Companies could save themselves a lot of pretense with exit interviews and just assume the following:
If a good person leaves your company, it is because of one or more of the following:
1. You can't (or won't) pay them as much as someone else.
2. They aren't happy in the culture of your company.
3. They aren't happy with the type of work they are doing.
4. They don't see a bright future with your company - either for themselves, or for the company, or both.
5. They don't trust the company (or, possibly, the people they work with).
6. It isn't one item, or one incident, but over their time with the company, many little things that eroded their desire to work there. A person leaving today might have become fed up with the company two years ago when some botched project burned them or a manager handled something completely inappropriately. People don't usually just quit on the spot.
7. They want to work for themselves. Which means, they don't want to work for you. It really isn't you, it's them. (Wish them good luck and be sincere)
8. They can get a better deal (non-monetary) somewhere else and it outweighs the job. For young people, often the job is part of their identity. Once people get married and have kids (or just get a little older), they realize that working for someone else is not much of a reward. They may want a more flexible schedule, may want to just physically be closer to their home, any number of things that you may not be able to control.
9. You see them as a replaceable part and they know it. (Surprise!)
So rather than ask the person like a grownup they should
wildly speculate in order to make everyone less
uncomfortable?
When a parent asks friends "look at this photo, isn't my baby beautiful?" the answer is information-free as everyone will say "yes, that is a cute baby".
Exit interviews are the same. But unlike the stuff with a parent, it doesn't have the social-bond-building value of gossip.
With an exit interview, in the best case you learn nothing and know it; and in the worst case you learn nothing but mistakenly think you learned something. Not bothering with an exit interview helps you avoid that mistake, and saves you time as well.
When I left a former job, I was very candid in my exit interview. My former boss and I discussed things that I didn't like about the job, and he was interested to hear some honest feedback from someone with nothing to lose. It didn't cost me anything and it helped him to get a feel for things that other people didn't like either but weren't comfortable coming out and saying.
Maybe if things were sour it would have been different, but in this case I thought it was productive and was glad to help.
>When a parent asks friends "look at this photo, isn't my baby beautiful?" the answer is information-free as everyone will say "yes, that is a cute baby".
One of my life goals is to always answer this question honestly.
People who would get offended if you called their kid ugly are not the kind of people you'd want to spend time with? That's basically every person on earth.
Thinking that something is not beautiful is not the same thing as thinking that something is ugly. And there is a pretty obvious (though not to you, apparently) difference between being asked that question and me responding honestly, and me simply remarking, unprovoked, "boy, that kid sure looks pretty damn ugly, don't he?"
The kind of people I want to spend my time around are those who prefer honest questions and honest answers, as opposed to those simply soliciting me for a bit of verbal fellatio.
Name another reason that doesn't fall under those nine. I'm honestly not trying to argue, just asking. There aren't really that many reasons why people leave. People leave because they aren't happy or aren't getting paid enough or they have a personal situation that dictates it. There are really just 3 reasons but I elaborated because I expected people to start chiming in with all of the reasons I missed.
Those reasons are so vague, though. Alright, so "people aren't happy", how should I go about fixing that as an employer? Step 1: find out what they are unhappy about. Hence the exit interview.
IMHO, this information should be gathered well before exit, e.g. through regular 1-on-1's, but that's another discussion.
An exit interview allows you to be more candid than in a regular 1-on-1. When you're still an employee you're more worried about saying something that could affect your perception.
> They can get a better deal (non-monetary) elsewhere
Just won the lottery, close relative received terminal diagnosis, got pregnant, believed their horoscope, saved enough to retire - these are all cases where someone believes they can get more value for themselves by leaving their job.
Spouse has had an affair with a co-worker probably goes under "not happy with the culture"...
I probably wouldn't talk about any of those reasons in most situations.
People who leave usually negociate or talk up before they leave. If you need the exit interview, then your management is seriously unable to hear. In which case the exit interview won't be acted upon anyway.
The company should be having that grownup conversation well before I leave. If my manager does not know why I'm leaving, they haven't been doing their job as a manager...which may be one of the reasons I'm leaving. :-)
Of the companies I've worked for that hold exit interviews, and I've had conversations with ex-coworkers about what they said at the exit interview, it would appear that it doesn't make any difference anyway. So why open yourself up to any liability, or help relieve your ex-employer of any liability? Don't waste your time, or even their time for that matter.
That seems to be a lot of possible reasons. So once they see a good person leaving, what should they do to stem the flow? Having a list of nine possible reasons is nice, but if they don't know which one is the right one, it can make it very difficult to know what to change in response.
If the company couldn't be bothered to learn what I thought in the months or years I've been working with them, I don't feel any motivation to tell them now. An exit interview is essentially saying, to me, "We didn't care until you left."
There's also the fact that I find most interviews incredibly dehumanising experiences. Someone sits down and reads some set questions at you... bleh. Does anyone enjoy that? You want to know what I think, try having a conversation. If the emotional and intellectual investment on your side is you deigned to read me a list? Just... stuff that for a game of soldiers. I'm not going to put up some of my feelings and concerns in response to a list-reading machine.
Ultimately, if I've got a good relationship with my manager, she or he will know why I'm leaving without needing to sit down and treat me like some stranger who they can interrogate. If we don't have a good relationship, then under those conditions all they've really done is pay my wage in return for code, and when they stopped doing so they lost the right to my time and effort in any form.
Outright refusing it seems awkward and overly hostile to me, but I have done it while giving very perfunctory answers. When they dug for more I told them I was available for consulting. Quite simply there is no incentive to do any more than that.
