Many companies make the mistake of overlooking the importance of exit interviews. An exit interview can be an invaluable source of information to assess the overall quality of work life within your organisation and identify opportunities to improve employee engagement and retention.
While average UK attrition rates are around 25%, staff turnovers in high demand areas such as London can exceed a staggering 75%. It is therefore crucial for employers to get to the bottom of why their employees are leaving, in order to take action and prevent others from following.
So how do organisations collect this information and what benefits will this bring? Read on to find out how Exit Interviews could be your answer…
Consequence-free honesty
It is highly unlikely a disgruntled employee will be 100% honest with you until it’s too late. Conducting exit interviews gives departing employees the opportunity to provide constructive feedback about your organisation and raise any ongoing issues that you may not be aware of. This gives you the chance to rectify any problems prior to an employee leaving, ensuring they exit on a positive note having been listened to. This can help to prevent leavers from slandering your company name to others and means they may also be more likely to consider your organisation for any future vacancies.
Gain valuable information
The primary reason for conducting exit interviews is to help organisations get to the bottom of why their employees are leaving, in order to prevent future resignations for the same reasons. The questions asked in exit interviews are typically related to all aspects of your organisation such as company culture, management style, training and development, compensation and benefits, workplace ethics, company values, team morale and much more.
Poor management style can be a common reason for leaving – in fact, research shows a whopping 42% of employees have left their workplace due to a bad boss. This is the type of information an exit interview sets out gather, allowing companies to identify areas for improvement such as management training and development.
Improvement opportunities
Last year’s Employee Engagement Series conducted by Kronos shows that 95% of HR Managers believe employee burnout is responsible for up to half of their annual workforce turnover. This emphasises the importance of utilising employee feedback to drive organisational change if you are to maintain a happy and engaged workforce. Now that you have identified why employees are leaving, you have the opportunity to make the improvements needed to avoid future departures. You can review current processes and address business areas that aren’t working as well in order to enhance company culture and performance, which will in turn improve employee retention.
Organisational objectives
Aligning data obtained from exit interviews to your organisational plan is a great way to find out whether or not your company is on track with its objectives. Monitoring this information allows companies to identify trends and patterns around employee turnover and take action in order to improve employee retention. An exit interview could also reveal less obvious reasons as to why employees are leaving such as the recruitment or on-boarding process – allowing companies the opportunity to re-evaluate their processes and improve in these areas.
If you choose the right provider, Exit interviews are cost-effective and easy to facilitate.
ResourceBank’s Exit Interview service gets to the truth of the matter. Whilst an internal exit interview process often only manages to gain feedback from 25% of leavers, we are able to gather meaningful data from up to 90% of your departing employees. If you would like to find out more, you can contact Charlotte Todd-Smith on 07734 972 679 or email: exit.interviews@resourcebank.co.uk.
