elapsed to see if there is any additional information they might want to add.

Important Questions to Ask

The questions you choose to ask will naturally be predicated on the type of information you want to gather. However, below are a few that you may want to consider in your exit interview process:

• What factors contributed to your decision to leave?
• Why are you leaving?
• Are you staying in the same industry?
• What does your new job or employer offer that you don't have here?
• What made your experience here satisfying?

Obviously, there are many other questions that you can ask, as well. But once you select the right questions and find the best method of delivering them to departing employees, you will be on your way to conducting effective exit interviews.

You can also utilize the various templates available here on OfficeArrow:

Employee Exit Interview (In Person)

Employment Exit Survey (By Mail)

Request for Exit Survey