Many businesses conduct exit interviews with departing staff.  While these businesses are to be commended for their commitment, the exit interviews are often not anonymous or independently conducted. This leads to the situation where employees (even those departing the organisation) are reluctant to be honest or truthful about why they are leaving the business.

The way to get honest feedback is to have your exit interviews conducted by an external and independent person/company.  The exit interview results are then collated every 6 months or so into a report so that the information can be presented to the business in an anonymous format.  In this way people can feel relatively safe to ‘tell the truth’.

The information gained through well conducted Exit Interviews can be used to help you to retain your good staff.

Tips for developing your own Exit Interview Format

Ask different types of questions for different types of responses (i.e. qualitative and quantitative).

Remember the quality of your questions will determine the quality of the answers

Provide multiple choice questions which are easy to answer

Provide an even range of options from highly satisfied to highly dissatisfied.  For example providing four options avoids people automatically choosing the middle option.

Seek the reason the person is leaving by providing a range of options

Ensure you cover environmental/workplace issues including, safety, people management, bullying and conflict.

Gather as much information as you can without being judgemental or intrusive.  Don’t make any assumptions; clarify the answers where you can. Make changes to your business if required.

When good staff leaving your business is a problem, contact an independent specialist to organise exit interviews and to collate the information for you. Ph 1300 4 PPS WA or 1300 4 777 92