The Value of Exit Interviews

CultureFitTechnical Recruiting

How to Use Exit Interviews to Improve Your Organization

One of your key employees has just notified you that they will be leaving for a new position elsewhere. Everyone, including HR, “assumed” the resignation was due to a long daily commute and their desire to be closer to home. Their actual reason was much more complex: it was due to the company’s changing culture, the management team, the team’s departmental morale, and several other factors.

What’s the risk of not knowing why and employee leaves your company?  A bad review on Glassdoor, additional employee churn, poor brand image, reduced productivity.  The list can be quite long. The only effective way to understand the “why” is to conduct an exit interview.  In doing so, you’ll find the truth, and have an opportunity to develop a plan to correct internal problems. Here are 3 reasons why exit interviews are extremely valuable and should be utilized within all organizations:

Find opportunities to improve your organization in the future

  • Did the employee leave because of something the company did or didn’t do? The best way to uncover the truth is to use questions and answers based on a scale of 1 through 5.  This will help exiting employees who tend to be more reserved in providing honest feedback.
  • Ask for balanced feedback – Use the “Start, Stop, Continue” approach.
    • What are the 3 initiatives “Company A” should use to help make this a great work environment?
    • What are the 3 initiatives “Company A” should stop doing?
    • What are the 3 initiatives “Company A” should continue doing?
  • Depending on the feedback, use this exercise with current employees to determine whether there’s an across the board sentiment.

Make the employee feel good about their service to your company

  • Competitive Intelligence – if you’re able to make the leaving employee comfortable and relaxed during the exit interview, you may be able to gather valuable information on why the exiting employee chose their new employer.

Use the exit interview as an opportunity retain key employees

  • The show may not be over. Perhaps a few simple changes within the organization will convince them to stay. Why lose that talent when you may not have to?
  • By retaining that integral employee, you’ve eliminated recruitment, training, and ramp up costs. You have just saved your company valuable time and money.

There are many more reasons for conducting that all important exit interview.  However, when that key employee is not retainable, talk to one of our IT staffing experts at CultureFit to help you find that top-tier talent you seek. CultureFit is a full service Technology Staffing and recruitment firm for corporate cultures that value organizational fit, employee satisfaction, and an extremely high level of technical IT skills.