The departure of an employee—especially a high performer or key person—can cause a frenzy as the company scrambles to fill the position. Conducting exit interviews with departing employees in such an atmosphere might seem like an unnecessary and time-consuming distraction, but it can pay off in significant ways. Done right, exit interviews present a ripe opportunity to gain valuable insights on your company, what it’s like to work there, and how you can improve your employee turnover rate.
The role of the exit interview
In a nutshell, an exit interview is a discussion with a departing employee shortly before they leave the company, primarily about why they’re moving on and what their employee experience with the company has been. Exit interviews allow you to gather important intelligence on your company culture, management styles, processes and procedures, employer brand, and competitive position in the job market.
The interviewer should ask open-ended questions to prompt honest feedback rather than brief yes or no answers that shed little light—for example, “What is the best thing about working here?” The goal is to collect frank, in-depth, and actionable responses to improve employee recruitment and retention strategies and other critical areas.
Exit interview best practices
Whether you routinely conduct exit interviews or will soon do your first, you should keep in mind several proven tips for effective exit interviews, including the following:
Exit interview do’s:
- Consult first with leadership. Ensure that your top brass are on board with both conducting exit interviews of departing employees and making use of the results. Without such buy-in, exit interviews will be a time-consuming and wasteful exercise. Moreover, they could do damage by leaving a bad taste in the mouth of the exiting employee who agreed to the interview and the employees left behind who know the interview was done and nothing came of it.
- Determine whether to conduct the interview in person. Experts debate if an exit interview should be done in person. It’s easier to follow up on answers and nonverbal cues in face-to-face discussions (live or via video conference). However, some say that departing employees are more likely to be candid if they’re not sitting with an interviewer. If you believe that to be the case, you might be better off sending a digital or mail-in exit survey or questionnaire.
- Give the interviewee a preview. Employees are often reluctant to agree to an exit interview. Let’s face it—these discussions can be awkward for both sides. You can help mitigate their apprehension by informing them in advance about the areas that will be up for discussion. Some employers provide a broad outline, while others give interviewees the complete list of the questions beforehand. Either way, employees may (or may not) give more useful responses if they’ve had time to mull some things over before answering.
- Explain the purpose of the interview. You can further reduce the tension and get interviewees to let down their guard by informing them that the company wants to use their responses to improve the work environment for their former co-workers and future employees. You also might want to let them know that they don’t need to answer questions they’d rather not.
- Ask the same questions. Exit interviews shouldn’t be done on an ad hoc or improvisational basis. Use a standard template of questions prepared by human resources. This makes it easier to identify patterns in the responses. It also reduces the odds of inadvertently offensive, irrelevant, or, worse, unlawful discriminatory questions.
- Describe the extent of confidentiality. Different employers apply different degrees of confidentiality to exit interview results. Whatever your policy, make it clear to the employee from the beginning. If the policy provides that all responses are confidential, ask the interviewee if you can share their feedback and with whom. (You may want to limit this to certain answers rather than a blanket sharing.) If their responses won’t be kept confidential, explain who will have access—and understand that many departing employees will withhold potentially useful information for fear of burning professional bridges.
- Listen closely and actively. Paying close attention sends interviewees the message that you care about their input and facilitates effective follow-up questions. Your willingness to listen and thoughtfully engage can get back to the current employees, too, sending them the message that you’re invested in their experience.
- Have a fail-safe documentation system in place. To make the most of an exit interview, you need to take away specific details; general concepts or areas of concern are too vague to act on productively. Decide in advance whether you’ll take notes, record the session, or use some other means of comprehensive documentation. Each will have pros and cons (for example, you won’t miss anything with a recording, but you may make the interviewee uncomfortable and less likely to open up). Consider asking the employee which method they prefer.
Exit interview don’ts
- Allow the employee’s direct supervisor (or someone in their line of supervision) to conduct the interview. Whether the employee and the supervisor have a healthy or contentious relationship, it’s likely to stifle honesty. Generally, the best approach is to have a human resources representative or someone else with authority to trigger change conduct the interview. In some cases, an outside consultant may be the way to go. Just make sure that the interviewer is skilled in active listening.
- Neglect to prepare. Yes, you’re generally asking the same questions in each interview, but you still need to prepare for each individual interviewee. At a minimum, you should familiarize yourself with the particular job duties and the employee’s time and history with the company.
- Do most of the talking. The point of exit interviews, in general, and open-ended questions specifically, is to get the departing employee talking. They literally can’t do that if the interviewer speaks excessively. They’ll probably also get the impression that their input isn’t actually of much interest to the interviewer or the company.
- Drag it out. Again, most interviewees don’t want to be there, so keep things streamlined and on point. Limit the exit interview to 10 to 12 questions and an hour so you don’t take too much of the employee’s time (or patience). When an interview runs too long, you stop gathering helpful information after a point and risk creating resentment.
- Get defensive. There’s no better way to shut down feedback than to get defensive or argumentative in response to employee input. Regardless of whether their statements are accurate or fair, remember that the goal is to elicit honest impressions. By just receiving the information without comment, you can uncover misunderstandings or other issues that you can clear up with current employees before they follow the departing employee out the door.
- Stray from a position of neutrality. Exit interviews aren’t the time to share your opinions or gossip. You may think that agreeing with an interviewee’s opinions or letting them in on some “insider” information will encourage openness, but it can have the opposite effect—and it’s unprofessional. Similarly, you should avoid expressing surprise at or agreement with an interviewee’s answers.
- Make exit interviews mandatory. While making these discussions mandatory ensures full participation, employees have no legal obligation to sit for an exit interview. Forcing an unwilling party to do so is unwise.
Sample exit interview questions
Asking the right questions is essential for an effective exit interview. The right questions help you explore three vital areas (some questions will overlap):
1. Reasons for leaving
You want to know if the departing employee’s reason was something in your company’s control (as opposed to, for example, family reasons, retirement, or relocation), especially if it’s contributing to your overall employee turnover rate.
That said, you shouldn’t merely ask why the interviewee is leaving. You’re more likely to pull out revealing information with questions like:
- What first attracted you to our company?
- How did working here compare with your expectations?
- How has your job changed since you were hired?
- What was it like working for your manager?
- What advice would you give your manager?
- What factors were most important to your decision to leave?
- What, if anything, could we have done to keep you with the company?
- How did you learn about your new job?
- What’s most appealing about your new job?
The ship has probably sailed on an employee by the time you reach the exit interview stage, but their answers to questions like these can allow you to adjust course and make real changes that significantly improve your employer brand. They can also give you a rare look into your competitors’ recruiting strategies.
2. Employee experience
These questions let you dig into your company culture, onboarding, employee engagement, the interviewee’s specific job, and management styles. You can glean information about job satisfaction and your company’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the work environment by asking questions such as:
- Did you feel you received the necessary training and tools to thrive in your job?
- Did you get along with your co-workers?
- Did you feel supported by your manager (for example, did you receive regular and constructive feedback and professional development opportunities)?
- Were your responsibilities and performance expectations clearly communicated?
- Was your position accurately described during the recruitment process?
- What were the best and worst parts of your job?
- How would you describe our company culture?
- Did you feel valued?
- What do you think about our compensation program (including employee benefits and system for wage increases and advancement)?
- [If the interviewee mentions specific problems or issues] Did you ever raise these concerns previously?
Among other things, these questions seek information on how your managers can improve, how you craft your job descriptions and postings, the success of your training programs and employee recognition efforts, how comfortable employees are with speaking up, and whether the company is responsive when they do.
3. Going forward
Effective exit interviews don’t only look backward. Forward-looking questions are a smart way to end an interview because it leaves the interviewee with reassurance that the company is serious about self-improvement. So you should conclude by asking questions such as:
- How can we make this a better place to work?
- Would you consider returning to the company for a different position? Why or why not?
- Would you recommend the company to a friend? Why or why not?
- Is there anything else that we haven’t discussed that you would like to, or that you would like to share?
Think, too, about sending a follow-up to your former employee with an open-ended question or two a few weeks after they’ve left to see if anything additional has occurred to them or they have any clarifications.
After the interview
The exit interview process doesn’t end when the departing employee leaves the room or submits their responses. There’s no point wasting time and resources if you don’t intend to act on the findings. And, as noted above, it could actually hurt the company’s reputation and morale to solicit but ultimately ignore employee feedback.
So how do you put the responses to work? First, consider aggregating all of your exit interview responses across employees, redacting or deleting identifying information, and avoiding direct quotes. Once you’ve compiled the aggregated information, comb over it to identify trends and red flags (even if not yet a trend).
For example, if several employees who have recently left the same department mention the work environment or personality conflicts with the manager, that’s a red flag that merits investigation. If multiple departing employees from across the company complain about work-life balance or insufficient training, implementing changes to these areas might improve your employee retention.
From there, you should select the most relevant and urgent information and present it in an easy-to-process format for company leaders on a regular basis. Include data visualization elements like charts and graphs, as well as a list of actionable recommendations. You should also develop metrics for the recommendations. These will help you monitor and measure progress and make necessary adjustments along the way.
Gusto’s HR software can simplify the exit interview process. From exit interviews to custom reporting, it leverages your employee turnover data to help you make targeted decisions to better your business.