EXIT INTERVIEWS: A NEED FOR REVISION

The old English adage from the horses mouth is the most apt description of the feedback received directly from an employee leaving the organisation. It is undoubtedly one of the best methods of gauging the success of employee engagement initiatives. Off course, the individual pieces of data needs to be collated with weights assigned for characteristics like personality ,job profile ,qualifications and most importantly the reason for exit , and then, siphoned for removing outlier values. However, most often this does not happen and exit interviews are conducted as a matter of routine and it is presumed that the qualitative data generated is unusable due to wide variations. In reality, exit is the time when the outgoing employee is most likely to give his free and frank opinion about the expectations he had and why they could not be fulfilled. Employees who are leaving for greener pastures would generally refrain from talking ill of the company but they certainly will be able to indicate the processes which are well received and the ones which are abhorred. Their inputs will also indicate how the companys policies on promoting organisational culture and retention are viewed Vis a Vis the competition. Exit interviews need to be designed professionally to be of any other than customary use. The interviewers must separate the significant elements from the chatter. A well designed, structured exit interview conducted by a third party is most likely to do the trick. A relaxed atmosphere with empathy for the employees frame of mind will set the tone of his responses. Exit interviews may be conducted face to face, by telephone or online. Whatever be the methodology, there is no reason why exit interviews cannot act as change agents by benchmarking critical variables against industry norms.