Exit interviews provide essential feedback to improve a business. Input from interviews and other workforce data helps plan future workforce needs and for handling specific workforce challenges such as an ageing workforce.
By the end of this topic, you will understand the following:
- why exit interviews are important
- how to conduct exit interviews
- what to ask and what not to ask during exit interviews
- why exit interviews are a data collection opportunity
- how to report on exit interview information
- how to use workforce data for employment planning.
Exit interviews are not compulsory in Australia. It is a good business practice to offer an interview to each employee as part of the employment separation process and respect an employee’s decision if they do not want to participate.
Interview information provides valuable feedback about many aspects of a business. This can help to improve the retention of existing and future employees.
Who Should be Offered an Exit Interview?
Exit interviews are most often carried out with employees who are leaving voluntarily. Still, it may also be necessary to interview those retrenched following redundancy or those being dismissed.
Employees who are involuntarily terminated may want to tell their side of the story. This feedback can help build a picture of the workplace and management practices and prevent legal action.
The interviewer should have conflict resolution skills for these interviews.21
Watch the following two videos about exit interviews, including how to handle involuntary termination interviews.
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Face-to-face meetings, telephone interviews and online or paper-based surveys are the most common methods for collecting employee feedback for exit interviews. Each method has advantages in different situations.
Collection Method
- High-turnover job roles or work areas
- Key roles
- More detailed discussion and identifying the cause of a problem
- Job roles with average or low-level turnover
- Lower skilled roles
- More introverted employees may prefer a survey to a face-to-face meeting
- Collecting feedback via a survey before an interview
- Uncovering more detail in the face-to-face meeting
Regardless of the methods used, meeting arrangements and survey access should be appropriate for all employees, including those with a disability.
Key Considerations for Exit Interviews
Key considerations include:
- invite the employee to take part, explain the purpose of the interview and encourage participation, but confirm the process is voluntary
- hold the interview/have the survey completed just before the employee’s last work day or shortly after they leave
- schedule a face-to-face meeting when convenient for the employee
- interviews may be conducted by the employer, HR personnel or an external consultant
- ask the same questions at each interview so that trends can be identified
- be aware of the organisation’s policies and make sure they are followed.
Organisational policies should include the following:
- the exit interview process
- confidentiality requirements
- how feedback data will be stored and used
- how feedback results will be analysed and reported
- action and responsibilities to use employee feedback to improve systems and processes and address issues.22
Exit Interview Software
There are several options for exit interview software available in Australia. These include the following.
- Stand-alone survey systems, such as Survey Monkey Enterprise version, Culture Amp and Employment Hero Exit interview functionality included in larger HR systems.
- Spreadsheet and database for inputting results from paper survey forms.
- External companies offer exit interview services, including assistance in preparing surveys, providing software, inputting and analysing data and preparing reports.
Data input into a spreadsheet or other software must be depersonalised before being analysed. Depersonalisation means removing or replacing all personal details, such as employee number, name etc.
Watch the following video describing how to conduct an exit interview.
Learn more
Read the following article titled “Exit interviews” by NSW Public Service Commission.
Exit Interview Questions
Exit interviews should focus on the business and collecting constructive feedback that can help to improve systems and processes. Key questions include:
- Why are you leaving?
- What is the company doing right? Poorly?
- How could things be improved?
- What were three things you enjoyed about working here?
- Do you have any ideas you have that you wish could be implemented?
- If you could change three things, what would they be?
- Who in the organisation has positively impacted you and your career here?
- What advice do you have for the next person in your role?
What You Should Not Ask
While employees are encouraged to give their opinions during an exit interview, it is essential to avoid or minimise negativity by:
- not asking targeted questions about specific people or issues - listening without agreeing or disagreeing
- not becoming involved in gossip
- not saying anything that could be seen as defamatory
- not getting into personal issues
- not trying to change the employee’s mind about leaving (this should have been done when they resigned)
- not sharing information about another employee.
If issues are raised related to harassment, bullying or other severe behaviours, seek out the facts, thank the exiting employee for giving the information and look for more information from other sources later.
If the feedback seems justified, follow your organisation’s policy and take the required action. As an employer, do not ignore issues raised in exit interviews that you may not have been aware of before.
Other employees may know about them and could be waiting to see if they are addressed. Taking no action or not following required policies may dissuade other employees from giving input in the future.23
Learn more
For more information about specific questions and the answers that exiting employees might give, click here
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Exit interviews should not be the only method for collecting employee feedback. It is a good business practice to ensure that employees are encouraged to give feedback during performance reviews, routine supervision, mentoring and training. An employer should not hear about a significant issue for the first time from exit interviews.
Goals for exit interview data collection include:
Goal
- The focus should be broader than salary and benefits
- Ensure salaries are aligned with peers’ salaries
- Look at employee management processes, including:
- Promotion opportunities
- Whether employee feedback is acted on
- Share relevant exit interview information with the employee’s supervisor, team leader or Manager
Do employees have the same view as management about key areas, including:
- Job design
- Working conditions
- Organisation culture
- Identify effective managers and acknowledge them
- Identify issues with managers’ styles, such as micro-management
- Provide training where needed for managers
Ask exiting employees broader questions about:
- Business operations and systems
- Structure of their department
- How marketing is completed
Identify:
- Competitors’ approach to benefits, time off, promotion opportunities, salaries etc.
- If competitors are trying to attract your employees
- Treat exiting employees with respect and thank them for their work
- Aim for them to feel they have a longer-term relationship with your organisation
- Consider them as potential customers or recruiters
An exit interview report should be prepared at designated intervals, a minimum of yearly. This report may include the following sections.
| Report Section | |
|---|---|
| Method and scope of interviews |
Compulsory or voluntary interviews Method of interview and datarecording Timing of reporting required by the organisation Time period of exit interviews covered in this report Number of exiting employees – voluntary and involuntary and the number of people who completed exit interviews |
| Summary of main trends and findings |
Most frequent reasons for leaving Key issues described by interviewees |
| Data analysis | Summary of answers to each question asked in the interview or survey |
| Conclusions and actions |
Identified trends Results or outcomes of previous strategies/actions implemented Other actions that may be needed |
Employee Feedback
Analysing employee feedback can uncover patterns related to possible organisational issues. For example, several employees may have resigned from different roles over time, saying their job was not what they expected. This could lead to a review of job descriptions and the hiring process.
Feedback may be analysed or sorted in several ways, including:
- Order by sentiment – positive and negative
- Sort comments into categories and sub-categories
- Summarise results within categories
Following are examples of what to look for.
- The overall experience of exiting employees with the organisation
- What the organisation does well
- What the organisation does poorly
- What matters most to employees
- How can employee retention be increased?
Example
Access this link for an example of an Employee Exit Interview Report.
Planning Workforce planning ensures that:
- the right people are employed in the right jobs at the right time
- the correct numbers of people are employed for the work needed (no overstaffing or understaffing).
As displayed below, workforce planning is becoming increasingly important because of several factors.
| Factor | |
|---|---|
| Demographic changes |
Workforces are ageing which means:
|
| Cost reduction | Companies must find ways to work smarter and reduce costs because of global competition. |
| Talent management |
Talented employees are a competitive advantage. To replace ageing workers, it will be important to attract new employees at all levels over several years. |
| Flexibility |
Revenue for new products is increasing. Businesses must find new ways of doing things more quickly. The old ways of doing things will not work. |
How to Make an Organisation Retirement Ready
Workforce planning includes preparing for the retirement of employees. As baby boomer employees retire, employers worldwide are losing decades of skills and knowledge. This retirement wave will continue for several years.
Compulsory retirement is unlawful in Australia, and it can be difficult for employers to know when individual employees will retire.
Employers might assist employees with retirement planning and offer flexible working arrangements so that older workers can work longer if they wish. These strategies help businesses to retain skills for as long as possible and provide opportunities for mentoring, longer handovers, and more effective recruitment strategies.
Employers can predict possible retirement numbers by compiling information from employee records, workforce data and managers’ knowledge about individual employees. This data can be cross-referenced with the employment requirements in Australia or considered using other criteria.
Example
The following are examples of how data can be helpful in this case.
- The minimum retirement age is 65
- Employees aged 55 to 60 can use a transition to retirement strategy if they reduce their work hours or increase their superannuation payments while working full time
- Historical data on employee retirements can show trends. For example, employees who do not renew training or certifications may retire within a specific timeframe
- Numbers of employees who show interest in retirement planning information events offered by their employer
- Talking with employees at performance reviews and informally can give insight into their thoughts about their future
Making these estimations about potential retirement numbers could become a routine HR task for input into yearly business planning.
Retirement-Ready Strategy Development
As well as estimating possible numbers of potential retiring employees, it is essential to decide what will be most effective for the business regarding who is encouraged to stay longer.
Examples of considerations
- Should all long-term employees be encouraged to stay when nearing retirement?
- Full-time?
- Part-time?
- Should only employees with specific skills and knowledge be encouraged? If so, who?
- Should employees who stay longer be encouraged to take on mentoring roles?
- Does the business need all potential retiring employees to stay longer?
- If not, how can it be easier for them to leave positively?
The strategy should include decisions on what programs or initiatives to offer employees, including various flexible working arrangements.
Input for these decisions may have:
- the organisation’s business goals
- seeking information from senior executives and management
- input or ideas from external consultants or resources, including workplace legal advice.
The agreed strategy should give full details of options or programs to be offered to employees, including who will be eligible. If a program is available to only certain employees, explain this rationale. When communicating the strategy to employees, take care when choosing the wording and ensure that what is offered and said meets workplace requirements.
Finally, promote the strategy thoroughly over time, including posters, briefing meetings, and opportunities for one-on-one meetings. Use the resources of your industry body or default superannuation fund where these are helpful.
Learn more
Read about how to gain more insight into preparing for waves of retiring employees here.
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