Why do employees leave your company?
Higher pay from competitors? Issues with managers? Mismatches between candidates and your company?
Chances are, your reasons for employee turnover are as varied as the workers themselves. Change is a constant in business and a certain amount of turnover is to be expected. But if turnover is a chronic problem in your organization, it’s critical to find out why. Left unchecked, turnover can lower productivity, lead to substantial knowledge loss and undermine your company’s profitability.
If turnover is negatively impacting your business, don’t take it lying down. Exit interviews are powerful tools to help you fight turnover:
- Because employees are leaving, their exit interview responses are generally very honest, constructive and objective – providing insights about your company, processes and staff you might not otherwise get.
- Once you understand employees’ reasons for leaving, you can take appropriate remedial actions (e.g., changing your recruiting process, onboarding, training, etc.) to increase employee tenure.
- Ultimately, exit interviews may reveal systemic problems (e.g., organizational structure, corporate culture, out-of-touch management, etc.) and uncover opportunities for improving your company as a whole.
Of course, the success of your exit interviews will depend on the quality of questions you ask. While the specific questions you include will be driven by the unique requirements of the position, here are a few sample exit interview questions to use as a starting point:
- Why have you decided to leave?
- What is the primary reason for your decision?
- What other factors influenced your decision to leave?
- How do you feel about our company?
- What could we have done early on to prevent this situation from developing?
- What have you enjoyed about working for us?
- What has been frustrating, difficult or upsetting about your work experience here?
- How would you describe our company’s culture?
- How well were you managed?
- Were you trained/developed adequately for your role?
- What can you tell me about communications within your department and throughout the company as a whole?
- How could our company improve working conditions, amenities, hours/shifts, etc.?
- What more can our company do to keep its best employees?
Additional exit interview questions for recent recruits (who worked with you for less than a year):
- How would you describe your recruiting and onboarding experience?
- How could we improve our recruiting process? Our onboarding process? Our new employee training process?
- How could we have helped you better understand your job, your role and how to work effectively with other departments?
- How well did your skills, personality and experience fit the actual job?
Ideally, these questions should be asked during a face-to-face exit interview. An in-person exit interview allows you to ask relevant follow-up questions that clarify responses and yield higher quality information.
As a leading Middle Tennessee staffing service, Wood Personnel understands the challenges chronic turnover poses. In many cases, we can help you staff high turnover positions more effectively – saving you time, money and countless headaches. Contact Wood Personnel today to learn more about our staffing and recruiting services for Tennessee employers.
