Best exit interview questions to ask and identify why employees leave.
Is your company experiencing high turnover?
Or perhaps one of your top performing team members just resigned.
If this is a persistent problem, it is essential that your company conduct exit interviews.
What are exit interviews?
Exit interviews, are feedback and improvement tools for organisations. Essentially, you are interviewing former employees to gain feedback as to why they’ve chosen to resign their posts and seek opportunities elsewhere.
Even though no company likes to see top performing staff go, their feedback is valuable in identifying areas of employee dissatisfaction. Once these dissatisfaction areas are identified, appropriate measures for improvement can be made to reduce high turnover.
Tips for conducting an exit interview
Some effective exit interview tips include:
Understand fully the nature of this interview
Exit interviews are not interrogations where former employees are made to feel intimidated. They are not therapy sessions where everything wrong with the company has to be divulged. Instead, the purpose of exit interviews is to have sincere and honest conversations. These should identify the reasons for job departure and possible ways to improve employee retention.
Select the right people
Sincere and honest conversations can only occur once the right person is selected to conduct the exit interview. The right person should be a staff member who has high emotional intelligence, is a good listener, displays healthy amounts of empathy and creates an atmosphere where individuals can feel comfortable, trusted and open to honest discussion.
Timing matters!
It’s best to schedule the interview after an employee has formally resigned from the company. If the individual is still employed, they may not feel comfortable discussing their departure for fear of retaliations or repercussions. A suitable scheduling date should be from two weeks to a month after resigning.
Know the material
Write down some goals and your list of questions to ask. Even if the interview pivots off in another direction, you always have your notes for structure if you need to guide the discussion back on track.
Be prepared to listen a lot
During an exit interview, be prepared to listen more. To get the best possible feedback, listen to everything the individual is saying without interruptions. Doing so, will encourage them to continue the discussion candidly and provide further valuable insights.
Don’t get defensive
It is also important that you listen without getting defensive or agitated. Don’t take anything personally or have your emotions affected by what you’re hearing. Doing so may bring the exit interview to an abrupt end and the quality of your feedback will be jeopardised. Poor quality feedback leads to little or no improvement.
Be grateful and gracious
Thank them for firstly agreeing to have the interview and thank them at the end for their feedback.
What questions should I ask in an exit interview?
Maybe you’ve hadn’t had much experience conducting exit interviews and you’re wondering what sort of questions should I ask? Below are some common exit interview questions you can incorporate.
Why did you begin looking for a new job?
Exit interviews are not interrogations where former employees are made to feel intimidated. They are not therapy sessions where everything wrong with the company has to be divulged. Instead, the purpose of exit interviews is to have sincere and honest conversations. These should identify the reasons for job departure and possible ways to improve employee retention.
Do you feel your manager gave you what you needed to succeed?
Managers play in pivotal role in motivating and empowering their staff. This question addresses what type of support employees need and whether or not the company provided it.
Why are you leaving?
Being direct as possible! It’s essentially wanting to know the reason(s) behind the departure. Was it something on the company’s part or personal reasons?
Would you recommend working at this company to your family and friends?
If your former employee would not recommend this company to their loved ones for employment, it is likely that this former employee has serious, ongoing issues with the work environment.
What ultimately led you to accept the new position?
What did the other company have that persuaded you to leave? Did they offer better benefits, was it a closer to home commute or greater job flexibility?
How would you describe the culture of our company?
The answer to this question may enable you to discover negative qualities regarding the company’s work culture that a person on the managerial side may not have noticed.
Can you provide specific example?
If indeed something is negative or even toxic about your workplace culture, asking for specifics can pinpoint the areas that needs investigation.
What could have been done for you to remain employed here?
Was there anything that the company could have done to prevent this employee’s departure? The response to this question can be used to potentially improve certain policies and prevent future employees from leaving in a similar manner.
If you could change anything about the job or company, what would you change?
This question also pinpoints a certain policy, problem or person that could be the reason for their departure. Knowing what exactly leads to employee departure allows the company to seek efficient and effective counteractive measures.
What opportunities were you given to develop in your role?
Was the role challenging or did you find any job enrichment in the position? As an exit interviewer you need to ascertain sufficient opportunities are given to employees so that they will not seek them elsewhere.
Do you feel your work was recognised?
If no job recognition is given, it is very likely that employees become disenchanted with the organisation and seek external opportunities where they can be recognised and rewarded appropriately for their contributions.
For how long have you been wanting to leave?
This question can be broken down into two further sub-categories – how long were you encountering a problem and was anything done to alleviate it? If the problem was persisting for a long time, it would be critical to identify why this was not addressed much earlier.
What could have been done differently to make you stay?
Ask for specific examples to gain valuable insights such as more lucrative benefits, flexible working arrangements, opportunities for growth, career advancement, training, recognising achievements, higher compensation, job security or workplace autonomy.
