|
Front Lines — Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal
EXPERTS: EXIT INTERVIEWS ARE A GOOD WAY TO MAKE FIRM STRONGER
by Kathy Ruff, Business Journal Correspondent
Exit interviews represent a simple yet valuable tool business can use to reduce turnover, uncover internal problems and create better hiring decisions.
Employee turnover can indicate internal problems. Exit interviews can help employers uncover the real reason for an employee’s departure.
"Anything that intensifies employee turnover or people leaving without a reason, that’s the key time to do exit interviews," says Tina Hamilton, president of InterSource Inc., Whitehall. "It’s a good habit for any size company."
Exit interviews generally ask employees the reasons for their decision to leave the company. This information can be valuable to the company.
"If you do exit interviews on a regular basis for any reason like turnover, you can usually find some kind of consensus on what’s going on in the company or reasons for turnover," says Hamilton.
Employers can sometimes correct those reasons; sometimes they cannot. Examples could include low pay, insufficient benefits, incompatibility with supervisors or stress from overwork or lack of support.
Exit interviews can uncover beneficial information to improve the company’s working environment and to determine whether or not a company would rehire the person resigning.
But the process requires tact and shrewd listening skills.
Unlike telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews allow the interviewer to observe facial expressions and body language. Performing the interview before the person leaves can help to retain a valuable employee in some situations.
"You want somebody doing this that is a good listener," says Thomas G. Hackett, consultant with HR Synergy Solutions LLC, a human resource management firm in Mount Bethel. "Good listeners tend to focus on what can be improved."
Starting with non-threatening basic questions such as how the employee felt about the pay and benefits.
"Ease into more sensitive issues," says Hackett. "Once they are a little bit more comfortable with the pace and the way the questions are being asked, ask, ‘What did you think about working here?’"
Asking open-ended questions allows the employee to explain details that may be crucial to discovering internal problems that may need an employer’s action to prevent future costly turnover. Fine-tune boiler-plate questions after hearing a response to better clarify an employee’s true meaning.
"I think it’s very important to communicate with employees that are leaving," says Marna Hayden, Hayden Resources Inc., Bethlehem. "Occasionally when you are having an exit interview you find out that the reason that someone is leaving can be fixed."
Learning the reason that someone is leaving can also help to recruit a better match for the job and to pinpoints areas needing improvement.
"If there are any unresolved issues, I think it’s very important to cover them," says Hayden. "When you lose an employee, to me that employee is still a customer and what they employee says about our company on the outside is very important to the company as far as goodwill, public relations."
General topics at the exit interview should include details and relevant paperwork, regarding the employee’s COBRAA, unemployment and pension benefits.
"Good communication can save time and be a little more personal," says Hayden. "It’s really interesting to me always that employees absolutely have a handle on the company and what customers feel about the company. In so many ways these pearls of wisdom come out."
That wisdom continues upon completion of the interviews. Employers should regularly review and compile the responses to detect any trends that may be occurring.
"If an organization is not doing them, it’s almost the ostrich style of management," says Thomas J. Hubic, owner of Reading-Berks HR Management, West Lawn. "The biggest benefit that we have seen with exit interviews is that they can help identify trends both within your organization and trends in the market. If you’re seeing trends, then you need to address them."
For example, an interview can reveal an employee who can earn more money working somewhere else or feels unwelcome due to a department clique.
"If that was just one isolated incident you would take it with a grain of salt," says Hubric. "However, if you have a trend where all of a sudden, there are numerous comments being made regarding a compensation of difference, it can help you identify the prevailing market wages of your competitors without actually doing a formal survey."
Survey and exit interview results become useful only if someone reads them. Results of exit interviews should be shared with human resources, department managers and supervisors and upper management.
"We encourage those individuals to be a part of the exit interview process because quite frankly sometimes the problem is with upper management. If they start seeing it, it helps," he said.
Back to Press Room
|
