4 ms·

Your curiosity, professional or personal, probably has little bearing on what they tell you. The wording you use doesn't matter - exit interviews are always fra

Your curiosity, professional or personal, probably has little bearing on what they tell you. The wording you use doesn't matter - exit interviews are always framed as "what we could have done better/could do better in the future?" but it is rarely so innocent in reality, and people know this. At best, companies use divulged complaints as a basis for negotiation retain the employee (what if we raised your salary to match your offer? What if we reassigned you to a different manager?) but often it is simply used get the employee to sign a waiver relieving to company of any legal blame. And a likely outcome is that their complaint about their boss gets passed along and it bites them in the ass when they need a referral down the road. So what advantage do they have for being honest? In what way could it possibly benefit THEM to tell you anything? To be honest, a company should always know or be able to figure out the real answer to this question if it their own doing. Either the employee got a better job or the writing was on the wall. If you as a company have people leaving and no one knows why, you don't ask the leaving people you ask the people who are staying - Bob is leaving, is there anything we can do to improve YOUR experience? When they are out the door it is too late, so focus on the employees that are there.

theSage 7y ago
I never thought of this. Thank you.
- minipci1321 7y ago
  Also, while asking people that sort of question, ask yourself whether improving the situation is within your reach, whatever is the cause? If you think you could -- do you think people you are interviewing, also believe you can? I wouldn't tell anything to a person who has no power or no incentive to improve things, and sadly, this covers 100% of people one usually has exit interviews with. So I always declined them, politely. You wouldn't believe how much respect and good contacts this attitude earned me over the years.
- ryanobjc 7y ago
  I don’t really know you or this situation... but there’s a chance that you’re part of the problem. And they won’t tell you that. I think one thing to reflect on is why you didn’t know this about the pointlessness of exit interviews and the danger of “real talk.” Don’t worry though - I didn’t for a while either. Experience will get you there.
bryanmgreen 7y ago
That’s why it’s so important to start that feedback loop early when that person onboards. It helps establish a communication culture.
unforeseen9991 7y ago
The HR at my last job were so incompetent they tried reaching out to me (repeatedly) for a exit interview three weeks after I had already left.
- sloaken 7y ago
  I cannot argue their competence, but giving someone a 3 week cooling off time to reflect on why they left seems reasonable. Although trying multiple times does not seem reasonable. Many companies I have left, never cared about why.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  Just let them know your day rate.
- croh 7y ago
  wow !!! which org ?
brunoqc 7y ago
> but often it is simply used get the employee to sign a waiver relieving to company of any legal blame Why would anyone sign anything when leaving a job?
- ryanobjc 7y ago
  For money. Companies will withhold severance and/or extra healthcare pay. In fact from a contract law perspective you have to exchange consideration for an agreement.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  Even though the companies are required to pay you out your last check and unused PTO, many HR departments will hold the envelope with the check in front of them and give you the paper to sign. They will not use words, because that will be illegal, but they will let you think that if you don't sign you don't get the money. It's up to you to know that you don't need to sign to get your money.
klenwell 7y ago
Well stated. Once the employee is out the door, they're really just a MacGuffin to drive the real plot: management trying to figure out how it can improve the company and culture to avoid this situation again. Even if I was happy to see the team member depart, I still want to think about why they were hired in the first place, where did things go wrong, what are we not seeing. At my org, I introduced post-mortems (call them Exit Retrospective so it's doesn't sound too morbid). When an employee leaves or is terminated, we (manager, hiring team, anyone else who makes sense) are invited to an Exit Retrospective. Manager prepares talking points on the following topics: - Candidate - Manager - Team - Organization For each topic, manager lists areas where the individual or entity failed/struggled and succeeded/thrived. Last section is Lessons Learned. That's the agenda. It's shared before the meeting. During the meeting, we go through each section, discuss a bit, note any actions items we can take on to improve things going forward. Meeting is about an hour. Prep another hour or two.
muzani 7y ago
I don't think it's that hard to get people to be honest. I've seen plenty of situations where two parties absolutely hate each other, but once the anger is out of the way, they get along just fine and become good friends. The sincerity needs to come from both sides. When someone has left, they probably distrust or dislike the company. And the first thing to do is to fix that distrust. Otherwise it seems like an exit interview is just part of HR's job.

theSage 7y ago

I never thought of this. Thank you.

minipci1321 7y ago
Also, while asking people that sort of question, ask yourself whether improving the situation is within your reach, whatever is the cause? If you think you could -- do you think people you are interviewing, also believe you can? I wouldn't tell anything to a person who has no power or no incentive to improve things, and sadly, this covers 100% of people one usually has exit interviews with. So I always declined them, politely. You wouldn't believe how much respect and good contacts this attitude earned me over the years.
ryanobjc 7y ago
I don’t really know you or this situation... but there’s a chance that you’re part of the problem. And they won’t tell you that. I think one thing to reflect on is why you didn’t know this about the pointlessness of exit interviews and the danger of “real talk.” Don’t worry though - I didn’t for a while either. Experience will get you there.

bryanmgreen 7y ago

That’s why it’s so important to start that feedback loop early when that person onboards. It helps establish a communication culture.

unforeseen9991 7y ago

The HR at my last job were so incompetent they tried reaching out to me (repeatedly) for a exit interview three weeks after I had already left.

sloaken 7y ago
I cannot argue their competence, but giving someone a 3 week cooling off time to reflect on why they left seems reasonable. Although trying multiple times does not seem reasonable. Many companies I have left, never cared about why.
quickthrower2 7y ago
Just let them know your day rate.
croh 7y ago
wow !!! which org ?

brunoqc 7y ago

> but often it is simply used get the employee to sign a waiver relieving to company of any legal blame Why would anyone sign anything when leaving a job?

ryanobjc 7y ago
For money. Companies will withhold severance and/or extra healthcare pay. In fact from a contract law perspective you have to exchange consideration for an agreement.
dmitrygr 7y ago
Even though the companies are required to pay you out your last check and unused PTO, many HR departments will hold the envelope with the check in front of them and give you the paper to sign. They will not use words, because that will be illegal, but they will let you think that if you don't sign you don't get the money. It's up to you to know that you don't need to sign to get your money.

klenwell 7y ago

Well stated. Once the employee is out the door, they're really just a MacGuffin to drive the real plot: management trying to figure out how it can improve the company and culture to avoid this situation again. Even if I was happy to see the team member depart, I still want to think about why they were hired in the first place, where did things go wrong, what are we not seeing. At my org, I introduced post-mortems (call them Exit Retrospective so it's doesn't sound too morbid). When an employee leaves or is terminated, we (manager, hiring team, anyone else who makes sense) are invited to an Exit Retrospective. Manager prepares talking points on the following topics: - Candidate - Manager - Team - Organization For each topic, manager lists areas where the individual or entity failed/struggled and succeeded/thrived. Last section is Lessons Learned. That's the agenda. It's shared before the meeting. During the meeting, we go through each section, discuss a bit, note any actions items we can take on to improve things going forward. Meeting is about an hour. Prep another hour or two.

muzani 7y ago

I don't think it's that hard to get people to be honest. I've seen plenty of situations where two parties absolutely hate each other, but once the anger is out of the way, they get along just fine and become good friends. The sincerity needs to come from both sides. When someone has left, they probably distrust or dislike the company. And the first thing to do is to fix that distrust. Otherwise it seems like an exit interview is just part of HR's job.