Ask HN: Does your company do exit interviews? Curious to know from folks in management or running their own companies - do you do exit interviews? If you do, what have you learnt from them and how has it helped? If you don't do exit interviews - why don't you? |
They're a mixed bag. Once in a while I learned something insightful. It was worth it, even though a good percentage did not provide much value.
The valuable ones where when a person shared some unabridged feedback that I had not heard before. I heard things that were said more directly, with no agenda, and that was valuable.
Once I a person flat out said that he was slacking COMPLETELY. This reminded me that I am more blind than I'd like to think.
Other times I heard feedback regarding my management style. That was good to hear.
At other times I learned more background or heard a different perspective about a situation that took place.
I do regular one-on-ones and wish that more of these things came out during those conversations. I will continue doing exit interviews to catch additional things that don't get shared regularly.
1-on-1s are extremely unlikely to surface these sorts of things, because saying these sorts of things is very risky for people who want to continue working at the place. You're rarely going to get actually frank and honest feedback in that sort of situation unless the employee is very happy or feels very secure.
I'm not sure how much better exit interviews are, though. As an exiting employee, I've only been asked to take part in one once, and I declined because it seemed like a lot of risk for no benefit (to me).