Why You Should Always Do an Exit Interview with People Leaving

It doesn’t matter how good your business is performing; it is always essential to continue learning and advancing your skills to create a better environment for your team members.

The importance of conducting an Exit Survey when employees leave is one of the things that many business owners tend to ignore since they do not understand its impact on the success of their brands.

It is automatic that at some point, employees will leave your company and join other teams for any number of reasons. Unfortunately, no matter what steps you put in place to retain talent, it’s inevitable that team members will abandon ship over time. When one of your team members is leaving, it’s critical that you schedule an exit interview with them, otherwise, you’ll miss out on tons of valuable insights.

No matter whether you rarely lose employees or you find employees bailing out on a regular basis, it is crucial for the well-being of your business to understand ‘why’ they leave.

The interview is meant to help you understand more about your employees’ experiences given their time serving your company. However, the sad news is that even if your business does use exit interviews or surveys, about 40% of businesses do not know how to use the information gathered from the exit survey. 

By getting the view of things from employees who are exiting your company, you can easily identify the significant areas of weakness that need to be strengthened for the business’s success. This article is focused on answering questions about why you need to do an exit survey or interview for the people leaving.

Let’s dive in and start learning about the importance of conducting exit interviews. Here are five of the top reasons you need to interview employees who are leaving your company.

To Improve Culture and Performance 

An exit survey is a crucial aspect of improving your business that can have an impact on culture and the general performance of your business. Note that ex-employees are more open than those still serving the company. Those people exiting your business are more honest, and they can help you get reliable information.

At this point, you are more likely to learn more about why the employee is leaving your company. Often, the reason driving an employee to leave your company may not line up with what you think.

No longer being subject to repercussions, the exiting employee is open enough to give you a candid assessment of your company culture.

This is impactful to your business performance since you gain sincere insights regarding the culture of your business operations. The insights can be used to make an organizational strategy that will help improve operations and retain top talent.

The action you are likely to take at this point impacts your business culture and your general performance.

Improve the Recruitment Process 

Exit surveys incorporate credible information that can help you transform your recruitment process. The impact not only on recruitment but also on the general onboarding and training process. Remember that training is crucial for every employee who joins your company.

The ex-employee can help you understand where you are failing and where things are working. The information you obtain at this point can help you transform your employee’s expectations depending on their job positions within the company.

For example, an employee may complain in their interview that expectations for job performance were unclear. As such, you can take this information and review your onboarding processes. Uncover areas where a bit more clarity may be necessary and make some adjustments.

Focus on creating a good working environment for all your employees to encourage them to give their best in every aspect of their role. Once every team member performs to their best, you are better positioned to succeed in business.

Improving Staff Retention 

Staff retention is a crucial aspect of the well-being of any company across virtually any industry. A higher staff turnover is costly and can affect the financial status of a given company. This is because training, recruiting, and onboarding employees is costly.

Carrying out an exit survey can help you get precise information about where you are falling short. After you are done with the entire process, you need to do data analysis of survey results of exit interviews using Likert scale chart to identify the significant touchpoints and other areas of focus affecting the well-being of your company.

Once you get a grasp on the various reasons why people are leaving your company, you can easily leverage the information to fill gaps and build in processes to keep your team in-house instead of running to join the competition.

Using the same data you have at your disposal, you can analyze possible trends across your business environment and get the best solution in place to create change before too many talented folks run out that door.

Data is a crucial aspect when evaluating ways of increasing staff retention. You need to consider a series of factors that affect your employees’ well-being and what might trigger them to leave.

Enhances Learning and Development Strategies 

In most cases, exit surveys work like an eye-opener to things you never knew were happening within your company environment. You are likely to identify areas that require reinforcement to enhance smooth operations daily through the exit interview.

Running a company is a daunting task. There are so many things you don’t see on a day-to-day basis, and exit interviews can give you eyes on those things.

You might realize that your team members are missing something or dealing with issues that make their stay in your company difficult. Not enough pay, no childcare, issues with management, lack of direction, and any number of things.

Employees need to have everything at their disposal to remain comfortable and focus on things that matter. When the team members lack specific things, they are likely to leave and go to better places that offer those things.

Besides, when the employees do not feel supported by the company management, they are likely to find better organizations to work with that will support their needs and their growth. You need to ensure that all the team members are settled, and nothing feels challenging within the business setting. Always keep in mind that employees are human beings and need a better working environment.

Apart from enhancing learning and development among employees, an exit survey also gives the management team a significant opportunity to stand out as a top employer within the industry. This makes it easier for the company to grow uniformly and attract and retain top talent.

Gives Room to Tackle Emergency Issues Immediately 

Sometimes, there might be severe issues among your team members that need immediate attention. Note that you cannot simply ignore such matters. If you do, you are likely to lose your employees, thus affecting the normal operations within the business environment.

There may be critical issues going on that you are missing. Things like harassment and unsafe working environments can often be ignored or overlooked, and exit interviews can bring those to light, giving you a chance to react.

It is vital to be highly keen on tackling matters within the company. Data analysis of exit survey results is most likely to reveal issues that require immediate attention to safeguard your brand’s reputation. Employees might be leaving due to an emergency within the work environment.

This means that the other team members who remain won’t stay for long due to the same problem. You need to attend to the issue immediately to secure your team members and make them feel valued. 

Final Verdict! 

It is common to see people leave a particular company and join other better places in the current business world. However, analysts say that 75% of employees leave a specific company due to the working model of the managers. This indicates that managers have the power to enhance the employee retention rate.