Some pointers that I've got are:
Overall Goals
A strategic EI program provides insight into what employees are thinking, reveals problems in the organization, and sheds light on the competitive landscape. In shaping their programs, companies should focus on six goals:
1. Uncover issues relating to HR.
Companies that conduct exit interviews almost always pursue this goal but often focus too narrowly on salary and benefits. To be sure, people need a certain level of financial compensation to remain with an organization, but unless their salary is out of alignment with their peers’, money doesn’t usually drive them out the door. Plenty of other HR practices can play into an employee’s decision to leave. One leader from a food and beverage company told us that exit interviews inform his company’s succession planning and talent management process.
2. Understand employees’ perceptions of the work itself.
This includes job design, working conditions, culture, and peers. This can help managers improve employee motivation, efficiency, coordination, and effectiveness.
3. Gain insight into managers’ leadership styles and effectiveness.
This equips the organization to reinforce positive managers and identify toxic ones. One executive at a major restaurant chain told us that several exit interviews she’d recently conducted revealed that micromanagement was a big problem. The conversations, she said, “led to some very tangible outcomes,” such as establishing training and development initiatives to create better managers.
4. Learn about HR benchmarks (salary, benefits) at competing organizations.
“We use exit interviews to see how competitive we are against other employers: time off, ability to advance, different benefits, and pay packages,” an HR executive at a global food and beverage company told us. “And we want to see who is poaching our people.”
5. Foster innovation by soliciting ideas for improving the organization.
EIs should go beyond the individual’s immediate experience to cover broader areas, such as company strategy, marketing, operations, systems, competition, and the structure of his or her division. One emerging best practice is to ask every departing employee something along the lines of “Please complete the sentence ‘I don’t know why the company doesn’t just ____.’” This approach may reveal trends.
6. Create lifelong advocates for the organization.
Treat departing employees with respect and gratitude. That may encourage them to recommend their former companies to potential employees, to use and recommend the companies’ products and services, and to create business alliances between their former and new employers. “You want [a departing employee] to leave as an ambassador and customer,” said one North American financial services executive.
Tactics and Techniques
Our most troubling finding is that, as noted earlier, EIs are wholly an HR function at most companies. Indeed, HR often conducts the interviews and consolidates the data, sharing it with management only when directly asked. But this approach marginalizes the process and suggests that it is an operational duty rather than a strategic opportunity. Human resources may administer the program day to day, but it is imperative that the right line leaders participate in the interviews and that the executive committee oversees the program’s design, execution, and results. Our research suggests that the committee should meet to discuss this topic at least annually.
After defining goals and assigning ownership, organizations can focus on tactics and techniques. Here are the main factors to consider:
1. The interviewer.
We found that interviews conducted by second- or third-line managers are most likely to lead to action. Second-line managers (direct supervisors’ managers) typically receive more-honest feedback precisely because they’re one step removed from the employee. Also, these managers are in a position to follow up immediately and effectively. Their participation signals that the company cares about the opinions of departing employees.
If your company institutes a second interview post-departure, consider hiring a consultant to conduct it. An external consultant typically has several advantages over an internal interviewer, including expertise in exit interviewing and a complete lack of bias, so he or she is more likely to produce reliable data. (You might not want to use a consultant for the first EI, because you’d lose the value of the line manager’s participation.)
The interviewee.
Some organizations interview everyone who leaves, and some interview only professional employees, executives, or high potentials. We recommend making EIs mandatory for at least some employees, because research has shown that doing so increases the odds that some specific action will be taken. Our study revealed that the organizations with the most-progressive programs prioritized high potentials and stars over others—a sensible course, given that they’re harder to replace. Furthermore, high potentials are generally knowledgeable about the company and also likely to know more about competitors, because they are often recruitment targets. Those who leave can be the most valuable organizational ambassadors, because they’re likely to wield plenty of influence in the future. One global telecommunications executive told us that when a high potential leaves, “we want to know everything about it.”
2. Timing.
Some experts argue that the most productive moment to conduct the initial EI is halfway between the announcement of an intention to leave and the actual departure—after the initial rush of emotion has died down, but before the employee has checked out mentally. Unfortunately, most exit interviews are conducted during the last week of an employee’s tenure, which is probably long after he or she has disengaged.
Another effective approach is to wait until after the employee has left the company. “We typically do the exit interview about a month later, and it’s much more relaxed,” says one leader in the auto industry. “This is especially if the person who left was a high potential. They normally tell us very honestly why, and often we respond with programs to work on the problems.”
Recommendations about the optimal length of an EI vary. Some executives believe it should be kept to an hour, with the option of continuing should the conversation merit it. Others recommend up to 90 minutes. You may want to let departing employees choose the setting and timing of their exit interviews.
3. Frequency.
Should you conduct one, two, or three exit interviews? Companies can get rich feedback by scheduling several interactions—an interview, a survey, a phone call—before and after an employee departs. Many experts advocate conducting one interview while the employee is still there and one a few months after departure as an effective way of getting forthright responses. In one study, by Joel Lefkowitz, of Baruch College, and Myron Katz, of BFS Psychological Associates, 59% of former employees who answered a questionnaire mailed several months after their exit gave reasons for leaving that differed from those they’d offered during their initial exit interviews. And every employee who had initially failed to cite causes for leaving mentioned specific reasons on the questionnaire. Many company managers feel that three to six months between the initial interview and a follow-up is optimal.
4. Method.
Most experts believe that a face-to-face interview is the best way to create rapport, though some consider telephone interviews just as effective. Scholars who have found that telephone interviewing may elicit greater honesty than face-to-face meetings argue that the additional cost of in-person interviews is not justified. We generally prefer face-to-face interviews for the most valued employees. But depending on the individual who’s leaving, the questions to be asked, and other factors, telephone interviews may be preferable.
If the program calls for more than one interview, varied approaches can help elicit candid responses and test for consistency. We believe that telephone interviews and web surveys are typically best used as complements to face-to-face interviews, and that at least one in-person interview is essential to promote long-term ambassadorship.
5. Structure.
An unstructured interview can yield unexpected and helpful responses, but it makes consolidating the information more difficult, especially when turnover is heavy. The strength of standardized interview questions is that they make it easier to spot trends. However, they rarely deliver surprising insights and may come off as perfunctory, unintentionally signaling that employees’ ideas are not important to the organization. By combining the two approaches companies can more effectively probe areas of frequent dissatisfaction while also leaving room for unanticipated responses.
Manner.
Interviewers should be trained to listen more than they talk and to avoid displays of authority. They should be patient and friendly, occasionally asking open-ended questions and speaking only enough to prompt the interviewee or steer the discussion toward an important topic. They should refrain from discussing fixes for any problems that surface. For example, if a departing employee says that the company requires too many signatures for contract approval, a skilled interviewer will ask him or her to recommend a solution but won’t talk about possible company responses. “Don’t try to fix issues then,” a European telecommunications executive recommends. “Allow the employee to vent. Don’t draw it out. Don’t second-guess management.” Again, training is critical, given the emotional nature of most resignations. It takes skill to reach the heart of the matter.
Interviewers should also frame questions positively and avoid embarrassing interviewees or delving into their personal lives. They might ask how an employee liked the job (was it rewarding, challenging, too easy?) and how working conditions could be improved. Sometimes interviewers ask departing employees how their colleagues feel about their work, because someone who’s reluctant to offer a candid opinion might be comfortable ascribing his or her feelings to coworkers. Regardless of whose feelings are shared, useful insights may result.
Most employees have other jobs lined up by the time they announce their departure. An interviewer should consider asking about the new job, but not about how the two positions compare; it’s important not to make the employee feel he has to defend his or her choice. The point is to gather benchmarking information. Also, the interviewer should ask for suggestions for improving the job, the work group, or the entire company. Finally, interviewees should have an opportunity to talk about any other pressing matters or thoughts.
6. Information gained.
How will the company consolidate, share, and act on the EI data? First, any distribution plan should respect the sensitivity of the data and protect interviewees’ candor, particularly about their bosses.
Second, the distribution of data should be timed according to the executive decision cycle. A company might require senior line managers to present their subunits’ EI data in detail at an executive committee meeting, including specific actions that will be taken in response to feedback or specific reasons for not taking action. When the EI process identifies performance or opportunity gaps, the committee can demand solutions and provide the needed resources.
Leaders often ask if they should share EI data with current employees. That should be up to the executive committee; many executives argue that the company is not obligated to share the data.
Recognizing the uniqueness of each employee, organizations can create an “exit interview menu” that allows him or her to customize the EI experience by choosing the interviewer(s), location, method, length, follow-up, and so on. This design honors departing employees by letting them leave on their own terms, and can lead to better data and stronger ambassadorship in the future.
Yours,
Something Small Thinking Big
