Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
By
Tim Rutledge
When
employees leave your organization, it's more costly
than you realize. Gone are their skills, education and
qualifications along with other intangibles like their
experience, creativity and productivity at work. You're
also losing time and money spent on hiring and onboarding
these individuals and you will be spending more time
and money to find a suitable replacement once they're
gone.
Exit
interviews are a good way to recoup some of these losses.
It's also a formal and professional way to tie up loose
ends with employees before they walk out of your office
for the very last time. Not all companies include third-party
exit interviews as part of their talent management plan,
but they should - if only for the wealth of information
that is gleaned from a candid exit interview session.
Here
are three reasons why all companies should take the
time to conduct third-party exit interviews:
1.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Employees
are quick to default to the standard excuses - more
money, more vacation time, better fit, etc. - when it
comes to explaining why they've decided to leave your
firm. But savvy managers will know that there's more
to an employee's move than meets the eye. It usually
takes an offer 15 per cent higher than an employee's
current salary to get him or her to change jobs and
this doesn't happen often so there are usually other
reasons involved - you need to know what they are.
Many
departing employees are wary of burning bridges between
themselves and their ex-employer, so they won't cop
to the real reasons behind their career move. Third-party
exit interviews, however, give these employees an open
forum to speak candidly about their former employer
without fear of punishment or retribution. The company
will benefit from the honest feedback as well, given
that they'll be better able to understand the issues
that are causing people to leave and resolve them accordingly.
2.
Positive employment experiences = corporate success.
Exit
interviews show that your company cares about the employment
experience and not just about the job that gets done.
Employment experiences don't end at the termination
of an employee's contract - they continue and remain
with the employee long after he's left your firm. Departing
employees participating in exit interviews will be pleased
to know that they haven't fallen off their managers'
radar screens after submitting their two weeks' notice.
Employees
will also remember and appreciate the fact that their
company values their opinion and wants to improve working
conditions based on their front-line feedback. This
is evidence of a company's good faith and trust in their
workforce, which bolsters the company's overall reputation
as a good employer.
3.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Sometimes
reform is required not so much for the people leaving
your company as for the people who remain with
your company. Therefore, take a long, introspective
look at the inner-workings of your company. Exit interviews
help you understand and establish ways to better retain
your current employees and improve the manager-employee
dynamic throughout your company.
Employee
engagement - whereby employees are attracted to, committed
to and fascinated by their work - is not contingent
upon a job's perks and pay. This engagement begins at
the grassroots level in an organization, namely with
the relationship between employees and their managers.
One of the best ways to understand problems at this
micro level is through exit interviews.
With
competition for talent intensifying, it's imperative
for companies to understand why their employees are
resigning, hence the need to conduct third-party exit
interviews. Employees are usually reluctant to disclose
the real reasons behind their career move. Accordingly,
good managers should be equally reluctant to take their
employees' resignation at face value, and it would be
in their company's best interest to probe their departing
employees for more information via the exit interview
process.
-
Dr. Tim Rutledge, Partner, Retention Services, is a
veteran Human Resources Development practitioner with
a background in financial services, manufacturing and
health care. [full
bio...]
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