Corporate Training Magazine

Increasing the Effectiveness of Exit Interviews
Vol 2 Issue 2- Mar 2006

By Louisa Jewell

You'll never know the truth if the person you're asking is afraid to answer.

Exit interviews are a valuable tool for managing transition and knowledge as well as uncovering possible organizational issues. They also provide important insights for management into the actual reason behind a person's departure. But who is the best person to conduct them? Companies need to consider whether the person being interviewed will trust the interviewer. Will they be candid and truthful with their answers?

The duty of performing exit interviews usually falls to the human resources department. The problem is that HR managers are often viewed as a representative of management. Because of this, exiting employees may not feel comfortable 'burning a bridge' by telling the truth about their departure. Also, if the departing employee is known by the HR manager, it is sometimes difficult for the manager to gather the information objectively and without bias.

One way to ensure you get the honest feedback you desire is to use a third-party interviewer. Having someone from outside the organization perform the exit interview can provide an impartial perspective, which can improve both the integrity and quality of information gathered. Third- party interviewers are emotionally neutral and unlikely to pass judgment on people or organizational processes. This means departing employees can discuss sensitive issues in detail so that the interview can identify very specific problems.

Confidentiality is critically important to the process, because departing employees will not offer the real truth unless they feel safe to do so. I once performed an audit of a company's exit interviews from the past five months only to find that 80% of outgoing employees stated their number one reason for their departure as "leaving for another job". The HR department had accepted that reasoning without probing for the reasons why they looked for another job in the first place. Once I was able to investigate further, it turned out that employees had a serious issue with trust and were fearful for their jobs. Working with all levels of the organization, we created programs to build trust, and we saw a dramatic decrease in turnover as a result.

Bringing this impartial perspective to the process can also ensure integrity of the facts, since some departments would rather hide their results in a filing cabinet than actually do something with the infor- mation. A third party will ensure the real information reaches the top of the organization without any organizational filters involved.

A further extension of third-party interviewing is the use of online exit interviews. Existing interview processes can often be complemented with an online system so that an organization can choose the appropriate method of delivery and yet all information is entered into one system. This allows for trending and analysis of the information quickly and easily.

Online exit interviewing is particularly well-suited to industries such as call centres, where high turnover is quite standard. Using traditional face-to-face methods, HR managers in these environments could be engaged in performing exit interviews many hours a week. What typically happens, however, is that they just don't get to everyone, which makes people feel less valued when their feedback is not considered. At times, the HR department is not even notified of a resignation until the person has already left the company. This creates an environment where the company can become inconsistent with their practices.

Utilizing a web-based exit interview survey, any department can send a link to the exiting employee as soon as their resignation is submitted. This improves the likelihood the employee will complete it before they depart the organization, increasing response rates and ultimately improving the quality of the data captured. Also, because all employees are asked the same questions, the company can benchmark information and track trends over time.

Online systems can also assure people that their information will be treated as confidential, especially when it comes from a third party. The anonymity of an online system can lend itself to gathering honest feedback that may not be available when they are conducted face-to-face or over the phone. For example, some companies choose not to ask people for their names, but rather just their job role. Thus, the company actually has no way of deciphering individual responses. This will put employees at ease when responding and improve the likelihood of honest feedback.

But the greatest value of an online system is its ability to offload current staff. Online exit interviews allow organizations to increase capacity by gathering feedback without having to personally engage in the process. This gives everyone a chance to give their feedback while not tying up valuable resources in the process. By off-loading the HR manager, more time can be spent actually resolving the issues highlighted in the exit interview process which is the most important reason for conducting them in the first place.

Louisa Jewell is the vice-president of HR Solutions at Drake International.