How to Conduct an Exit Interview?

3 of January, 2023

The most efficient approach to learning about departing workers’ experiences at your company is to conduct a successful exit interview. Planning and setting up a welcoming interview environment is necessary for a good exit interview. The appropriate concluding interview questions must be your first priority.

To help you with that, it is very convenient that you have useful reports and data that will allow you to be direct and sincere. This way, both the company and the employee can benefit from this situation.

This article will cover all the essential information concerning exit interviews and advice on how to conduct a successful one.

What is an exit interview?

Exit interviews are meetings that HR staff members or corporate executives hold with exiting workers. The exit interview enables a company to learn more and comprehend the positive and negative experiences that workers have had while working there.

The activities at your workplace are well-known among departing workers. To understand your business from their perspective, you should pay attention to what they say during the exit interview. An interview might be helpful in this situation.

An exit interview lets you learn all the crucial information about a departing employee and their perception of your business. These particulars will include the lovely aspects of your employment and the unpleasant realities likely to make you uneasy.

The responses from exit interviews serve as the basis for future regulatory standards and improvements at top organizations. You may improve the workplace using the input from the staff who are staying.

Most used methods

Exit interviews are often conducted using one of two methods:

1. Face-to-face interview: This strategy is the best way to conduct exit interviews. It allows the interviewer and the exiting employees to speak directly with one another. The interviewer is better able to ascertain the opinions of departing workers that are truly honest with the company through follow-up questions.
2. Questionnaire: This strategy is used by businesses when a sizable number of workers leave at once. Rather than using the time-consuming face-to-face exit interview method, they just mail out questionnaires for the leaving staff to complete. This exit interview method tends to be less individualized because you cannot receive in-depth responses from staff members using this strategy.

What should you get from an exit interview?

An excellent exit interview gives you insights into the departing employee’s feelings while they were working for you. It enables you to gather opinions, thoughts, and suggestions to help make your workplace more welcoming and pleasant for current staff members and potential new workers.

In conclusion, an exit interview enables you to

• Find out the precise cause of your workers’ leave.
• Learn what needs to be improved at your place of employment.
• Obtain feedback so you may keep your present personnel.

Easy tips for a successful exit interview 

The following tips can help you conduct an exit interview successfully:

Schedule ahead

A one-on-one interview is usually preferable since it lets you obtain in-depth feedback from departing staff. As a result, you should start by notifying the employee about the interview by email in advance. Make sure to clarify the interview’s goal in the message so that the recipients understand why they must participate.

To give the employee ample time to prepare comprehensive responses, you may include the exit interview questionnaire in the email. Last but not least, make sure the interview occurs in the final weeks of their job. Make it their final act before departing your company, if feasible.

Make the exit interview voluntary

Exit interviews would not always be something that your departing staff wants to do. There may be personal or non-personal factors behind this. You should not pressure them into the interview, whatever the reason(s) may be.

Depending on the labor laws of your nation, it can be unlawful to require employees to take part in an exit interview. Additionally, it undermines the fundamental objective of the system because it is unlikely that the employee would provide solutions that will benefit your case.

They are likely to respond inanely quickly or favorably to the majority of inquiries.

Create a comfortable interview environment

Obtaining both positive and negative information about an employee’s experience with your company is one of the main goals of exit interviews.

You cannot accomplish this without providing a welcoming and open atmosphere for departing employees. Making sure that the employee’s boss does not lead the exit interview himself is the first step in establishing such a setting.

To oversee the exit interviewing process, choose a corporate executive and a representative from HR. The employee will feel more at ease answering the questions honestly if their immediate manager is not there.

Next, provide your staff with a guarantee of privacy. Inform them that their comments will be considered together with those of other staff members and sent to management for evaluation.

It will give them the confidence to express themselves more honestly without worrying that it would hurt their prospects of returning to the organization one day.

Ask the right questions

Prior to the exit interview:

1. Conduct some research and compile some data on the employee.
2. To ensure you do not forget anything, prepare a list of interview questions based on the information you have learned.
3. Watch out for queries that can be considered controversial or unethical during the exit interview.

In an exit interview, you should refrain from asking the following questions:

• Inquiries regarding certain workers (aside from their managers or supervisors)
• Inquiries regarding office rumors
• Concerning their private lives
• Questions unrelated to the business
• Pay attention to employees’ responses

Take notes while you ask the questions, paying close attention to the respondents’ responses to ensure you do not forget. Ask clarifying inquiries if you do not comprehend a particular response.

Pay attention to what your staff says they also appreciate about your business. Maintaining current staff requires having this information.

Examine the positive aspects of their remarks and make them stronger or better. For instance, if they often use the workplace game room, you may add extra activities to keep workers entertained during lunch breaks.

Finally, you must put into practice all the advice you received from your departing employees for your exit interview to be successful. Do not forget to consider every comment, suggestion, and idea. Examine the most frequent grievances and attempt to identify solutions.

A software can be very helpful

HR software can be very helpful in these cases. Sesame HR has people analytics tool, for example. The most significant part of it, is the ability to quantify patterns, visualize information, and, most crucially, base judgments on data.

Therefore, using people analytics to help conduct an exit interview is the best option. With this tool, you will have useful information to give insights in advance of the interview. Try a 14-day free trial right now!