Idea in Brief
The Need
In today’s knowledge economy, skilled employees are any company’s most valuable asset. Thus it’s important to understand why they stay, why they leave, and how the organization may need to change.
The Opportunity
Exit interviews, when conducted with care, can provide a flow of thoughtful feedback and insight on all three fronts. They can increase employee engagement and retention by revealing what works or doesn’t work inside the organization.
The Challenge
Too often, exit interview programs fail to achieve their potential for two reasons: First, the data they produce can be spotty and untrustworthy. And second, little consensus on best practices exists. This article attempts to address both concerns.
An international financial services company hired a midlevel manager to oversee a department of 17 employees. A year later only eight remained: Four had resigned and five had transferred. To understand what led to the exodus, an executive looked at the exit interviews of the four employees who had resigned and discovered that they had all told the same story: The manager lacked critical leadership skills, such as showing appreciation, engendering commitment, and communicating vision and strategy. More important, the interviews suggested a deeper, systemic problem: The organization was promoting managers on the basis of technical rather than managerial skill. The executive committee adjusted the company’s promotion process accordingly.
