Last’s week post on employee retention addressed the question of, “Who is responsible for employee retention in an organization?” In a 2013 survey conducted by Harvard Business Review of 210 companies they shared that 70.9% had their HR departments handle the process; 19% had the departing employees’ direct supervisors do it; 8.9% delegated the job to the direct supervisor’s manager; and 1% turned to external consultants. It is a team effort that includes the overall company, leadership and human resources. When all named parties have a vested interest in employee retention employees are engaged and wanting to stay with a company. As an organization identifies the necessity to address employee retention, as a part of their hiring practices, they must decide how to proceed in an effective manner.  Exit interviews are a great resource for helping an organization lessen employee turn-over.

Exit interviews provide data that allows an organization to:

• Recognize areas of improvement
• Determine if the expectations of candidates fit the true role of the job
• Identify what the company does well
• Understand why employees are leaving the organization

An exit interview can be conducted in several ways. Employees should be given the option to participate. At no time can an exit interview be mandated. To make the exit interview convenient and less threatening for an employee to want to participate various options can be offered like a face-to-face conversation, survey or phone call. During the exit interview pre-determined questions should be asked. These questions should focus on specifics that will help those hiring and retaining employees. Even though you want to allow the employee to speak freelyyou also want the information shared to be effective data.  

The results of conducting exit interviews should be more than just finding out why an employee is leaving. Employees leave for many reasons and some are uncontrollable, like relocation due to the employee's spouses career, advancement that is not offered by current employer or an unforeseen illness. Questions that will help an organization better understand what will attract and retain their employees should be considered.

• Why should our employees stay with our company?
• Is there an organizational problem that would cause employees to leave?
• How do we compare to our competitors regarding employee engagement?

Make exit interviews work for your organization. They are an opportunity to collect data and apply it to develop programs and processes to hire and retain strong employees. The experience should be beneficial to the organization and the departing employee. You may one day want to recruit that employee back to your organization if they are a quality candidate.

How does your organization use the information obtained during exit interviews?  This is part 2 of 4 articles that will address employee retention. Part three will discuss developing programs to increase employee engagement.