What Is An Exit Interview?

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Author(s): Bill Crigger is president and managing partner OI Partners--Compass Career Management Solutions (North Carolina)

Sounds like a pretty simple question with a relatively simple answer. An exit interview, by the nature of the terminology, takes place when a person voluntarily leaves an organization or possibly when he/she is downsized or laid-off. Typically, a discharge-for-cause candidate does not get an exit interview. It also seems that much of the literature available about exit interviews describes the "event" as occurring in a face-to-face environment between a representative of human resources and the exiting employee.

Now go to Google and search "employee exit interviews." I found that there were 4,600,000 hits. You will find offers for quotations, online and hard copy surveys, free demos, sample resignation letters, testimonials and more articles than you will ever be able to read. So let's take a step back and ask a few questions:

* What do you hope to accomplish with an exit interview program? The general purpose is to gather information about why employees leave the organization, improve working conditions and to reduce turnover or, in today's language, to improve retention. By the way, exit interviews can also be a way to reduce or minimize litigation because of disgruntled employees.

* Once you conduct an exit interview, what happens next? If the answer is "I am not sure" or "nothing will happen," then stop here; do not go forward. Without a commitment from all levels of the organization to improve retention, you will be spinning your wheels and wasting valuable resources. Existing employees do talk to exiting employees. By doing nothing as the result of conducting exit interviews, you will actually encourage more employees to leave by demonstrating the company's lack of commitment and follow through.

* Will employees complete an exit interview? The data I reviewed seems to provide a mixed answer. Some career professionals encourage exiting employees to share their opinions. Other career experts question the usefulness of an exit interview. They don't think the risk to the employee is worth it. One interesting point raised by several articles I reviewed said that the best time to get employee opinions and input is before he/she leaves; that is, while they are active employees, not exiting employees.

In today's economic climate, I cannot imagine that companies have the time and people resources to conduct face-to-face interviews. Why would an employee be honest about a supervisory issue, if the supervisor is the one conducting the exit interview? And where is the confidentiality? An obvious choice would be to conduct exit interviews via the Internet, but even that option has some problems.

BEST PRACTICE APPROACH

We were contacted by a regional company concerning our ability to conduct an exit interview program. With our OI Partnership talent behind us, we were able to respond in the affirmative.

The first step was to identify why the company felt it needed an exit interview program. Answer: Turnover was extremely high, the results from a recent employee satisfaction survey were worse than a previous survey, and there were some work performance issues. Also, several years earlier, the company had used another firm to conduct telephone exit interviews. The results were zero. Literally, no actual telephone exit interviews had been conducted.

Confidentially and employee anonymity were critical considerations for the company. For this reason, we selected an Internet-based approach survey. Voluntarily exiting employees would be given a letter/e-mail from OI Partners-Compass Career Management that would explain the exit interview purpose, process and contain a URL link complete with pass codes.

Armed with this data (employee opinion survey results and VP of HR interview), we met with company HR representatives, including several functional department heads, and designed an 18-question exit interview questionnaire. Next, we focused our attention on developing questions to supply the demographic information that the company wanted.

At this juncture, the company had bought into the process and was committed to use the data obtained to improve working conditions, resolve problems, and strive to eliminate the reasons employees left the company. The only remaining concern was employee participation. How could we maximize exiting employee participation to gain the data the company needed? By many experts' calculations, turnover costs are up to 150 percent of an employee's annual salary. The company in question had calculated that at a minimum, it was costing $1,000 for every employee who voluntarily resigned.

Tapping into our collective creativity, we developed a process where respondents who completed the exit interview survey would receive a $10.00 Wal-Mart gift card. Processes and letters were modified to protect exiting employee anonymity.

RESULTS:

Year to date, we have distributed more than 500 survey access codes with a 20 percent response rate. Adjusting for part-time employees, discharges and incorrect mailing addresses, the survey response rate is close to 35 percent.

Based on the quarterly reporting and analysis that the company requested, the company has been able to identify specific turnover causes by functional department, by supervisor, and check for any discrepancy by employee demographic categories. The company has even received letters from exiting employees thanking it for taking the time to ask for the employees' input.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a 37 percent annual employee turnover rate for all areas of business in 2004. The failure to retain the most talented and productive employees--the stars who drive the success of any organization--costs small employers thousands of dollars a year in lost knowledge and experience. And for large organizations, the price is even steeper at millions of dollars, year after year.

Recognizing the obvious costs, companies are taking proactive steps to reduce turnover and retain employees. Learning and understanding why employees stay and leave is vital to the success of any business.

Bill Crigger is president and managing partner OI Partners--Compass Career Management Solutions (North Carolina). He has more than 30 years of experience in human resource management and career counseling. Bill is president-elect for the Charlotte AREA SHRM chapter, certified as an SPHR and serves on the ACF-DOL taskforce. He can be reached at bcrigger@oipartners.net or 704-849-2500.

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