Exit Interviews are a great way of obtaining useful information from your employees. We have created a list of 5 classic mistakes your organisation might be making with Exit Interviews:

Often, most HR professionals have had experience conducting Exit Interviews. However, these professionals have difficulty designing a process which could be easily replicated and applied across the entire company. Take a look at the mistakes you might be making:

1. Conducting the survey yourself

Given that employees would like to leave on good terms, respondents might be less likely to participate honestly. This not only provides inaccurate feedback but, more so, does not provide meaningful data that you can actually use.

2. Are you asking the right questions?

Exit Interviews should consist of qualitative and quantitative questions, along with a selection of demographic questions. This in turn provides a rounded set of data, allowing your business to investigate issues which may have been overlooked when the survey was initially created.

3. No Benchmarks, internally or externally

How do you use Exit information to interpret results? Better yet, how can you gain a competitive advantage from this data? External and internal benchmarks should be established, in order to measure results effectively. Key actions can be defined to assist your business in achieving your goals, as a result of doing so.

4. Inefficient Data Capture

How does your organisation capture Exit Interview data? Online systems can be a great way to collate all the data in one format; ready to analyse and review. Additionally, many online systems automatically generate reports, highlighting key trends and speeding up the process of identifying flaws in employee experience.

5. Are you being consistent?

It is important to retain most exit questions to identify trends in the long run. However, if a new initiative has been implemented, Exit Interviews can be a valuable opportunity to ask about the recent changes or the company strategy. Additionally, this will provide further insight into the return on investment of retention initiatives.

It’s important to avoid these 5 mistakes, in order for you to truly understand the value of Exit Interview data. Not only is it important to ask the right questions, it is also asking yourself: who will best conduct the interviews? How will I use the data? And, finally, why is this happening – what can I do to change it?