Understanding why your employees leave is almost as important as
understanding why they stay. Some would say it is even more important.
An employee’s real reasons for leaving can be revealed in exit
interviews. Interviews that are conducted by the human resources
department or other company employees at time of resignation may or may
not produce accurate and legitimate answers. Most departing employees
are reluctant to reveal important demotivators because they do not want
to burn their bridges. They may not want to offend the management at
that sensitive time of saying good-bye.
An experienced third party, a consultant or firm that specializes in conducting these sensitive interviews and collecting a wealth of invaluable inputs, can often accomplish effective and productive exit interviews. The information gathered in this process can guide corporate management in making changes that will reduce future turnover, as well as potentially solve other problems in the organization.
What is the best way to process
an employee’s exit? HR always recommends an exit interview. The process
is predictably simple while most people think it’s a big waste of time.
If a person resigns, you already know why he is leaving. But mostly the
stated reasons are far from true, most resignations state personal
reasons or better prospects. If one is being discharged, he will be
angry and won’t tell anything useful anyway. Why bother then?
There
are a lot of good reasons to bother—administration, protection and good
management practice are among them. From an administrative standpoint
alone, an exit interview provides an opportunity to get needed
information (like where to send the employee’s settlement cheque, TDS
certificate, retrieve company property (keys, mobile, swipe cards credit
cards, laptops, etc.), clear up any outstanding issues like expense
advances and deliver required information.
Administrative details
are important, but the real value of an exit interview is in the
information one can obtain to protect the company and save a lot of
time, trouble and expense later. For example, it is not uncommon for an
employee to resign, or be discharged for a reason, but when tactfully
handled can reveal the real reasons in an exit interview. For instance,
recently when I had handled an exit interview, a very senior executive
told me that he is quitting because he is pretty annoyed with the CEO’s
arrogance and style.
In a broader perspective, exit interviews
provide information about overall management style of the company. An
employee who is discharged may not be happy about it, and his or her
comments will have a negative slant. But there’s usually plenty of truth
to be learned as well. In one case we had observed that one department
had a high turnover and exit interviews reflected problem areas like
partisan attitude of the supervisor. Consistently high turnover in
certain positions can be an indicator that the job or the work is not
defined properly, thus, the wrong people are being hired. Reasons for
voluntarily separation may be valid, like lack of benefits or low pay or
even unsatisfactory designations, improper grades, etc.
Some
thoughts about how you say good-bye to employees, whatever be the reason
for their exit, salvage some credibility. If it’s a discharge, you’ll
want to do damage control as much as possible. Recently, two people who
were asked to go within two months of joining, told me how brutal the HR
general manager was in handling the exits. Depressed and victimised
they felt more angry and vengeful for the simple reason that the HR was
even forcing the person to interview candidates on the very morning when
he was told to go.
Treating people as human as possible is a good
management practice and that dictates he or she be treated with
professional courtesy and respect. Conduct the exit meeting as privately
as possible. Taking a more positive view of the exit—this is also the
time when many employees are willing to point at deficiencies in the
company, comments such as, “poor management or supervision”, “complete
lack of supervision and support”, “poor communications”, etc, have come
quite often when I had handled exit interviews. Any company management
that is honest with itself will use these responses to look into the
claims and make corrections where the allegations are found or known to
be true.
While handling exit interviews handle the employee in
simple, direct terms and discuss under what circumstances the decision
has been made or try and figure out what triggered the decision to quit.
It is invariable that something snapped inside. Without a debate on the
merits, gather all required information and record and do paperwork and
handle the exit with the final settlement check, so that whatever
suspicion the person has is nullified. Whether the separation is
voluntary or not, HR has to make sure that the employee leaves without
any incident. Exit interview and counselling can avoid much of
unpleasantness, someone who can handle the person at times of emotional
disturbance is only the HR person.
Exit is just as important as the
procedures one uses while hiring. Handled in a professional way, exit
practices can be constructive, useful and improve your work environment
and above all add to retention.
