Why are exit interviews important?
To hold on to talent, you need to understand what causes employees to leave. A good way of doing this is by conducting exit interviews with departing staff. How do these work and what exit interview questions should you ask?
What are exit interviews?
An exit interview is a final meeting with an employee who has handed in their notice. It's designed to find out why they're leaving, typically covering topics such as pay and benefits, career growth opportunities, management issues, employee satisfaction and company culture.
The interview is a way for organisations to learn from employees' experiences – both good and bad – so they can make things better for remaining team members, as well as future hires.
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Exit interviews aren't mandatory and not every organisation uses them. In fact, 55% of UK employees who resigned from their last job weren't invited to a formal leaving interview, according to a 2023 study by the Talent Evolution Group (TEG). More than a third weren't even asked for feedback.
But if you don't do exit interviews, how do you know if losing highly skilled team members could have been prevented? If you don't learn why employees leave or what needs to change, you'll end up repeating the same mistakes over and over.
What format should exit interviews take?
There are various ways to carry out exit interviews, depending on what's best for your organisation. These include:
In-person interviews – a face-to-face conversation, usually carried out in the workplace.
Phone or video interviews – a remote conversation if an employee can't attend an in-person interview.
Exit surveys – a questionnaire that the employee can fill in online instead of or alongside an exit interview.
Focus groups – a small group of departing employees discuss their experiences to help identify common issues running throughout the company.
External interviews – outsourcing exit interviews in an effort to bring more confidentiality and objectivity to the process.
Who should conduct exit interviews?
The person conducting an exit interview will need to be skilled enough to uncover the truth without coming across as confrontational or unfeeling.
Most commonly, an HR professional will ask the questions because they can provide an impartial setting for the employee to share their thoughts freely. They're also in a position to swiftly follow up on feedback they receive during the discussion.
However, in some circumstances, a neutral manager or mentor the employee trusts could be the right choice if they have good interviewing skills. Asking the employee's direct supervisor to conduct the interview isn't always the best idea because the employee may not feel comfortable giving honest feedback, especially on management issues.
To be completely unbiased and remove internal pressures, some organisations choose to outsource exit interviews to an independent external company. The downside with this option is that it can seem impersonal, especially to employees who don't have any ill will towards the company.
Why are exit interviews important?
Talking to people who are leaving your organisation is crucial, especially if your turnover rates are going up. Employees who feel appreciated and engaged are more likely to stay in their roles. If they're not happy, you need to know why.
The good news is that employees are generally willing to talk. In the TEG survey, almost three-quarters of respondents said they were happy to share their opinions on topics such as salary (73%), company culture (72%) and mental health (72%).
Conducting an exit interview can help you:
Understand why people leave
Exit surveys provide valuable insights into why employees are leaving. If, say, you get a lot of responses saying it's because people are feeling burnt out or the company culture doesn't make them feel included, it should set alarm bells ringing that you need to do something about it.
Staff who take part in exit interviews are generally more honest and open about their feelings than those who remain in your organisation as there's less fear of retribution.
Identify areas for improvement
Exit interviews allow you to pinpoint what's not working in your organisation so you can make life better for existing and new employees. This might be providing better software for remote workers, customising employee benefits or improving management training, for instance.
You can use the feedback you gain from departing employees to help inform your recruitment strategies, training schemes and other initiatives you need to provide across your business to improve the overall employee experience.
Reduce turnover
By gaining insights into the general mood of your workforce, you can identify ways to improve things such as work-life balance and engagement levels.
Every improvement you make can boost staff happiness and encourage your most valuable employees to stick around. In time, this can help to reduce turnover rates so you save on recruitment costs.
Identify management issues
In the TEG survey, the top reason cited for leaving apart from pay was 'ineffective or toxic line management'. Exit interview questions can tease out the truth about whether micromanaging is a problem in your organisation, and how supervisors and team leaders affect the overall workplace culture.
The results you get can determine the sort of training and development initiatives you need to implement to improve management skills.
Provide a positive offboarding experience
It's good practice to treat departing employees with respect, thank them for their service and wish them luck in their new role. The employee may one day return to the business, so it's better to end on an amicable note than a sour one. It also means there's less chance of them posting negative comments about your company online.
With 44% of employees saying they feel invisible at work, exit interviews are one way to show you're an organisation that does notice and appreciate people's contributions. Even if keeping the person isn't possible this time, you can still turn departing employees into your brand ambassadors for years to come.
Benefits of exit interviews for employees
Exit interviews can be useful for employees as well as employers. Out-going staff members can take pride in the fact they're helping to shape future policy by sharing their thoughts on working for the organisation. It can also be cathartic to have the opportunity to get issues off their chest that may have contributed to their decision to leave.
If the employee gives feedback in a constructive and professional way, it can help them stay on good terms with the company. This can be beneficial if they need a reference or think they may consider working for the organisation again in the future.
If the feedback is about the industry as a whole, such as pay and working conditions, this can eventually lead to better work environments for employees in a particular sector.
Ultimately, an exit interview is an opportunity to gain closure so the employee can tie up any loose ends and start afresh. Quitting a job can be an emotional upheaval, so exit surveys can play a big part in helping to smooth the transition.
Exit interview questions
The aim of your exit interview or exit survey should be to find out how to make your workplace better by listening to and acting on what people say. Here are some general questions that can help you collect useful information from an exit interview:
What's your main reason for leaving the company?
What made you start looking for a new job in the first place?
Is there a specific benefit your new role offers that this one didn't?
What were the best and worst things about working at the company?
Did you have the right tools and equipment to do your job effectively?
How would you rate your relationship with your supervisor?
Did you feel valued and supported in your role?
How would you describe the company culture?
What did you think of the work-life balance?
How accurately was the role described to you when you joined the company?
Could we have done anything to keep you here?
Would you consider working for us again in the future?
You can adapt your questions as you see fit, but try to standardise them across the board for every departing employee. This makes it easier to identify recurring patterns. Also let employees know they can decline to answer a question if they want to.
What not to ask in an exit interview
While you have free rein to structure your exit interview how you like, there are some questions that are best avoided.
Don't ask leading questions that will guide an employee's thoughts in a certain direction, such as 'is the company culture too macho?'. This won't give you the broad range of information you need to improve.
Don't ask targeted questions about specific people. It's fine to ask for general feedback on how employees were supervised, but you shouldn't name individuals or foist your own opinions on the discussion.
Don't get into personal issues or fuel office gossip. Keep the conversation professional and work-related.
Above all, it's important that the employee feels comfortable providing open and honest feedback and reassured that the information they give will be kept confidential.
Employees are the driving force behind the success of any company. So organisations need to learn from them – why they leave, what makes them stay and how you need to change. A well-structured exit interview can boost engagement and improve retention rates by showing employees that their views count.
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