An Opinion: Beef Up Exit Interviews
Robert Cenek
2 Comments
Like slim cut blue jeans, exit interviews are making a comeback.
Exit interviews are returning to vogue due to their ability to help forestall very costly turnover, and to serve as a rock solid antidote in a tight labor market. They’ll become a more important activity because retention is going to be the hot HR buzzword of the second half of this decade. The Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) April 2006 issue of HR Magazine featured a piece entitled “Workforce Retention: A Growing Concern.” The author, Susan Meisinger, President and CEO of SHRM states: “it’s evident that HR professionals need to focus on retention strategies – starting now.”
Exit interviews can be a good first step in collecting valuable information for identifying ways of keeping high performing employees. Unfortunately, they’re currently a perfunctory, non-strategic, paper pushing exercise in far too many settings, and will not realize their full potential unless the activity is better designed and executed. Some of the more common boo-boos and acts of bungling include:
1. Having in-house HR departments conduct a face to face interview . This is a best practice for obtaining happy talk, doublespeak, double-entendre, and other forms of sanitized or coded communications. Most people will not divulge the true reason for leaving to internal employees for fear of burning bridges, and any number of other subtle reasons. Research confirms that piece of conventional wisdom. Susan Givens-Skeaton [2003] of St. Joseph ’s University validated this in research for her doctoral dissertation – specifically that perceptions of sensitivity and threat do impact individual’s willingness to disclose. Her findings confirmed those first obtained by Lefkowitz and Katz (1969), who found that only 41% of their sample provided the same reason for leaving pre- and post-departure. Organizations are better served to outsource the process to a non-affiliated party – a very inexpensive proposition and considerably cheaper than an employment background check.
2. Failing to aggregate survey or interview findings. Passing along raw, unfiltered results to those in the chain of command is another “worst practice,” and usually produces a dark, damp cloud on candor. Results should be aggregated, with demographical information kept to a minimum. Trends, not identities, are more important.
3. Providing employment references. This practice benefits those departed employees who were seen as high performers and who in turn have positive feelings about their former employer. For others, this policy will probably create tight lips. It’s not rocket science: very few departing individuals will take the risk of offending a previous supervisor who they’d like to count on to at least provide a neutral reference. Solid research by Feldman and Klass (1999) supports this conclusion.
4. Burying the results . The risk/reward equation weighs heavily on the minds of departing employees when they are processing the attractiveness of being truly candid on the way out. Through direct observation, most employees can generate a clue as to whether management really wants their feedback. As with any survey or interview, participants will withhold their true feelings or not provide them at all if they believe that there will be no or little benefit to providing their unvarnished opinion.
Look for more organizations to beef up their exit interview process, and to provide it with more care and feeding. Advances in web-based survey technology will accelerate the attractiveness of outsourcing the entire effort to a third party.
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Reader Comments (2)
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20060401/handson-managing.html
Another interesting trend is companies developing more robust alumni networks. In a competitive labor market, anything an organization can do to demonstrate that their culture values employees will give them a competitive advantage.
Great article! Highlights the growing importance for the technique to be done right!
Thank you! I know that other readers will enjoy having the link.
Robert Cenek, RODP