INTRODUCTION

Exit Interview
An exit interview is a survey conducted with an individual who is separating from an organization or relationship. Most commonly, this occurs between an employee and an organization, a student and an educational institution, or a member and an association. An exit interview is the most accurate instrument in assessing the issues that drive an individual to leave an organization. Few other tools illustrate why the individual is separating, what he or she valued while at the organization, and what aspects of the organization need improvement in order to increase employee engagement, performance, and loyalty. An organization can use the information gained from an exit interview to assess what should be improved, changed, or remain intact. More so, an organization can use the results from exit interviews to reduce employee, student, or member turnover and increase productivity and engagement, thus reducing the high costs associated with turnover. Some examples of the value of conducting exit interviews include shortening the recruiting and hiring process, reducing absenteeism, improving innovation, sustaining performance, and reducing possible litigation if issues mentioned in the exit interview are addressed. It is important for each organization to customize its own exit interview in order to maintain the highest levels of survey validity and reliability. The exit interview fits into the separation stage of the employee life cycle (ELC). This stage, the last one of the ELC, spans from the moment an employee becomes disengaged until his or her departure from the organization. This is the key time that an exit interview should be administered because the employees feelings regarding his or her departure are fresh in mind. An off-boarding process allows both the employer and employee to properly close the existing relationship so that company materials are collected, administrative forms are completed, knowledge base and projects are transferred or documented, feedback and insights are gathered through exit interviews, and any loose ends are resolved. This process could be long and arduous but with new exit interview management systems, all tasks and activities can be automated to ensure nothing has been missed while saving time and money.

Exit interview in business

Exit interviews in business are focused on employees that are leaving a company or when employees have completed a significant project. The purpose of this exit interview is to glean feedback from employees in order to improve aspects of the organization, better retain employees, and reduce turnover. During this interview employees will be asked why they are leaving, what specifically influenced their decision to leave, whether or not they are going to another company and what that company they are going to offers that their current company does not. Businesses can use this information to better align their HR strategy with what employees look for in an organization and enact programs and practices that will influence top talent to stay at the organization. In the past, exit interview data was being collected by the organization but not much was being done in terms of interpreting the data and making it actionable. Today there are metrics, analytics, benchmarks, and best practices that help organizations make sense of and use the data towards proactive organizational retention programs. Recently an array of exit interview software has been developed and popularized. These programs facilitate and streamline the employee separation process, allow surveys to be completed via the web, make separation and retention trends easy to identify, and amass actionable data which can increase organizational effectiveness and productivity. Additionally, some of these programs make it possible to quantify data gleaned from the surveys to more accurately understand why employees are leaving the organization. Common Exit Interview Questions Common questions include reasons for leaving, job satisfaction, frustrations, and feedback concerning company policies or procedures. Questions may relate to the work environment, supervisors, compensation, the work itself, and the company culture.

Examples:

"What are your main reasons for leaving?" "What did you like most/least about the organization?" "What, if improved, would have caused you to stay at the organization?" "Would you recommend the organization to others as a good place to work/study/join?"

Exit Interview In education

Exit interviews in education are conducted with students who have graduated from an educational institution. These interviews are meant to gather information about students experience while attending that institution, what they benefited from, what was missing, and what could be improved to enhance the experience of the next generation of students who attend that institution. This type of interview can also point to areas in which the institution should invest more or less resources to enhance a students learning and development experience.

Exit interview in Associations

Exit interviews in associations are administered to members who decide to end membership with an association. These interviews provide feedback to an association regarding what caused the member to leave, what can be improved, and how resources can better be allocated.

Methods of exit interview with advantages and disadvantages

1. Voice - In-Person or Telephone Pros: Capture complex ideas through follow-up questioning and tone indications Probe, clarify and ask for examples Structured question order Administered by a professional

Cons Possible interviewer bias (especially if internal) Possible interviewee bias (especially if internal) Most expensive option interviewer time Difficult for employee to verbalize constructive critique, particularly face-toface Low participation for telephone exit interviews due to caller ID and voice mail Information must be entered into tracking system for trending A voice interview can be conducted by an internal agent (i.e. an HR department) or an external agent (i.e. HR exit interview consulting firm).

2. Paper Pros Allows convenience for those who do not have easy access to the internet Ensures total anonymity Cons Takes longer to receive feedback Concern for literacy of respondent Information must be entered into tracking system for trending

Web - Exit Interview Management Systems Pros High reliability, flexibility and privacy, as it is completed by the respondent Exit interview is easily accessible at the convenience of the respondent Feedback is received quickly Low administration cost Data automatically tracked Reporting information accessible in real time

Cons Not accessible to those who do not have internet Concern for literacy of respondent Concern for technical knowledge of respondent

3. IVR (teleprompt) Pros Accessible by average phone Cons Has fallen out of favor due to the cost effectiveness of web based options that yield data at similar or higher quality Difficult to get rich data Difficult to adjust or change

Why Is Employee Retention Important?

Employee Retention is vitally important in sustaining an effective workforce as well as being cost effective to a companys bottom line. Well trained, experienced employees are the foundation to any workforce. Employee turnover costs companies thousands of dollars in lost productivity, replacement costs in the hiring, and training of new employees. Reduced levels of customer service within services industries can also be an outcome. Often, employees leave with years of knowledge and experience that simply cant be easily replaced overnight. Additionally, morale suffers when the workforce lacks stability and continuity, which may in turn cause more exits.

Why Conduct Exit Interviews?

Performing Exit Interviews allow the company to: Identify negative influencers of turnover including job factors, company practices, programs, policies, and relationships. Pinpoint specific issues or events contributing to turnover/ retention Identify drivers of employee retention Identify areas for improvement of retention Track trends over time Provide sufficient information and insight to create solutions around issues identified through the Exit Interview process

What Questions Are Typically Included?

- Reason(s) for leaving - Current employment status/ Information on current job/ Salary differential - Method used to find a new job - Influencers in accepting new position - Most liked aspect of their former job - Biggest challenges of their former job - Suggestions for improvement - Manager-related questions - Diversity and inclusion-related questions

 - Obstacles for success in former position - Circumstances under which they would return - Closed-ended question which are key to: Track and monitor trends over time Compare perceptions of exited employees with current employees

Employee Turnover
Employee Turnover or staff turnover or labour turnover is the rate at which an employer gains and losses employees. Simple ways to describe it are "how long employees tend to stay" or "the rate of traffic through the revolving door". Turnover is measured for individual companies and for their industry as a whole. If an employer is said to have a high turnover relative to its competitors, it means that employees of that company have a shorter average tenure than those of other companies in the same industry. High turnover may be harmful to a company's productivity if skilled workers are often leaving and the worker population contains a high percentage of novice workers. Employee turnover is the process of replacing one worker with another for any reason. A turnover rate is the percentage of employees that a company must replace within a given time period. This rate is a concern to most companies because employee turnover can be a costly expense, especially for lower-paying jobs, which typically have the highest turnover rates. Having an employee leave a company, either because of his or her choice or after being fired or otherwise let go, might require various administrative tasks to be performed and severance pay or other payments made to the employee. Replacing the employee might require such things as advertising the open position, using a so-called head-hunter or other service to find potential job candidates, bringing in candidates for interviews and eventually training the new employee.

Importance to Businesses
Companies often take a deep interest in their employee turnover rates because replacing workers can be a costly part of doing business. When a company must replace a worker, it incurs direct and indirect expenses. All of the tasks that must be performed during the process cost money, take time or do both. In addition, there can be a loss of productivity during the time after the former employee leaves and the new employee has been fully trained. For some companies, replacing employees also could make it difficult to retain clients or customers with whom those employees worked.

Types of staff turnover

Involuntary Involuntary turnover occurs when employers terminate an employee or ask an employee to resign. The latter may ultimately be considered voluntary turnover; however, the initial decision is to effect an involuntary turnover. When employees are terminated for violating workplace policies, poor performance or business slowdown, the departure is considered involuntarily. Some instances of involuntary turnover may cause trepidation among remaining employees. Employees who witness regular involuntary turnover or terminations might be concerned about their own job security. Other employee terminations may come as a relief to remaining employees, whose morale and productivity suffer when poor performers affect the workplace climate.

Voluntary Voluntary turnover occurs when employees leave of their own volition. Employees who resign, retire or simply leave the organization for other reasons are counted in turnover analyses as voluntary turnover. Attrition is often part of the turnover analysis. Human resources experts define attrition as a decrease in the workforce for voluntary departures. The difference between attrition and voluntary turnover is that employers do not replace employees who leave by virtue of attrition. While some instances of voluntary turnover may occur because employees are dissatisfied, a number of employees resign for reasons unrelated to working conditions. Examples of voluntary turnover for non work-related reasons are employees who leave their jobs to travel with spouses, or students who leave the workplace to return to school. THE POST-TURNOVER SURVEY Many organizations employ a post-turnover survey as a substitute for, or as a complement to, the conventional exit interview. Several advantages are cited for the use of questionnaires. The lapse of time will encourage former employees to make more rational and honest assessments of the employer and supervisor particularly if offering opinions from the security of a new position. If surveys are conducted anonymously, both the employer and the employee are relieved of the pressure of a face-to-face confrontation. The use of questionnaires enables the organization to sample consistently rather than depend on evidence produced by the sporadic statements of individual employees (Your- man, 1965). An effective cover letter can promote participation by stressing the survey objectives as improved employee performance and job satisfaction and by underscoring the anonymity or confidentiality of the responses. The issue of exit interview versus post-turnover survey comes down to a choice between objectivity of data versus response rate. The effective design of the questionnaire in terms of choice of questions, layout, and language; the ease of completion and minimizing of time commitment; and the identification of the former employee with the objectives of the survey can help to maximize response. Many organizations now rely completely on the survey method and have cancelled exit interview programs. Skilled interviewers, able to persuade departing employees to talk honestly about their experiences and decision to leave, are not always available. 9

The unwillingness or inability of personnel managers to follow-up on information received in the interview and to communicate the findings to management compromises the entire process. The questionnaire results similarly should not digress into a record-keeping device, for if they do not prompt corrective measures, such surveys quickly become viewed as another futile personnel gimmick.

Causes of employee turnover

In order to know the cause of excessive employee turnover, the causes of dysfunctional and avoidable turnover should be known. Few reasons for dysfunctional turnover may be:

Compensation package differences Job and employee skill mismatch: the job may be less or more satisfying and challenging according o the employee.

Inferior facilities, tools, etc Less recognition Less or no appreciation for work done Less growth opportunities Poor training Poor supervision Less work and life balance practices lack of job challenge unfair or unequal treatment Poor supervision -weak interpersonal relationships Unsatisfactory salary -inability to perform duties effectively Moving/graduating spouse Return to school 10

What Is Turnover Rate Turnover rate is a calculation of the number of employees who have left the company and it is expressed as a percentage of the total number of employees. Although turnover rate is usually calculated and reported as a percentage per year it can be for different periods. How To Calculate Turnover Rate3 You calculate the turnover rate by dividing the number of employees who left by the total number of employees at the beginning of the period. This number is expressed as a percentage. You can calculate voluntary turnover, involuntary turnover, and total turnover. For example, a company has 100 employees at the start of the year. During the year six employees quit and nine get let go in a layoff late in the year. The voluntary turnover rate for the year would be 6/100 or 6%. The involuntary turnover rate was 9/100 or 9%. The total turnover rate would be calculated as 15/100 or 15% because the six employees who left voluntarily and the nine who were laid off are added together. What Can You Do About Turnover? For involuntary turnover, the best thing you can do is manage the company well so you don't have to do layoffs. Certainly there are things that happen unexpectedly that put your company into financial difficulty and a possible solution for that is to lay off employees. First, you need to work harder so there are fewer of these "unexpected" problems. Second, layoffs are a short term fix, detrimental to the company, and should be the last resort. To reduce voluntary turnover you make the pain of leaving higher than the pain of staying. The greatest single influence on employee satisfaction is their direct supervisor. So if you are in upper management, make sure your supervisors are well trained.

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