Are you Taking Advantage of Valuable Information Found during Exit Interviews?
Why are exit interviews important? Especially if you are experiencing high turnover on your supply chain team, you need to know why your employees are leaving. Asking the right questions can educate you on the strengths and weaknesses of both your management and your supply chain organization. How can you get the most out of your exit interview strategy?
Conduct the Interview at the Right Time
Most managers think they should hold exit interviews after someone resigns but before that person leaves. Actually, this is not a good time. The focus is probably on finding a replacement and figuring out a transition strategy, leaving little time and energy for exit interviews. It’s actually better to speak to former employees at least a few weeks after they’ve left, or even months, which will give them time to gain perspective and hopefully get over any resentment or anger they might have. They’ll be better able to offer constructive criticism. Schedule the appointment before they walk out the door, for sometime in the future. They’ll respect and appreciate that you asked!
Have A Neutral Third Party Conduct The Interview
Convincing supply chain employees to open up and be totally honest about any problems they may have had with your company can be difficult. It’ll be almost impossible if the person conducting the interview is the former employee’s supervisor and the supervisor was the problem! Former employees are also reluctant to open up to someone from HR, because they don’t want to burn any bridges. The best way to get open, honest and unfiltered feedback is by hiring a neutral third party and assuring the interviewee that anything he or she says will be confidential.
Ask Questions From All Angles
Here is a list of questions you can ask during exit interviews that will hopefully generate helpful feedback:
- What is your lasting impression of working for this company/on this team?
- What did you like about working here?
- What could they have done better?
- What was your primary reason for leaving?
- What would it have taken for you to stay?
- What does your new job offer that this one didn’t?
- Do you feel you received enough training and development to do your job effectively?
- Did you feel you received sufficient performance feedback?
- Did any policies, procedures or people make your job more difficult?
- Is there anything else you feel the company/management ought to know?
Decide What to Do With the Information
After conducting exit interviews, it’s important to go through the results and determine what you can change and what you can’t. Hopefully you can implement some improvements. Even if you can’t, pass along the information you learned to the appropriate people within the supply chain organization. Remember, the purpose of these interviews is to discover the catalyst that spurred your former employees to look for new opportunities in the first place.
To improve your supply chain workplace and increase engagement, a carefully planned exit interview process should yield good results.
For more perspectives on this topic, check out our previous blog post or contact us today for advice on supply chain recruiting in Colorado!