An Honest Farewell
The best way to receive candid feedback from exit interviews
It’s that kind of day again. Your well-oiled powerhouse of a team is about to lose its star player as she strikes out on ventures new. You feel that familiar sense of dread at having to find someone even half as amazing to take her place, and then get them up to speed to maintain that aura around your team. And of course, that woe at losing a crucial member just as things were about to get super busy.
Wouldn’t it be great to really understand why the best of them move on? Before you start playing Another One Bites The Dust, of course you’ll try to get their reasons for leaving. Too often though we see disingenuous responses and niceties exchanged as part of a process that is viewed as little more than a box ticking exercise. Regardless of how open the employee may have been during their tenure and the circumstances of their exit; the outgoing interview process suffers from a lack transparency, yielding less than reliable data to influence any future course of action.
Really understanding all aspects of why an employee leaves and what their experience of the company was like can be used to drive positive change across the organisation. And after all, if you know the truth behind the whys, that’s a lot less goodbyes.
Why they won’t tell you
We asked a lot of people, and we asked ourselves, why wouldn’t we say exactly what we thought of the organisation, the team, the manager and the culture on our way out of a job. And it boiled down to a few simple truths.
1. Burn no bridges: By far the most popular reason for not sharing an unpopular opinion, employees are keen to leave on good terms regardless of how contentious their employment might have been. It’s a small world after all and you never know where you might encounter a person in the future, so most people would rather not make a bad situation worse by airing new grievances on the way out.
2. Employer referrals: Quite a practical reason, and whether it is true or not, many leavers are afraid that sharing anything too candid or negative in nature will impact referrals they might need from the organisation. As the need for referrals can extend far into the future, this is a concern even if they have already received any immediate references required for their next job.
3. Mentally disengaged: After handing in their notice, several employees we interviewed professed to have mentally and emotionally moved on and were no longer as concerned about providing inputs that might lead to organisational improvement. This holds true for both positive and negative sentiments.
4. Reserved viewpoints: Depending on the type of employee and their role within the company, they might not feel as comfortable airing their views, especially if they have not typically been able to share their opinions during their tenure. This can be a factor both of personalities and the broader working environment.
5. Unfulfilled promises: Having spent a considerable period in an environment where promised change has not been implemented, departing employees feel their contribution at this late stage will have no real impact. With a hundred and one things buzzing in their mind, they might try to get through any exit formalities as quickly as possible if they do not see any real commitment to change the existing state.
What you can do
So, how do we get around these obstacles? Well this is exactly where a strategic exit interview programme comes into play by creating an environment where exit feedback can be captured in a manner that employees trust enough to be open with.
With a common thread running through several stumbling blocks, here are the time (and peer!) tested strategies you can use to really uncover “the why behind the goodbye”.
1. Choice of interviewer: One simple choice that can make a world of difference! Easily the least optimal person to be running an exit interview is the employee’s line manager, yet far too often we have seen that to be the case. The line manager is likely to be in one of two stages — one where they either know the answers to all questions asked, giving the entire process the feeling of an unnecessary formality, or one where the relationship does not allow the employee to be open about their reasons for leaving, especially if they have to do with team or management dynamics.
The other common choice for carrying out the interview is an HR Business Partner or equivalent, and while this is better than the direct line manager, unless the BP has been involved with the employee prior to this moment, they might be perceived to just be part of the system and lacking a firm grasp of the intricacies of the employee’s role and team.
The ideal option in the absence of an engaged HR team is to have a third level line manager or above carry out the interview, both because they have a deeper understanding of the employee’s job and also because they are in a position to enact changes or investigate any surprising concerns raised by the employee at this stage. A far less common option is to outsource the process to a team that is adept at managing the interview, able to ask the right questions and build upon existing information to really drill down to the most critical points of the exit.
2. Maintain confidentiality: If you are asking someone to share opinions and facts that they feel may have a detrimental impact on their future career, it is imperative that the entire process be considered completely confidential. This aspect needs to be reinforced at every stage and confidence must be built in through careful handling of the outcomes from previous interviews. Keep access to any feedback restricted and separated from other data current and future team members might have access to. Ensure any investigations and actions that come out of exit interviews be phased in unless the information revealed is of a more serious nature requiring disciplinary action. Any personal information shared must be kept in strictest confidence and addressed in general terms when rolling out changes as part of a wider operational program. With the introduction of GDPR in the EU last year, many firms have already enhanced their data management practices, and while this applies to employee as well as customer data, it is beneficial to highlight and convey this point to staff being asked to share sensitive facts and opinions.
3. Faith in impact: Working together with confidentiality, it is still vital to make changes within the organisation that are clearly tied to exit and associated employee feedback. This messaging encourages employees to be open and constructive with their views, as they can see the positive action that results from them. If there is a constant gathering of feedback and very little changes on the ground, employees across the board have expressed a general lethargy when faced with questionnaires that hope to capture their feedback in order to improve the organisation. By sharing digestible reports in scheduled reviews with senior leadership and displaying wider progress in tracked metrics to the organisation, everyone can buy into the power of the program.
4. Multiple touchpoints: By providing several avenues to employees to gather their feedback, you allow the data to take on a more robust shape. Beginning with a questionnaire and following up with a more fluid personal interview that is informed by the questionnaire means there is an opportunity to amend and enhance previous responses. Crossing this data with responses from individuals in similar positions allows you to detect trends and really get to the heart of issues shaping people’s decision to leave. And for a bonus data point, you can also schedule in a follow-up three months into the new job, allowing the employee to really reflect on their old job once they’ve had a chance to assess just how green that grass really is!
5. Optimise timing: Finally, choosing the ideal time for the interview is a key factor towards how engaged an employee you’ll find on the other side. Not too early and not too late in the process, you want to aim for that most Goldilocks of windows when they still have a few weeks to their departure and are not completely caught up in the midst of the handover process or have already disengaged from the organisation. By sending out a questionnaire quite early on, at most a week after they have handed in their notice, you can also space out multiple touchpoints allowing you to maximise engagement and really get some meaningful data from the process.
Now it goes without saying, but it’s still being said, none of these are a sure-shot way to success until they have been put into practice and employees have been able to see the organisation walking its talk. Yet with a well-structured program and a trustworthy process, you can enact change that will have a positive impact on staff turnover, employee engagement, talent management and so much more.
If you’d like to learn more or share your views, and even see how easy it is to implement these steps and build an exit program around them, check us out at IlluminOut and we’d be happy to show you why departing employees truly can be your greatest asset!
– Ray @ IlluminOut
