- What are Exit Surveys
- Why are Exit Interview Surveys Effective
- How can Surveys help in Reducing Turnover?
What are Exit Surveys?
An exit survey is an interview conducted with a separating company employee, an association member, or educational students. The purpose of an employee exit survey, also known as an exit interview, is to understand impacts on current employee performance, and know the reasons for leaving to improve future employee retention.
Companies outsource exit surveys or use online exit interview software to improve completion rates and streamline exit survey completion. Outsourcing exit interviews to exit interview companies has costs and benefits explored here.
Why are Exit Interview Surveys Effective?
Employee exit interview surveys are the single most powerful instrument for accessing the workplace trends that drive employee separation from employers. A well-designed exit interview process enables an organization to capture valuable insight into the workplace experience and assess the morale and disposition of exiting employees. Exit surveys also indicate to separating staff that their employer values their opinions and their contribution to the organization. Employee exit surveys allow both companies and their previous employees to maintain contact with one another as a means of networking future relationships. A staff exit interview or resignation exit interview helps gather this important information. If you want to find out why employees leave, there is no better time to gather information than when they leave.
Exit Surveys and Reducing Turnover
Employee turnover is the ratio of the number of workers that have to be replaced in a given time period to the average number of workers. The cost of employee turnover is estimated to be 20%-200% annual salary. There are both direct and indirect costs. Direct costs relate to the offboarding costs, replacement costs, and transition costs that have an hourly rate or payment associated with the transaction (job posting or overtime). Indirect costs relate to the loss of production, reduced performance levels, unnecessary stress, and low morale, which do not have recognizable transactional costs (mistakes, accidents, lost inventory). In addition, turnover reduces the productivity of an entire work unit/team, particularly as a result of uncompensated extra workloads, the distraction and tension caused by turnover. If exit surveys are conducted, a company can tap into why they are losing employees, and ultimately take actions to reduce turnover. Employees don’t just wake up one day and decide to quit a job that they’ve held for years. In most cases their motivation for leaving is traceable to specific issues. The only way to access this information is through an exit interview survey.
- What are Exit Surveys
- Why are Exit Interview Surveys Effective
- How can Surveys help in Reducing Turnover?
What are Exit Surveys?
An exit interview survey is an interview conducted with a separating company employee, an association member, or educational students. The purpose of an employee exit survey (or exit interview) is to understand impacts on current employee performance, and know the reasons for leaving to improve future employee retention. Companies either do it in-house outsource exit surveys or use online exit interview software to improve completion rates and streamline exit survey completion.
Why are Exit Interview Surveys Effective?
Employee exit interview surveys are the single most powerful instrument for accessing the workplace trends that drive employee separation from employers. A well-designed exit interview process enables an organization to capture valuable insight into the workplace experience and assess the morale and disposition of exiting employees. Exit interview surveys allow both companies and their previous employees to maintain contact with one another as a means of networking future relationships. If you want to find out why employees leave, there is no better time to gather information than when they leave.
Exit Surveys and Reducing Turnover
Employee turnover is the ratio of the number of workers that have to be replaced in a given time period to the average number of workers. The cost of employee turnover is estimated to be 20%-200% annual salary. There are both direct and indirect costs that relate to employee separation costs, replacement costs, loss of production etc. In addition, tension and extra workload reduces the productivity of an entire work unit/team, particularly as a result of uncompensated extra workloads, the distraction and tension caused by turnover. Employees don’t just wake up one day and decide to quit a job that they’ve held for years. In most cases their motivation for leaving is traceable to specific issues.
Employee Exit Survey Levels
Effective exit surveys help to ensure that you have the information you need to reduce turnover. Why are employees leaving? Which employees are leaving? Are we losing top talent? Are we hiring the right people? These are all critical questions that an organization company faces when deploying an exit interview process. There are 5 Levels for exit survey management:
Level 1: Don't do exit surveys
If you don’t know why they are leaving your company, it is much harder to retain them. Most often employees do to a direct competitor.
Level 2: In house (By Manager)
The team manager takes the responsibility of finding why members from the team are leaving.
Level 3: In house (By HR)
Based on company policies, company HR uses a basic template to find why employees are jumping ship.
Level 4: Outsource (Web)
Outsourcing is when a third party sends online surveys to understand why the employees left the company.
Level 5: Outsource (Voice)
A third party calls each and every employee and has a conversation to find out the reasons for leaving the company. Outsourcing is the most effective method but time consuming.