HR Manager’s Best 20 Exit Interview Questions to Ask Departing Employees

HR manager’s 20 best exit interview questions to understand your team’s true feelings and improve employee retention. These questions will help identify issues, reveal patterns, and provide actionable insights for enhancing your workplace.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Exit Interviews: What Are They?

3. Exit Interviews: Why Are They Important?

4. The Top 20 Questions for Exit Interviews

5. Motives for Departing

6. Exit Interview Questions to Understand Employee Experience

7. Exit Interview Questions Particular to the Role

8. Forward-looking Exit Interview Questions

9. Five Strategies for Improving Exit Interviews

10. Next: Boost Your Exit Interview Effectiveness

Introduction

The exit interview gives you a unique chance to learn important details about your team’s true feelings when a worker departs your company.

Whatever the reasons underlying the employee’s leaving, the exit interview questions that you ask should promote candid, thorough responses.

Employee retention may be seriously jeopardized by neglecting departure interviews or by rejecting the advice they provide.

For example, it’s possible that many feel precisely the same thing if a worker quits your company due to a toxic work environment or an absence of prospects for advancement. It’s also just a question of time until more staff start to go if you don’t solve these problems.

In order to assist you, we have compiled a list of 20 top exit interview questions that will enable you to maintain employee retention, spot any issues, and reveal hidden patterns.

Exit Interviews: What Are They?

A worker who is going to depart a company is interviewed as they prepare to leave. The employee’s motives for departing and their time spent working for the company are usually covered in exit conversations.

Exit Interviews: Why Are They Important?

Because they provide in-depth information about your company culture, daily operations, and management strategies, exit interviews are crucial. They aid in your comprehension of the reasons behind employees’ decisions to go from your company.

Even though receiving negative feedback might be difficult, your company could lose out on important chances to enhance employee retention and the employee experience if you don’t do exit interviews.

The Top 20 Questions for Exit Interviews

We’ve compiled the top 20 exit interview questions to assist you maximize your time during these sessions. Each has been split up into distinct sections:

Motives for Departing

What made you decide to part ways with the company?
Did you and your immediate manager get along?
Did you and your peers get along?
How would you sum up your overall impression of working with our organization?
Could we have done anything to stop you from going?

Exit Interview Questions to Understand Employee Experience

How did you feel about the management style?
Was your manager giving you regular, helpful feedback?
Which company policies or initiatives did you believe were lacking?
Were your achievements acknowledged sufficiently?

Exit Interview Questions Particular to the Role

Did you feel that you knew exactly what your duties were? Did you understand what was required of you?
Did you think you possessed all the tools necessary for performing your work at this place?
Have you had adequate training?
Did you expect the role to be what it was?
Were you working for specific targets for your progression?
What aspects of your work did you enjoy? Was it difficult, gratifying, or overly simple?

Forward-looking Exit Interview Questions

Which risks are the greatest for our business?
What guidance would you want to impart to your group?
What improvements could be made to this workplace?
If given the chance, would you work here once more?
Would you advise others to submit an application for this job?

Five Strategies for Improving Exit Interviews

Exit interviews are viewed with suspicion by the majority of departing employees. This is due to their dislike of businesses attempting to place the blame or persuade people to stay.

What’s the good information? If you start with a clean slate, you can turn things around.

The following five pointers will help you run a successful exit discussion:

Describe the “why” in detail

Resigning employees may feel uncomfortable and uneasy during exit interviews, so it’s critical to reassure them that there is nothing to be concerned about. You could clarify that the conversation is not intended to be harmful and that your goal is to learn more about the reasons behind their search for other work.

In response to their candid criticism and helpful suggestions, you ought to reiterate that you want to improve the corporate culture. Employees are far more likely to speak out and give their opinions during an interview once they are aware of the purpose of it.

Set up a suitable time for the interview

Since most workers provide 4 weeks’ notice, you might want to plan the exit interview for the week before they leave. They need to be willing to express their opinions at this stage of their role.

On the other hand, some businesses decide to do an exit discussion after the worker leaves. It is likely that the staff member will have switched off by then, allowing for a more relaxed dialogue and an opportunity for more candid discussions.

Choose The Appropriate Individual To Lead The Interview

Most workers resign from their supervisors rather than from their jobs. That being said, there may be issues if the departing worker’s immediate manager conducts an exit interview.

Putting a member of HR or a second-level supervisor in charge and letting them lead the interview is preferable. As second-level managers and HR specialists are situated in the buffer zone—that is, one step away from the leaving employee—they will be able to get more candid input. They will also have the authority to make adjustments in response to input from the workforce.

Pay close attention

Paying close attention to the employee’s words is crucial while conducting a departure interview. Their perception that the company values their input is heightened by this. In order to prevent drawing any unwarranted conclusions, you should also attempt to ask individuals more inquiries in light of the input they give.

Pose Appropriate Questions

Regretfully, executing an ineffective exit interview is frequently hindered by poorly crafted questions. Because of this, your company might be passing up important chances for advancement.

Take this interview, for instance, that was released by the SHRM (Society for Human Resources Management):

There was a lot more going on here than what our HR representative had assumed when she had assumed I had left because I got sick of the commuting. My department’s and the company’s overall quality had declined over time to a level where I could not work there. So I let out a deep breath and decided to quit when he remarked, “I heard you’re going because you got a job near to your home,” with an enormous grin. I talked about all the problems with the company, the department, the management, the lighting, the morale, and everything else for approximately twenty minutes.

Like many companies, the interviewer misunderstood the reason for the employee’s departure. However, you can have a deeper understanding of an employee’s motives for leaving if you use the appropriate exit interview questions while conducting the interview.

Information about your company that you may use to enhance employee satisfaction and draw in and keep top talent can also be found by asking the proper exit interview questions.

Next: Boost Your Exit Interview Effectiveness

You need to take action when you’ve established the proper atmosphere and encouraged candid feedback from your staff. The Harvard Business Review states that companies must be open about adapting, otherwise, exit interviews may unintentionally harm your company’s reputation.

Even though it may not be important to past workers what your company is doing or not doing in response to their comments, it is important for the workers who are currently employed by your company.

Pay close attention, evaluate the information, and keep an eye out for patterns if you want to make the most out of your exit interviews. Has the same complaint been made by multiple people? Take note of the situation and get in touch with your present staff to find out how they can enhance their experience.

There are numerous long-term advantages to investing the effort and energy necessary to properly off-board your leaving employees.

Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.

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