The exit interview is usually the final opportunity to understand how an employee feels about the organisation and the way it treats people in circumstances where the employee is not held back by the fear of recriminations or loyalty to others. It is also a great opportunity to discover what that employee might have contributed, and some valuable lessons in improving management.
The onward march of IT
I was upset to see an advertisement for an ‘Exit interview package’ to be run on IT. It seemed to concentrate on the mechanics of managing the exit of an employee, on ways of cutting down the ‘time wasted by interviewing’, and on getting more reliable statistics. It sounded a bit inhuman to me and made me wonder if such interviews were as effective as they should be in learning why the organisation loses people it would like to have kept and in improving the way people are managed.
If only managers would manage
In a better world managers would devote enough time to know their people; they would spend time with them discussing their abilities, ambitions, potential progress and their feelings about their job; they would spend time getting to know their circumstances and know what pressures they were under; they would identify opportunities for them. If they did so, they would know who was likely to leave and what might trigger their loss. I have known a few, far too few, managers who did take that much care of their people. When they lost someone unexpectedly they would probe to learn the reasons for loss and use these to press for improvement. There would always be a discussion, not an interview, on how that loss might have been avoided. There would usually be several informal discussions. The reasons, after probing and due reflection, would then be passed on to management and HR, who would welcome that knowledge as the opportunity to improve engagement and retention.
But not enough really manage their people
We know that from ways in which performance and development reviews are so often mishandled and skimped. Many managers now seem to need checklists which, though useful to the manager, can easily get in the way of an open discussion. I can understand that HR needs a summary of the information gained and the informed judgement of the manager of any issues that are raised. But does HR really need detailed information and statistics, and for those who do have the statistics, what use do they really make of them?
Getting information of real value
The discussion between the leaver and the manager should be fruitful, however many people who are intending to leave are reluctant to criticise their colleagues or manager, or even the organisation. Some just want to get clear away without a fuss, some may not be really sure why they are leaving, ‘Pay and Conditions’ is the easy answer to give but seldom the only reason. It can be difficult to get reliable information as both the leaver and immediate superior may be biased and the leaver can be unwilling to be open. Concentrating on getting answers to the specific questions on the ‘interview form’ can get in the way of finding the underlying reasons, where what is really needed is a friendly open discussion.
Difficulties can be reduced by having separate discussions with those who are clearly independent of the line manager, but the line manager should always be a principal source of information; the other principal source must be the individual whose knowledge may be biased or incomplete but whose views and feelings are relevant. The difficulty is allowing weight according to the reliability of the different sources.
Value to the leaver
A good discussion can be valuable to both the manager and the leaver if both are prepared to be honest and constructive. One which is run for the purpose of gathering statistics may easily obscure lessons which both should learn.
Value to the organisation
We should get valuable information and ideas from exit interviews; we could learn why we have lost our most promising people; we could learn how not to upset our people; we could learn how to increase their commitment.
I believe we generally disregard the underlying reasons and would welcome the views of those who are concerned with reducing the loss of talent.
See: 'Out of sight out of mind' by Nicola Deas in The People Bulletin, 2 June 2010 for further details on how to conduct effective exit interviews.
See also: 'After the horse has bolted...how to get your leavers back' in The People Bulletin, 19 May 2011.