Employee Exit Interviews

After experiencing a surge in employee turnover, a large household name manufacturer retained NBRI to conduct employee exit interview surveys on an ongoing basis to discover the reasons why they were losing employees.

Internal exit interviews, such as those conducted by an organization’s own human resources department, can place former employees in an uncomfortable position. If they are unhappy with the quality of supervision they received during employment, for example, openly stating this to another employee of that same organization can feel a lot like “tattling.” For this reason, it is difficult for employees to candidly share their experiences during interviews that are conducted internally.

To ensure respondents are able to be open and honest about their experiences with the Fortune 500 manufacturer, NBRI conducts the exit surveys by telephone after employees have physically left the premises. This allows NBRI to collect pure and unbiased data. Often people believe that it is necessary to conduct the interview onsite to ensure high response rates, but this is not the case. NBRI is able to consistently achieve a 95% Confidence Level in the interviews. This high confidence level means that management can be certain the data gathered accurately represents the thinking of the typical exiting employee.

Data analysis of the first data collection cycle revealed that supervision was the overriding factor contributing to employee turnover. NBRI ClearPath Analytics’ provided even greater insight, pinpointing the specific areas where supervisors should be developed to stem employee exits. Specifically, performance evaluations were perceived to be unfair, a perception that led to negative opinions of organizational diversity, discrimination, career advancement, and a host of other issues.

NBRI recommended that the client focus solely on the root cause of performance evaluations, a conclusion that was reached after a thorough analysis of the employee exit interview data. Within six months of increasing employee perceptions of fairness and equity in performance ratings, overall perceptions of the organization had improved as well. Since this root cause drove nearly half of the client’s survey results, this was significant improvement indeed. Most importantly, employee turnover was reduced by over 80% and the most common reason for leaving became ’to start a home business.'