Back in the day when I was a Human Resources underling, my supervisor asked me to create a form to track exit interview data. I told her that exit interviews are for suckers. The data comes too late in the process, and we never do anything with the data except report on the information to our clients. We would be more effective HR Generalists if we gave our clients a weather report and served them a cup of coffee.
My boss said thanked me for my feedback by rolling her eyes and repeating her request. Okay, thanks mom, but I’m still not whipping up the form. I wasn’t going to embarrass myself, and my supervisor, by delivering a fancy MS Word document to our clients.
I took a small risk and called another division within the company (because god forbid a Fortune 500 company have one HR process) and asked them to open up their fancy exit interview web system to our employees and HR generalists. They asked, “Do you have the budget for this?”
I answered, “Sure I do.”
A successful project was born. They had a web portal (ooh!) and a searchable database (ooh!), and they were able to run reports and provide analysis on exit trends and trends on specific key words (i.e., low salary, more opportunity) within the data. We made a few cosmetic changes, flipped a switch, and the web portal available to our division’s departing employees.
I received a gold star and a pat on the back for my efforts. In the zero-sum game of corporate America, my supervisor took credit for my accomplishments. That’s fine, I thought, because I don’t want my name associated with an exit interview process — no matter how fancy or pretty. The process itself is flawed, and HR always gets it wrong.
Sure enough, something totally predictable happened: hardly anyone used the exit interview web portal. Only the haters took the time to fill it out, and there wasn’t enough data in the system to map the trends and perform a thoughtful analysis. Then a departing employee asked, “Why is this the first time I’ve ever been asked these questions? Why isn’t my boss calling me to ask these questions?”
Common sense. This employee had it, and we lost him to a competitor.
So let me be clear as to why I hate exit interviews: It’s not the job of Human Resources to tell the corporation why its employees are leaving. If your supervisors and leaders aren’t talking to their employees and don’t know more about your exit trends than Human Resources, your company needs an intervention.
[Cross-posted on HRM Today.]
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Great post – I also asked HR “Why are you only asking now?” near the start of my previous employer’s exit interview.
I saw another blog post recently that suggested managers should ask the usual exit interview style questions regularly, rather than when people are walking out of the door. Most of *those* questions can easily rephrased for that: What do you most enjoy about the job, what do you least enjoy, do any current policies make it difficult to do your job, etc.
For those of us employees who don’t work at that kind of company though, my current approach is “don’t wait to be asked”. Only time will tell if that keeps me happier & more productive, or just gets me fired!
Amen, sista!!!!
Oh, there are times when exit interviews are valuable. Say… you’re a lowly departmental HR Coordinator and you’ve decided to tackle (mostly on your own damn time, because your work time is spent digging out from a ridiculous pile of paper because neither company you support has made it to the 21st century yet, grrr, where was I?) the issue of employee retention.
We’re used to high turnover in the lower-level positions (finding replacements is pretty easy), but in the next two weeks we’re losing three career-oriented admin assistants plus a manager (all hired within the last year). I’m asking all four to do a confidential, unofficial exit interview with me so I can figure out what’s going sour. They all know and trust me to some extent, so I’m hoping they’ll be quite candid…
The department, recognizing that morale is Not Good, has formed a rewards committee (I’m on it). Gift baskets and certificates are like those little round Band-Aids – they’re only suitable for the teeniest problems, and don’t stick around very long.
Yes, I’m planning to ask non-departing employees the same questions that will be covered in the exit interviews. In fact, I had already written employee interviews into my project outline… and had selected those four particular employees as good interview candidates. Oops.
It is also sooooo true that people join a company because of the business and that they leave because of thier manager – WAKE UP people! Great post and blog!!
Great article! Even when you get data from employees, it may not reflect the truth. I just worked with a client who initmately knew the employees who had left, the real reasons why and the actual comments still did not match.
One of the main reasons, I think for this phenomenon is that many employees have been taught not to “burn any bridges.” Also, people tend to provide surface reasons like pay even when that is not the real issue. So, my point is – even if you collected the exit interview information and management did pay attention, the actions taken could be wrong (adjust pay scales instead of better day-to-day management).
My sense is that if employees needs are being met, they aren’t going anywhere.
Fabulous post Laurie! I have only had two jobs that even asked for the cursory written evaluation. If all those questions had been asked regularly and an honest response TRULY wanted, I probably would only have had two jobs in ten years instead of… a bunch.
@Neil I agree that the question of ‘Why are you only asking now?’ is totally valid; however, I’m of the opinion that employees should be more vocal in expressing their concerns before they leave, too. The exit interview, with HR in the middle, seems like such a passive-aggressive way to have this kind of conversation.
@Breanne xxxooo
@perrik Way to grab the bull by the horns. This is an excellent idea to futher your career and look like a superstah in the middle of mediocrity. The data isn’t invaluable because it may help the organization to make better hires and it might GET YOU A FREAKIN PROMOTION at some point. Good luck and let us know if you need help or advice.
@Scott Thanks.
@Ron This is so well said — My sense is that if employees needs are being met, they aren
YES. Thank you!
When I left my last job… I was VERY honest about the exit interview. She asked me why there was such a turn over in people at my level and I flat out told her that it came down to the way people were treated, and the fact that the company was training the heck out of us, but then not paying us what we were worth, so it left us ripe for poaching.
I know it didn’t make a damn bit of difference in the way that that particular company did business.
But, I’m still glad I said it.
For what it’s worth, exit interviews do give SOME insight in to certain things, but you can’t make it a form to fill out. It needs to be a personal call, placed by someone professional who won’t get offended at the very unhappy people’s words. There are reasons you lose good people, and usually it’s because they don’t feel comfortable telling you WHY they’re unhappy.
We look at the process all wrong. We look at it as a process, but when you get to the heart of it all, it comes down to people.
Or maybe I’m just REALLY tired this Monday
I so agree with this. I’ve written some rants about this too; it never fails to amaze me how few managers bother to check in on this sort of thing while there’s still time to do something about it.
I love it when HR uses exit interviews as proof of a bad supervisor. If you know a supervisor is doing a bad job there’s proof before people quit and things you can do about it.
– If your supervisors and leaders aren
Held the first unofficial exit interview – oh boy, he had a lot to say. And I couldn’t disagree with any of it. He gave great feedback on ideas I’d been kicking around, and brought up some issues that had never occurred to me. This was a GOOD idea. The interview was followed by a meeting of the rewards committee, where we discussed the morale problems and I learned even more. A lot of work needs to be done. I can’t leave this job yet. All this potential to make a measurable difference… (yeah, and look like a superstar in the process, I never said I didn’t have ulterior motives!)
Of course, I will have to do a big chunk of it on my own time – since I spent today doing things like faxing timesheet changes because someone worked 30 minutes longer than anticipated on Friday. Oh, and spent 90 minutes of actual paid working time to deliver a single envelope from my office to the medical center office because very little is done electronically or even via fax. Sigh. But I digress. And whine.
@BadConsultant I’ve used your brand of exit interviews and online recruiting templates in the past with limited success; therefore, I’ll skip the HR2Blame Module and upgrade to the Senior Management 3.0 package. This time, I want extra fries with that.
@perrik Christ, your personal exit interview is gonna be CRAZY when you finally leave that place for your next superstar job. Keep up the good work, and remember to begin the session by thanking the employee for his/her service to the company. You’re there to listen to the complaints (as the employee has one foot out the door), but you’re also there to say thanks for making THIS COMPANY a better place to work. (Employees love to hear it, and frankly, I always meant it when I said it.)
..nor is it the job of ex-employees to fix someone else’s crappy company, either, thank you very much.
I think exit interviews were invented by someone with too much sensitivity training in an effort to keep irate ex-employees from going postal. “Here,” they say, soothingly. “put down the gun and tell us how you FEEL, instead.”
Rot and hogwash.
@almostgotit No rejection here. UR so right.
Excellent and so on-the-mark. Corporate America at its finest.
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