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Companies struggling with high staff turnover could get valuable insights by using exit interviews effectively, research from AUT shows.
Analysis of staff turnover for international hotel chain Accor provided unexpected results. AUT hospitality management student John Parker found employees weren't being honest in exit interviews about their reasons for leaving the company. Redesigning the interviews, he says, could reveal useful clues.
The hotel's management were so impressed with his work that they have taken him on as a trainee manager.
John produced the research paper for Accor as a co-op student last year while completing his Bachelor of International Hospitality Management. He says the company's New Zealand managers were surprised by the results - but also pleased.
"This information will be of interest to other multinational organisations like the Hilton hotel chain," he says.
John found the exit interviews produced little valuable information. Often employees did not give the real reasons for leaving, perhaps because they were interviewed by their own managers. "Employees don't want to burn their bridges - the hospitality industry is a small world."
He suggested Accor redesign the exit interviews to extract meaningful information from employees. "It's a matter of asking the right questions."
John's research won him the rare honour of being invited to present a paper at the Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education conference in Sydney last month.
