Secrets of why staff leave

When an employee decides to leave your company you'd better be asking them for more than their swipe card before they head out the door.

Jane Kennelly, managing director of Frog Recruitment, says it is more crucial than ever before to debrief them on why they are leaving in order to learn how to retain good staff.

"The more organisations know about why people are choosing to leave, the more value they can then place on the staff that they wish to retain. So it's become more than just an exercise and a nice thing to do but the information is incredibly valuable now. This is information that can lead to selecting the right person to fill the vacancy."

The feedback given in exit interviews can be used to seriously change the way a role is structured.

"Changes may be required in the job spec. It could lead to internal staff training and development particularly for team leaders and managers. It can lead to an increase in benefits or a change in the way some of the flexible arrangements are employed by that company. It can lead to an increase in career planning and career progression within the company."

Exit interviews are designed to find out more than just why the person is leaving. That question is often the simplest.

"The research we have would suggest that people leave people. It could just be that final straw on a camel's back when they're sitting there in a meeting when yet another comment is made which is a put down or negative and they say, 'awe, the hell with it! I've had enough'. We hear feedback all the time, 'I'm leaving because my manager didn't value my input'."

Kennelly says exit interviews should be done by a third party such as an HR person or an outside consultant. The employee should be encouraged to tell exactly what happened to make them leave.

"What employers really need to focus on is not so much the 'why' question, but employees need to be encouraged to give really good anecdotes about their employment experience. Who conducts the interview is really important. Ideally it needs to be someone that is neutral. It could be a telephone-based interview but it ideally is a face-to-face one."

Organisations wanting to focus on their employer brand management should interview the people leaving their organisation. Kennelly says a good exit interview should cover several key areas.

* The leadership of the organisation which is all about facilitating purposeful work.

* The management practices which is all about the context of the job. What were the opportunities for advancement? What was the work environment like? Was their recognition for special efforts? Was there good feedback and coaching?

* The organisation and the culture and the function of the company. Was it a successful company? Did the environment foster trust, open communication and dialogue? Were the values alive within the organisation or were they just on a piece of Perspex when you walked in the door?

* The job - which is all about job content and match. Was the employee aligned with the job? Was there job satisfaction? Were there clear roles? Did you know what your responsibilities were and was the workload appropriate?

* The work relationships with colleagues - relationships with other staff and relationships with senior management.

Kennelly also says that the timing of the exit interview is critical.

"If it's too early then it won't elicit the sort of candid responses that you want. And if it's too late and people are kind of, at that stage, feeling a bit hacked off about the whole thing, it may become quite an emotional experience as well. There is that fine line as to where it should sit and ideally it should sit as close to the actual exit as possible without it necessarily happening on the day."

Chris Fitzgerald, human resources manager for the New Zealand Post delivery business, says a newly implemented exit interview process has provided him with key tools for retaining people in the tight labour market. New Zealand Post is now preparing to implement the process in other parts of the delivery operations and in some mail centres nationally.

"One of the keys to the process really is to customise the exit interviews to your business. Using a generic question and answer sort of thing isn't really going to really drill into what the issues are for your business. You need to do a fair bit of research internally to develop a tailored interview guide."

Fitzgerald says that the information gleaned from the exit interviews has produced real changes as to how staff are selected and how workers are managed. Part time shifts were consolidated into full-time positions and the interview process was refined.

"We've got a much more targeted recruitment process. We do a lot of the interviews at a delivery branch now so that when people are coming in and applying for jobs they can actually see their environment. They understand what it looks like, how it feels. They ride a bike. We've built in skills tests around riding a bike and sorting mail. We targeted interview questions around particular behavioural things that are important for the role of a postie."

At Fonterra's customer service and documentation centre, everyone who leaves a business unit, even it is an internal appointment, is asked to give an exit interview. HR manager, Michelle Phillips says employees must feel as though they are allowed to speak freely.

"I obviously conduct them on an honest basis in a safe and open environment. The offer is there for them to be as open and polite or impolite as they'd like to be on an anonymous basis when that data is reviewed."

But Phillips says the primary beneficiary of the interview is neither the employee nor the employer.

"Personally I think an exit interview is in the interest of an employee's peers and colleagues. It is used to help improve the work environment - work flow, work load, management. When I meet with people I'm often explaining to them the reasons why we conduct them and how important they are, how helpful they are to their peers and colleagues. In most cases the people that I meet with are really happy to share how areas could be improved. They are happy to talk about what was satisfying and what was dissatisfying."

At Frog Recruitment, Kennelly says that exit interviews need to be taken seriously if they are to be worth the investment of time and resources.

"If employers in New Zealand are really getting their heads around the employment arena today and the importance of retaining people then they should be totally interested in this sort of feedback. It should be reported on. They should want to know why people are leaving their organisation."

She says the result at the end of the process should be that some real action has occurred.

"The process of an exit interview can just be a really perfunctory thing that you can tick the box and say, 'oh great, we've done it' or it really can be about continual process improvement within an organisation."