How to Have a Productive Exit Interview

It’s never an ideal situation when an employee leaves your organization. Whether it’s a voluntarily or involuntarily move, there’s paperwork to be completed, a new hire to be made, and an exit interview to conduct. If you skip the exit interview, you’re missing a golden opportunity to improve your organization. Even if the employee was fired, there’s insight to be gained. An exit interview is a unique and powerful time to gather perspective. When else will you get the unvarnished truth from your employees about what your organization is doing wrong without any fear of retaliation or making someone unhappy? If an employee is leaving voluntarily, your HR team should take that opportunity to look closely enough at what the departure means for your organization. Employees leave voluntarily for many reasons: pursuing dreams, better pay, other career interests, or because of problems with the organization itself. Whatever the case, take the time to do an in-depth exit interview. Perhaps you will gain information that can help the organization succeed in the future. Once you’ve gathered feedback, make it actionable by asking the following questions: How did the employee get all the way to quitting? Did the employee not feel they could come to HR with their concerns? If so, where did the relationship break down and affect communication? What is missing from our processes that contributed to this de parture and prevented the employee from communicating concerns earlier on? When employees choose to leave, reflect on what processes you can change or add so the next employee doesn’t face the same difficulties or roadblocks. Treat offboarding as you would if you were losing a client after six months. With the client, you’d look back over the six-month period and investigate the source of the problem. Was it in implementation? Was there a problem with service? The same types of questions apply to departing employees. If you hired an employee who stayed for a year before going to work for your competitor, what did you do wrong? What did you promise that you couldn’t deliver? When you brought them on, did you fail to instill enough trust in your organization? Did the employee believe this was a place he could grow and achieve his career goals and then found he couldn’t? These are the kinds of questions you want to answer during an exit interview. But what about if the employee was fired? How does the exit interview work then? Put Involuntary Exits to Work If an employee leaves involuntarily, you should still conduct an exit interview. In these situations, it’s less about learning and more about minimizing damage. You want to complete paperwork and get back company equipment while making the exchange as pleasant as possible and minimizing the chance of a lawsuit. Negotiation is the key to...