Employee retention is a significant pain point in most organizations. The resources spent recruiting and onboarding a single employee can be daunting, and when that employee leaves, those investments walk out the door. Despite this, many organizations don’t manage the end of an employee’s tenure strategically. Some will conduct a brief exit interview, but the focus tends to be on collecting the employee’s entry badge, not on learning how the company can better attract and retain top talent in the future.
Those exit interviews are diamonds in the rough for Human Resources. They're your best–and last–chance to capture actionable, honest and critical feedback from a departing employee. In this article, I’ll present an argument for this undervalued stage in talent management, and highlight the three components of an ideal offboarding strategy.
Offboarding is Key to Future Talent Retention
A formal process for managing the end of an employee’s lifecycle–offboarding–plays a major part in improving talent retention. Lars Schmidt, Director of Talent Acquisition at NPR, says you should be doing more than just collecting data.
The organizations that get offboarding right are able to capture feedback and make it actionable.
Your departing employees are the richest source of data on the causes of turnover. By asking them the right questions (Susan Heathfield, HR expert for About.com, has an extensive list on her blog), you can uncover flaws in your talent management process and determine the key drivers of turnover.
Schmidt suggests that it’s generally better for HR to manage offboarding. “They have more experience in these things, and know where to probe when candid responses can be particularly enlightening.” Furthermore, says Schmidt, a human resources manager may have more context concerning certain issues than an immediate supervisor would. As such, “an answer to certain questions may mean something more to an HR partner who has those insights.” Regardless of why an employee is leaving or where they’re going, though, Schmidt says you always want to leave on good terms. Not surprisingly, offboarding requires a degree of delicacy, respect and professionalism if you want to obtain actionable feedback from departing employees.
The Three Components of Effective Offboarding
From the day an employee announces his decision to leave until you close their file for the last time, offboarding is a process that can take weeks to complete. It should be more involved than a casual lunch on their last day (though this is a great gesture). To uncover information that will help you identify opportunities for improvement in your organization’s process, structure and values–and to wrap up any loose ends–your offboarding should be include three main components:
Administrative Offboarding. Questions addressing administrative, legal and compliance items should be straightforward. The value in executing on this aspect of the interview is clear; mishandling sensitive subjects in this area can be costly. The goals for this portion of the interview will vary by employer but should generally include:
- Recovering company property
- Discussing severance pay and benefits options
- Revisiting unresolved complaints and policy issues
- Reviewing non-disclosure and non-compete agreements
Tactical Offboarding. In this area, you want to gauge the efficacy of your everyday processes. Do employees have what they need to perform their job duties? Does the structure of your leadership hierarchy support efficient decision-making?
In the case of employees being asked to leave, “You want to get a sense of why things didn’t work out from the employee’s perspective. Maybe they weren’t in the right role. We as employers shouldn’t assume that fault is solely on the employee,” says Schmidt.
If you handle these situations circumspectly, departing employees can provide some perspective on how the employer can recruit candidates that would be a better mutual fit. Regardless of whether the employee is leaving voluntarily, ask pointed questions such as:
- From ordering office supplies to assigning and executing new projects, how efficient are the organization’s workflows?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses in your talent management processes (onboarding, performance reviews, goal management, etc.)?
- Did the company offer adequate employee development and opportunities for growth?
Strategic Offboarding. People can be fickle. Some leave a company due to serious issues with the way things are run, while others just gradually become disconnected from your vision and values and decide it’s time to move on. Getting to the heart of an employee’s reasons often requires some digging. Spark constructive conversations by beginning with high-level question on these topics, and then peel back that onion with care:
- How competent is your organization’s leadership team (executive and manager level)?
- Are employees connected to the company culture? Is decision making aligned with company values?
- Are there things the company should change regarding compensation, succession planning, or work/life balance? Would those changes have persuaded the employee to stay?
- Was the employee’s work uninteresting or unchallenging?
Improvement Begins With Follow-Up
You can tune and tweak your exit interview to a point of unparalleled perfection, but your data is only useful if you’ll actually do something with it (funny how that works). As the VP of HR at Ticketmaster (prior to joining NPR), Schmidt revamped their offboarding process to include online exit surveys via SurveyMonkey. “Surprisingly,” says Schmidt, “it didn’t take that long to put together and roll out.” Schmidt and his team converted existing exit interview survey templates and had employees assign numeric values to responses. Administrators could then hone-in on specific metrics–like the number of people leaving within their first 18 months or how many were leaving due to issues with management–and were able to identify trends and review the impact of changes in their process.
There was measurable value in being able to help the business and division heads understand turnover in their area. “We were able to tell people, ‘This is what your turnover looks like, this is why they’re leaving,’ and that was very helpful to them because they had visibility they didn’t have before,” Schmidt explained.
Close Chapters, but Don’t Burn Bridges
Though you wish it weren’t so, good employees, star players and weak performers alike will leave your company some day. Regardless of where an employee is going or why, Schmidt advises doing what you can to end things on a good note. “You want to maintain those ties, and oftentimes there are bounce-back employees.” Although you’ll definitely come across a bad apple from time to time, respect and professionalism will go a long way toward closing this chapter of an employee’s career on a positive note. What challenges have you faced in offboarding employees? Does your organization place as much value on exit interviews as you think they should? Or too much? Share your thoughts here, and join the conversation.
