On the way out – a good time to talk

The loss of valued staff is a large business expense. To find out the reasons behind resignations many organisations conduct exit interviews. 

One approach to exit interviews involves providing a specific form to staff members for them to complete. The idea is that the questions or issues raised on the form, act as a prompt for the staff member to provide information that can be relevant for the ongoing running of the business.

An alternative is to have a face-to-face interview with an independent officer or manager. It’s usually best for this to be done by someone from HR. A HR person, conducting an exit interview, can give the employee confidence. With HR involved, the employee is normally more likely to address any specific issues relating to his or her particular department or group.

Where companies are serious about continual improvement, a full analysis of exit interview information for all departing staff is carried out as a priority. Such information can prove to be invaluable. Information may come to light, particularly qualitative information, on areas of dissatisfaction. 

Once qualitative information has been collected through exit interviews, some companies take the next step to turn that into quantitative data, using a software analysis tool to split findings into key categories. From there, senior managers can identify areas of the business that need special attention.

Some of the most obvious benefits that a consistent commitment to carrying out exit interviews can offer include:

• They can help to ensure you part on good terms;
• They can help you identify possible areas for improvement in organisational processes, management, job design, remuneration or career planning; and
• They can help you establish that the employee is leaving of his or her own accord and that there has been no employer breach of an employment contract.

It is important to recognise that there is a very positive side to exit interviews: knowledge exchange. Allowing knowledge walk out the door, never to be retrieved, when people leave, is a major cost for many organisations.

In cases where you are thinking about getting the departing employee to hand on knowledge, you need to think carefully about the information you would like to gather before the interview and start your preparations early.

The big question is: what knowledge would be helpful to the next person who will do the job or to others in the organisation doing similar jobs.

Ideally, in this sort of situation it is good to start planning the handover and exit interview as soon as you know a person is leaving. Astute managers will identify who in the organisation might benefit from that person’s knowledge and what they will need to know.

Then it is important to work out a plan to capture the leaver’s knowledge during the time remaining before they leave. This should include both explicit knowledge (knowledge that is already documented such as in files and e-mails, and knowledge that can be easily documented), and tacit knowledge (knowledge that is less easy to capture and that needs to be explained or demonstrated).

For the success of exit interviews, so much depends of course on the atmosphere surrounding the departure. Often, particularly in sales, there is suspicion and imagined threats on both sides, which rather weakens the chances of a positive hand-over.

If at all possible, mistrust should be diffused. The employee who is leaving should be encouraged and enabled to hold a briefing meeting with all relevant parties attending. Sadly, this does not happen often enough.