Many employers consider it useful to conduct exit interviews with departing employees. It is often conducted in an obligatory but disorganized manner. The interview is of utmost importance because these last words of an employee can give valuable insight into the dysfunctions, corporate culture and opportunities to work towards retaining top talent.
It is very important to listen to the employee carefu
lly during the exit interview, but it is even more important to act over the feedback and information the employer receives.
Why are exit interviews important?
Many employers fail to recognize the reason why their employees leave. Exit interviews are considered a very important and useful tool for the manager. Proper exit interviews are an excellent source of learning the strengths and weaknesses of both; the managers and the organization. It helps the employer understand the correlation between the organization culture and the employee, and the techniques to best satisfy and keep hold of valuable employees.
Managers know the importance of exit interviews, but when an employee exits, managers are too busy finding a replacement and planning a transition strategy with their team while managing their workload. When the employee finally exits, the managers think that they have lost the opportunity. In fact, it is considered more beneficial to conduct an exit interview after an employee has left.
Exit interviews are a unique chance to receive candid feedback from employees to identify the negative traits of the management. The departing employees can be completely honest about their reasons to leave, their experience with co-workers, or their say over the company policies. The employer needs to conduct an exit interview with all the departing employees to identify the systematic or chronic defects in the organization.
However, the departing employee does not have anything to worry about, but some might fear the damaging relationships that go far beyond employment terms. The employees majorly fear a bad job reference due to which they restrict themselves to remain as discreet as possible during the exit interview.
As previously mentioned, exit interviews do not serve the purpose by conducting a single or a handful of interviews. They must be conducted as much as possible to identify the weak areas of the organization. It is very important to design and implement an effective strategy for conducting exit interviews and administer them regularly. The organization can learn a lot about itself from these interviews.
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