What do you learn when people say "goodbye?" goodbye?
What critical competencies are being lost from your organisation, how is this loss impacting your competitive position in the marketplace and why? Using exit interviews as a stimulus for organisation wide introspection will surface opportunities and threats that will enhance the organisation’s ability to adapt in the future.
When an employee leaves the organisation, it is important to try and understand: “why?
Every exit interview provides an opportunity to gain new knowledge, skills and experience. These interviews may allow for new ways to refresh existing thinking or to challenge the norm. At the same time, exit interviews may expose weaknesses in current employee development (e.g. communication or leadership skills).
These weaknesses may influence an individual’s feeling of belonging within the firm. This can then expose highly valuable knowledge, skills and experience that is difficult, if not impossible, to replace (think of the impact of losing your top “rainmaker”).
Skilled exit interviews provide the firm with an opportunity to learn more about itself as a “community.” A savvy organisation also will use the exit interview as a type of “opportunity and threat analysis.” How can these new insights influence your organisation’s ability to design, deliver and develop desirable products and/or services, in both the short term and the long term?
The following are examples of powerful exit interview questions that can provide you with answers and insight into your organisation’s culture. (Note: the most effective exit interviews come from conditions where the interview has been volunteered by the exiting employee and where confidentiality is guaranteed.)
What prompted you to begin looking for opportunities outside of this organisation?
How did this organisation make you feel valued?
How did this organisation make you feel under-valued?
How would you describe the culture of this organisation?
How would you describe the leadership of this organisation?
If you could change one thing with this organisation, what would it be? Why?
What would be the one thing you would never change about this organisation? Why?
