Exit Survey

This is an open-ended format that could be tailored to meet particular needs. It could be used both formally as well as informally.

Name:

Hire Date: - Resignation Date:

Department: Manager:

Briefly indicate what factors first caused you to consider leaving the company.

Briefly indicate what factors triggered your leaving the company at this time.

What is your overall opinion of the company?

Please rate the following using this scale:

1 = excellent, 2 = good, 3 = fair, 4 = poor

Benefits [ ]

Pay [ ]

Recruiting Process [ ]

Orientation Process [ ]

Initial Training [ ]

Interest in Employees [ ]

Growth Opportunities [ ]

Ongoing Training [ ]

Physical Working Conditions [ ]

Keeping Employees Informed [ ]

Treating Employees Fairly [ ]

Upholding Company Values [ ]

Morale Overall [ ]

Open-Door Policy [ ]

Morale in Your Area [ ]

Performance Review Process [ ]

Helpfulness/Knowledge of Human Resources [ ]

Medical/Health Benefits [ ]

Other Benefits [ ]

Cooperation among All Employees and Management [ ]

Equipment/Resources to Do Job Properly [ ]

Recognition for Job Well Done [ ]

Incentive/Bonus Program [ ]

Communication of Internal Opportunities [ ]

Company's Concern with Quality and Excellence [ ]

Overall Company Image [ ]

Please comment on any 3 significant scores in the space below:

Please rate your manager using this scale:

1 = always, 2 = usually, 3 = seldom, 4 = never

Resolved complaints and concerns promptly. [ ]

Listened to suggestions. [ ]

Encouraged cooperation. [ ]

Treated you fairly. [ ]

Provided leadership. [ ]

Clearly communicated expectations. [ ]

Was honest. [ ]

Gave performance feedback. [ ]

Coached, trained, and developed you. [ ]

Recognized accomplishments. [ ]

Provided appropriate and challenging assignments. [ ]

Built teamwork. [ ]

Please comment on any 2 significant scores in the space below:

Do you have another job? If so, how does it compare with your last job here?

What did you like most about your last job?

What did you like least about your last job?

What could have been done to encourage you not to leave?

Was this made known to your manager?

Why did you originally join the company?

What did you like most about the company?

What did you like least about the company?

Would you be open to the idea of returning to our company? Why/Why not?

Do you have any objection to our sharing your responses with management?

Do you think the company lives up to its values? - Yes - No

If no, which values did we not live up to, and how can we change for the better?

What other suggestions do you have that will help the company improve?

What suggestions do you have that will help the company keep good people?

Any other comments you would like to add at this time:

Regards,

LEO LINGHAM

From India, Mumbai
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Hi Mr. Leolingham,

The survey points were excellent and contained many things. One doubt comes to my mind: Is the exit survey/exit interview done by request from the management to the exiting employee? I believe it should have been a little brief because it is not compulsory for an employee to fill out the survey form at the time of exit; he/she can reject it.

Thanks & regards
😄😄😄

From India, Madras
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Dear Leo Lingham,

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate them. That is the reason I emphasized the following points:

- Tailor it to each individual case, whether formal or informal, written or verbal.
Because of the negativity often attached to it, employees may ignore it, fearing it could impact their references. HR should treat this informally, even conducting meetings outside the premises over a cup of coffee or tea. This approach is more beneficial for HRM in devising HR strategy.

Thanks and Regards,

Leo Lingham

From India, Mumbai
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Hi,

Good post..... Leo.

As rightly told, exit interviews have to be tailor-made to suit the needs of the organization. Here are a few questions that can be picked if it suits the requirement of the company:

1. Tell me about how you've come to decide to leave.
2. What is your main reason for leaving?
3. What are the other reasons for your leaving?
4. Why is this important, or so significant for you?
5. Within the particular reason to leave, what was it that concerned you particularly?
6. What could have been done early on to prevent the situation developing/provide a basis for you to stay with us?
7. How would you have preferred the situation(s) to have been handled?
8. What opportunities can you see might have existed for the situation/problems to have been averted/dealt with satisfactorily?
9. What can you say about the processes and procedures or systems that have contributed to the problem(s)/your decision to leave?
10. What specific suggestions would you have for how the organization could manage this situation/these issues better in the future?
11. How do you feel about the organization?
12. What has been good/enjoyable/satisfying for you in your time with us?
13. What has been frustrating/difficult/upsetting to you in your time with us?
14. What could you have done better or more for us had we given you the opportunity?
15. What extra responsibility would you have welcomed that you were not given?
16. How could the organization have enabled you to make fuller use of your capabilities and potential?
17. What training would you have liked or needed that you did not get, and what effect would this have had?
18. How well do you think your training and development needs were assessed and met?
19. What training and development that you had did you find most helpful and enjoyable?
20. What can you say about communications within the organization/your department?
21. What improvements do you think can be made to customer service and relations?
22. How would you describe the culture or 'feel' of the organization?
23. What could you say about communications and relations between departments, and how these could be improved?
24. Were you developed/inducted adequately for your role(s)?
25. What improvement could be made to the way that you were inducted/prepared for your role(s)?
26. (For recent recruits of less than a year or so:) What did you think about the way we recruited you?
27. How did the reality alter from your expectations when you first joined us?
28. How could we have improved your own recruitment? How could your induction training have been improved?
29. How could you have been helped to better know/understand/work with other departments necessary for the organization to perform more effectively?
30. What can you say about the way your performance was measured, and the feedback to you of your performance results?
31. How well do you think the appraisal system worked for you?
32. What would you say about how you were motivated, and how that could have been improved?
33. What suggestion would you make to improve working conditions, hours, shifts, amenities, etc.?
34. What would you say about equipment and machinery that needs replacing or upgrading, or which isn't fully/properly used for any reason?
35. What can you say about the way you were managed on a day-to-day basis and on a month-to-month basis?
36. How would you have changed the expectations/objectives/aims (or absence of) that were placed on you, and why?
37. What, if any, ridiculous examples of policy, rules, instructions, can you highlight?
38. What examples of ridiculous waste (material or effort), pointless reports, meetings, bureaucracy, etc., could you point to?
39. How could the organization reduce stress levels among employees where stress is an issue?
40. How could the organization have enabled you to make better use of your time?
41. What things did the organization or management do to make your job more difficult/frustrating/non-productive?
42. How can the organization gather and make better use of the views and experience of its people?
43. Aside from the reason(s) you are leaving, how strongly were you attracted to committing to a long and developing career with us?
44. What can the organization do to retain its best people (and not lose any more like you)?
45. Have you anything to say about your treatment from a discrimination or harassment perspective?
46. Would you consider working again for us if the situation were right?
47. Are you happy to say where you are going (if you have decided)?
48. What particularly is it about them that makes you want to join them?
49. What, importantly, are they offering that we are not?
50. If appropriate, could you be persuaded to renegotiate/stay/discuss the possibility of staying?
51. Can we be of any particular help to you in this move/deciding what to do next (we can't promise anything obviously)?

Let me know if we could add something more to this. Also, please share your inputs on what you think is the most important question [that should not be missed in any case] in the exit interview?

Regards,

Soumya Shankar

From India, Bangalore
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Hi Soumya,

Just a thought, if you can have an Exit Interview form as a questionnaire with rankings instead of questions. Because when leaving any organization, people don't want to spend too much time on the exit interview formality as it's not compulsory. Leaving any organization is a significant decision to make.

So, just a thought... and it's also better to have a questionnaire while analyzing all exit interview forms.

Thanks,
Gunjan

www.kinapse.com

From India, New Delhi
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Hi, I'm quite new to this site, and I know this would really help me in my profession.

Anyway, with regards to the exit survey, in our company, we have this exit interview form. I just want to ask, is it best for an HR staff to conduct the interview or just let the resigned employee fill out the form.


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Exit Survey

Exit interviews should be conducted by HR in an informal manner. Employees should not fill in the form. HR should use the questionnaire as a checklist reminder for himself or herself. Questions should be open-ended, giving the employees an opportunity to speak their minds. HR should make notes in the form. There may not be 20 reasons for the employee leaving the company. There may be only 2 or 3 reasons, and that may be sticking at the top of the employee's mind. This can only be elicited by HR with open-ended questions.

Regards,
LEO LINGHAM

From India, Mumbai
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Hi all,

This is a really useful questionnaire, although I'm not an HR person, I think I can suggest it to my HR department. I have one small question: when should this exit interview be conducted? Should it be at the time when the employee gives his resignation or on the last day of his tenure with the company? Kindly advise.

Thanks,
Anu

From India, Madras
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If a person has decided to leave, can the reasons he gives justify his actions?

I have friends who have told me that a person, in order to skip the exit interview, can dogmatically cling to one answer. It may be true or... How do you find out the reason?

One of the employees in our company went to such an extent saying everything was alright with the company and it's just his attitude! Ironically, this was the same answer his colleague had given (they both worked on the same project). They didn't have any problems with either of them or with other team members. Professionally, they were good. Later, we came to the real truth: MONEY. Funny, why they didn't pose it as a problem when we had asked! They were good resources and we would have retained them.

Why do they not speak openly in the exit interview? What could the reasons be? What could have we done better?

From India, Madras
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Hi All, I have this form that I’ve attached, some use it during exits & some use it as a survey, some use it for 360 too. Seems like a versatile form :lol: Gayathri
From India, New Delhi
Attached Files (Download Requires Membership)
File Type: doc employee_q_form-_survey_-_exit_165.doc (25.0 KB, 585 views)

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EXIT SURVEY The interview should be informal -after the handing over of the resignation letter. -if possible , at least a couple of days before the departure date. regards LEO LINGHAM
From India, Mumbai
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After an employee gives his notice, why should he tell his employer the reasons why he is leaving? I see no benefits but I see many costs.
From United States, Chelsea
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hi, can anyone help me on how to do an exit interview analysis. or is there a certain that should be followed. tnx.

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sorry, if it was not clear.... after gathering the exit interviews, we are asked to do an exit interview analysis per quarter. how should i do this?

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Hello, Theresa:

The first item to address is turnover by supervisor. The second item to address is which supervisors are losing the best employees. Then prepare a summary of all the reasons departing employees give for their quitting and try to relate it to the first and second items above. A more useful survey is the post-exit survey conducted by an external firm 30 or more days after the employee's last day.

From United States, Chelsea
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Wow! That was an impressive and exhaustive list!

Just went through my company's Exit Interview Form and found it sadly lacking, especially with respect to Manager-related queries, which, in my opinion, is almost always the number one reason for most people calling it a day.

Thanks for the info!

Raaj

From India, Bangalore
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Teresa,

In addition to what Bob said, you need to look at factors like reasons for leaving, tenure in the organization, education, etc., put together and make a trend out of it to show to the organization. Also, you need to calculate - looking at the headcount and how many have left. My points may or may not match your needs, but at this point, this is the minimum I could share.

Gayathri

From India, New Delhi
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Theresa,
I'm back with some points from an expert I know of, hope this helps you.
Do let me know if it did. :)
1] The main objective of conducting exit interviews is staff retention! If you are serious about retaining good people, then the more you know about why people chose to leave, the better.
2] If you regularly conduct exit interviews, compile and analyse the data. It can provide information about what sorts of people are leaving (e.g. age range, length of service, job function/department, reporting lines), and the reasons why they have left. It is then possible to design targeted programmes to address the issues that are leading to your key people leaving.
3] It is important to analyse the reasons for people leaving; are they preventable? Are they “healthy reasons” (e.g. personal development, travel), or “unhealthy” (e.g. problems with manager/supervisor, lack of development)? It is also good to analyse how many people come back after travel or parental leave – this is a good indicator that you are doing something right and have supportive policies in place. You should be also looking at how many people don't come back after parental leave!
4] It is good to remember that some staff turnover is good – it brings in new ideas, new approaches. What you are trying to do with exit interview analysis is reduce preventable turnover and enhance the work environment/staff commitment.
5] It is important to think through how interviews are conducted and who does them - people are often nervous about providing their real reasons for leaving while they are still there, and there may be a reluctance to ‘burn the bridges'. It is also good for interviews to be conducted by a third party (e.g. HR) or manager once removed, rather than the immediate manager in case they are part of the problem and also to make the interview more ‘official,' rather than a formality that has to be completed.
6] It is important to think about how to get the results of the interviews on the management agenda, as it should be part of regular monitoring and measurement of people. Sometimes management get defensive when presented with reasons for leaving - it can actually make someone feel a bit of a wimp if they secretly agree with the concerns, but don't have the initiative to do something about it (like leave) or the results can be indicative of problems/issues within their own areas of responsibility. Who gets to see/read the exit interview data is important – it must be seen by people at the top. Lower levels may fudge it if the feedback reflects badly on them.
7] In addition to the traditional interview which takes place in the last few days we have found value in conducting a further interview about 3 months after the person has left – you are much more likely to get honest candid feedback. For example when we did this research for one organisation, we found the key reasons given when interviewed after they had left the organisation were supervisor-related, as opposed to the ‘more money', ‘going overseas', and ‘personal reasons' given at the time of the in-house exit interview.
8] In the ideal world where we all work for great organisations, then measurement and interventions designed to retain good staff are put into place prior to people getting the huff and leaving for the wrong reasons, e.g. employee surveys and 360-degree feedback. But the exit interview provides one more source of information to check you are doing all the other things right – hopefully!
Well, all of the above was a combination of some good exit process, pre , post & the process itself.
A suggestion to maintain the above will be through an access or excel templates, with predifined reasons & having this form completed after each exit. Finaly through an access query you can pull up a report quarterly, i guess you can combine it on excel too with all avrage reasons and show it as a chart.
This is just a suggestion, am too young ( just 2 yrs ) in the HR industry to be a GURU :D
Have fun
Gayathri

From India, New Delhi
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Hi LEO LINGHAM,

I am really thankful to you because the information you have provided is really important and helpful to improve my department and my knowledge. I have recently joined this firm as an Assistant HR Manager. I have never worked in this department before, but as I am pursuing my MBA in HR, I wanted to work in a related field. So, if you can help me with a questionnaire for the interview process (personal), it will be really great.

Regards,
Sheetal


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