Purpose of Exist Interview

One of the most important steps in an organization's employee offboarding process is conducting
exit interviews. To completely realize the benefits of exit interviews, it is important that you
understand their objective. Organizations can effectively improve their operations, culture, and
employee relations by exploring the importance and goals of these interviews and using the
knowledge obtained through them. The purpose of an exit interview is to evaluate the overall
employee experience to identify different opportunities and goals in the organization. It is also
required to improve the retention with the engagement of a workplace. Exit interviews helps in
providing valid reasons for leaving the company (Aqil and Memon, 2020). It is helpful and
required to improve employee retention and satisfaction. Exit interviews sometimes helps in
designing different changes to get a good sense with the organization and to improve the
retention of top talent. The exit interviews help in improving the organization with the HR
strategy and attracting the top talent.

What is an exit interview?

An exit interview is a discussion you hold with a worker shortly before they resign from your
company. This provides you with the chance to ask the appropriate questions to learn about an
employee's experience working with you. This is intended to help you obtain insightful data on
your work experience.

For example, you can learn the reasons behind an employee's decision to quit, as well as the
aspects of working with you that they enjoyed and found unappealing. In this manner, you can
get insightful input that will enable you to enhance every phase of the employee lifecycle.
Consequently, this will assist you in enhancing the entire experience that you provide in order to
increase employee retention.

Purpose of exit interviews

A comprehensive exit interview is a crucial step in the offboarding procedure. In essence, it

accomplishes three goals.
First of all, it assists you in pinpointing the aspects of your business that require improvement in
order to boost employee satisfaction and attract and retain top personnel.
Second, it can assist you in fostering a favorable last impression of your business so that
departing employees are content, so enhancing the reputation of your firm.
Thirdly, occasionally you may discover that you are able to deal with particular problems and
motivate staff members to stay on the job.

This third item would obviously only apply to workers who have submitted their notice. You
must adopt a somewhat different strategy if you fire an individual or end their employment. For
example, you will have to send out a termination letter and arrange a meeting for firing. This will

guarantee that you terminate workers properly.

How to conduct an exit interview

Before we examine which exit interview questions and responses will bring you the most
insightful information for your company, let's examine what you must do while conducting your
offboarding interview.
Above all, you must ensure that you establish a clear protocol for conducting exit interviews. To
achieve this, make sure all the necessary questions are included in a template and establish clear
protocols. Don't forget to include the exit interview in the template for your offboarding
checklist.

Additionally, make sure you do exit interviews with all employees who willingly quit your
business, regardless of the reason for their departure (good or bad). Negative feedback can give
you the most important insights into what needs to happen to enhance the employee experience,
whether or not you want to hear it.

Additionally, it's a good idea to keep your departure interview casual so that workers feel
comfortable enough to be candid with you. Employee comfort can also be increased by telling
them that you would keep all of their responses private. Assure them that nothing they say will
affect your decision to give them a reference for any future employment. Don't be overly
dominant in the conversation, too. While making sure you ask the appropriate questions, pay
close attention to what the employee is saying. The interview should be about them, not about
you.
Apart from the aforementioned, who conducts the interview, how it is organized, and the
questions you should ask are possibly the most crucial factors to take into account. Let's examine
these things in greater depth.

The most effective exit interviews are carried out by an impartial third party as opposed to the
immediate management of the employee. For this reason, conducting the interview is frequently
the responsibility of the human resources department. In this manner, the worker will be more at
ease offering candid criticism without worrying about the consequences.

To further objectify the process, you may choose to contract out your departure interviews to a
third party. But there will undoubtedly be a price for this. You won't have as much control over
the process, thus it will also be more difficult for you to make sure the proper questions are
answered. Asking a manager from another department to conduct the interview is an additional
choice. However, this might be risky if the manager is not aware of the roles, duties and
expectations of the employee. Taking everything into account, your HR department's
representative is typically the most qualified candidate to conduct an exit interview. This
provides you with the ideal mix of control and objectivity, enabling you to pose the proper
questions and enabling the worker to be open and truthful about their experience working for
you.

To ensure that you are well-prepared, it's crucial to carefully prepare for an exit interview. Here
are some tasks that you must complete.
First and foremost, make sure the worker is aware that you will be interviewing them for a leave
of absence during their last days with your organization. Tell them what to expect from the
process and set a precise time for the interview. Let them know your major goals and the topics
you plan to address. They will then have time to consider what to say and how best to organize
their feedback.

Secondly, ensure that you inform staff members that the discussion will be transparent,
completely private, and that you encourage them to voice any unfavorable opinions. Instead of
just going through the motions, the employee will feel more at ease with the process and be more
inclined to be candid and open. Assure them that their comments will not be used against them
and that this is an opportunity for them to voice their ideas.
Lastly, be careful to conduct the interview in an impartial manner. It is normally advisable to use
a private conference room that is not located in the employee's department. This will assist you
in establishing a laid-back atmosphere so the worker doesn't feel questioned. Also, it will provide
the worker peace of mind that no one will overhear them.

Every stage of the employment journey is covered by the greatest exit interview questions and
responses. They ought to assist you in figuring out the reasons for an employee's departure, the
components of your employee experience that are working well, and the ones that require
improvement. The goal is to get as much insightful input as you can so that you can keep
enhancing the work environment for your employees. Additionally, the format of your questions
should encourage staff members to be candid and open about their impressions of you as an
employer without worrying about facing consequences.

To ensure that you cover all important topics during your meeting, make sure to prepare your
exit interview questions ahead of time. Creating a template for a normal exit interview is a smart
move in this situation, particularly if your department will be using many interviewers. In this
manner, all interviewers are in agreement and are aware of the questions to ask.

Here are a few exit interview questions that you should be asking:

1. Why are you leaving?

2. What did you enjoy the most about working here? What didn’t you enjoy?

3. Is there anything we could have done differently to improve your experience whilst
working here?

4. Have we provided a nurturing working environment where you have been able to
perform to the best of your abilities? Have we provided you with the training and
resources you needed to do your job?

5. Did the onboarding experience help you integrate quickly into the working culture and
environment? Were you provided with all the information you needed? Did you receive
the right level of communication?
 How do you feel about your manager? Did they provide you with the right level of
support, motivation and leadership?

 Do you have any suggestions about how we can improve the employee experience?

In Conclusion, exit interviews are essential for figuring out why people leave companies,
pinpointing areas that need work, and improving employee relations inside companies.
Through proactive exit interviews and the application of learned insights, companies can
effectively improve employee retention rates, operations, and culture. Regularly
conducting departure interviews helps foster a work climate that is more responsive,
transparent, and focused on the needs of the employees. Finally, don't wait until the final
interview to find out how your staff members feel about their time spent with you.
Regularly hold one-on-one meetings and distribute surveys measuring employee
happiness. In this manner, you can focus on mending fences before a worker decides to
walk out of your company.

Aqil, R. and Memon, S.B., 2020. The exit interview in Pakistan's IT and banking
industries: Mere formality or catalyst for change?. Global Business and Organizational
Excellence, 39(2), pp.62-70.

https://factorialhr.com/blog/exit-interview-2/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-purpose-holding-exit-interviews-yash-bansal-
oofcc/