Retaining valuable employees remains an important goal for any company but not many succeed in achieving the same. When the number of people leaving a company is ever-increasing, the RH team needs to find out why.
Apart from raising questions, it is also important to take measures that can prevent such incidents. It is important to learn how to enhance employee retention in the future by asking the ex-employees what went wrong. It is one of the most important skills that you as a HR manager should add in their HR resume.
In this article, we have listed some top reasons for why you should be taking exit interviews seriously. So without further delay let us get into the details:
Helps recognize the shortcomings of an organization
During an exit interview, you can get an insight into why an employee is leaving by professionally asking them the reason for their departure (awkward).
There is no guarantee that every exiting employee will provide genuine reasons for their departure but that does not mean that every data collected would be inaccurate.
According to the study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, 92% of the Asian-Pacific companies that they studied conducted mandatory exit interviews (EIs). And only 64% of Central/South American companies conducted mandatory EIs. More often the mandatory exit interviews led to specific actions (what do you mean?) in the United States as compared elsewhere.
Exit interviews allow you to raise questions that can help you understand where the organization failed in keeping up with the expectation of an employee. Once the data are collected and analyzed, it can help you recognize the shortcomings of the organization.
In any case, collecting data from exit interviews can help an organization get an insight into the reason why the average employee is leaving and reflect on the problem to improve the situation or find out effective solutions. I don’t feel like you have really given a clear reason for an exit interview
Assists in understanding employee’s needs
Once you recognize the shortcomings of the organization, it can bring forth the needs of the employees that may have gone unnoticed in the past.
Unless you recognize the shortcomings of the organization there is very little chance for you to understand certain needs of the employees (repetitive and not informative. What about reasons which have nothing to do with the employer?).
Exiting employees can be more forthcoming with their disappointments as compared to the existing employees. So it is easier for them to be open up about their views and opinions about the organization.
In case an exiting employee mentions that the reason for his or her departure is due to a lack of enough opportunity to enhance one’s professional growth (incomplete clause). Then you can further analyze and see if there is any way you can provide the existing employees with more opportunities.
Every organization is expected to provide certain opportunities and facilities to its employees that can help their productivity while building their professional interests.
Exit interviews can help you understand the needs of the employees and thus help the organization in complying with genuine points and provide ways to meet the needs of the employees.
Provides insight into the management
One major reason why you should take exit interviews seriously is that it can help you get an insight into the management of your organization.
There are so many cases wherein some valuable employees leave their jobs because of poor management and incompetent managers or leaders. The lack of suitable guidance and leadership leads to unrequired micromanagement which robs an employee’s sense of control.
You can create constructive feedback from exit interviews and reinforce suitable managers and recognize the incompetent ones.
The results of exit interviews would vary according to the size, geography, industry, etc. of every organization, and according to Human Resources, Asian bosses are making the most of exit interviews.
This way you can upgrade the management of an organization in the most effective way possible.
Aids in improving the existing system
Often employees leave an organization because of the existing system of the organization.
Indeed it is not possible to please every employee by fabricating a system that is approved by everyone but certain things can be balanced.
The data you collect from exit interviews can highlight the structure, strategy, operations, systems, etc. of an organization from their point of view.
And once you recognize their discontentments with certain systems of the organizations that can be changed or improved, then you can go ahead and take positive action. This can help in enhancing the existing system and remove those features that can be done away with.
Another important reason why exit interviews are important is that it can also give an insight into the recruiting, onboarding, and training requirements of the organization. Recognizing those areas can help to build the reputation of an organization.
Recruiting the most suitable applicants and taking them on board to train them in contributing to the higher goals of an organization is a crucial thing for every company. Any point that can contribute to improving these factors should be taken seriously.
Various factors contribute towards the up-gradation of an organization and any positive contributing factor should be taken into account.
Conclusion
Simply conducting an exit interview and collecting data is not enough (your conclusion is that exit interviews aren’t good enough anyway? Not in line with your article!). All data collected should be analyzed and the genuine points should be put to practice. Only then can the retention of valuable employees be made possible.
Exit interviews should be taken seriously because it can help you understand the problem and come up with suitable measures to take control of the existing issues.
