How exit interviews are important for understanding employee experiences and improving companies?

The idea of conducting an exit interview may seem like a matter of inconvenience to many.

After all, why invest anything- be it time or resources- for someone who plans to leave your company anyway.

Between the grief of replacing the steady trickle of employees leaving and hiring new talents, conducting such interviews might be the last thing on your mind.

But here's a little inside secret for you. An exit review process is supposed to be for your benefit.

But first, let's take a step back and understand what an exit interview means.

An exit interview is held with an employee who is about to leave a company. Typically, it is conducted to discuss the employees' decision to leave and their experience while working for the company.

Most companies conduct the exit reviews as a "corporate ritual" to get it over with. They don't stop and consider the multiple benefits these interviews can bring to the table- if implemented correctly.

5 Major Benefits Of Conducting The Exit Interviews

Here are some of the many benefits of conducting the exit interviews before employees leave:

Benefit 1: Gain Insights About The Company Culture

A company's culture is built by its employees- the past as well as the present ones. Thus, they are the first to know if anything is actually amiss.

On the other hand, employees can find it difficult to critique the work environment while still working. On the other hand, departing employees are more transparent and frank about their feelings about their experience. Thus, the employee feedback that you get in the exiting process will be extremely genuine.

Benefit 2: Increase Employee Retention

People leave every day. Nevertheless, it is always a shock when it happens. With an employee's decision to leave for the greener pastures comes the normal grief of finding a suitable replacement while considering the day-to-day impact that an exiting employee will have on the team.

Do you know that the reasons behind departing employees are continually changing? Do you have any data to back up the reasons for the high employee turnover? Is it the job description? Or is the low salary the real deal breaker?

These are only a couple of the problems that an exit face-to-face interview will help you with.

Benefit 3: Gain Constructive Feedback

When done effectively, data collected through these interviews will help gain valuable insight in the form of feedback. This final form of contribution will prove to be very beneficial in the long run.

Departing employees tend to be more honest and forthcoming in describing the good, the bad, and the ugly. More often, you may find yourself facing some form of negative feedback. Take it with a grain of salt. Look upon this employee feedback that you receive as a learning opportunity to improve upon. Similarly, positive feedback will help you understand the strengths of your company culture.

Benefit 4: Seek "Patterns" In The Exit Interview Data

Don't just conduct these interviews for the sake of it. An effective exit interview process doesn't try to reverse the resignation. It works to seek out the patterns for why good employees leave. These same patterns will help you outline the retention strategies to reduce further turnover in your company.

Benefit 5: Cost-Effective

Generally, exit reviews are easy to conduct, get over fast, don't need a budget, and rewards you with a lot of information. In other words, sort of like a magical boon for your company's human resources department. It is a small investment- of time and resources- which will enable you to reap great rewards.

Conclusion

Exit interviews are an integral part of a company’s lifecycle that cannot be overlooked. If you hope to achieve any kind of reasonable growth in your company, you have to show that your employees’ opinions matter before they leave. This will foster a culture of continuous growth and improvement in the company.