Do You Conduct Employee Exit Interviews?

In the most straightforward terms, an exit interview is simply a means of determining the reasons why a departing employee has decided to leave an organization:

• Find out why the person is leaving
• Remind the employee of his or her confidentiality obligations
• Get feedback on company operations and policies to spot any needed areas of improvement

Exit interviews should be structured to elicit frank responses. How can you do that? For starters, don’t conduct exit interviews on an employee’s last day. In fact, don’t conduct interviews at all until after employees have left the job.

How can you be sure they will participate once they’ve left your organization? On their last day, explain that your organization is instituting an improvement program and that their opinions will be a valuable part of this program. Then ask if someone can call in about a week for an exit interview. This gives departing employees a chance to think about their responses and makes it more likely that they will respond.

Why even conduct and exit interview? The objective is to look for areas within the organization that need improvement. The key to achieving that objective is building a sufficient level of trust during the exit interview that will allow former employees to respond openly and honestly.