Employee termination and turnover are daily challenges
for HR—unfortunately, you can’t retain them all! BLR’s Termination and Exit
Interviews Survey sought to discover what’s happening in the real world with
these important processes. How do your practices stack up?
Employee termination and turnover are daily challenges
for HR—unfortunately, you can’t retain them all! BLR’s Termination and Exit
Interviews Survey sought to discover what’s happening in the real world with
these important processes. How do your practices stack up?
Highlights of the Termination and Exit Interviews
Survey (conducted in December 2014):
·
82% of respondents indicated voluntary
termination is more common than involuntary.
·
89% of participants conduct exit interviews
in order to identify problem areas within the organization so they might
enhance future retention.
·
Only 5.5% of those surveyed indicated they
are “very effective” in acting upon information collected during exit
interviews.
·
17.8% of participants indicated that
conducting interviews in person, either on the phone or face-to-face, was one
of the most important exit interview practices.
·
Severance pay is offered to departing
employees for 32.8% of respondents.
Thanks to all 1,892 individuals who participated in the
survey! Here are the detailed responses.
Turnover
Employee turnover can be an issue for employers,
especially in a tight labor market. Involuntary termination isn’t usually the
problem, or is it? Voluntary termination is almost always a concern for
employers—if there’s too much of it. For 82% of survey participants, voluntary
termination is more common than involuntary termination.
The first step to keep termination from running rampant
in any organization is to find out why employees are leaving. That, of course,
begins with tracking turnover, which is why 73.3% of our survey participants
have a process in place to do just that. Oddly, 87% know their annual turnover
rate even though not all of them track turnover. For example, 16.5% report an
annual turnover rate of more than 20% and 11.1% report a rate of 16% to 20%.
Exit interviews
A hefty 79.5% conduct exit interviews with departing
employees, with 81.1% indicating they do so in order to determine the reason
for the employees’ resignation. Even more, 89%, conduct them to identify
problem areas within the organization in order to enhance future employee
retention. And, 68.8% conduct exit interviews to find ways to improve
organizational culture.
Only 20.3% cite managing turnover cost as a reason for
conducting exit interviews. A mere 33.6%, however, conduct exit interviews “all
the time” and 43.2% conduct them “most of the time.”
Employee type has a lot to do with whether exit
interviews are conducted. For instance, interviews are conducted with departing
director level employees for 59.3% and with hourly employees for 82.7%. In
fact, the higher the employee’s level the less likely an exit interview will be
conducted.
In person is the method of choice for conducting exit
interviews for 83.3%, followed by paper surveys for 36.3% and phone interviews
for 25.2%. Online surveys round out the group with 14.1%. Conducting exit
interviews internally is preferred by 96.1%, with HR handling the task for 90%
and the departing employee’s direct supervisor conducting the session for
13.6%. Most exit interviews (45.8%) are conducted during the departing
employee’s notice period and 43.1% take place on the last day of employment.
Exit interviews are conducted within the first week after leaving for 11.2%.
Regarding the exit interviews that are conducted
externally (by an outside third party), 61% are confidential with names and
other unique identifiers not available to the employer. Regular reports from
their vendor are received by 40% while customized reports are received by 16%.
Another 30% access their reports online, and 10% are debriefed by the outside
third party.
Surprisingly, only 36.7% include a compliance/ethics
question regarding unethical, illegal, or fraudulent behavior as part of the
exit interview. Exit interview information is reported/reviewed sporadically
for 40.8% and weekly for 4%. Monthly is the norm for 12.1% and quarterly works
for 14.7%.
Exit interview information is relayed verbally to senior
management for 45.8% and via e-mail for 22.8%. Only 15.4% formally review the
information with senior management.
Exit interview information is somewhat valued by senior
management for 36.7% and very valued for 17.7%. The information is somewhat
effectively acted upon for 43.9% and very effectively acted upon for 5.5%.
Getting senior management buy-in is a hurdle to effectively utilizing exit
interview information for 25.9%, and creating an action plan is a challenge for
19.6%.
Exit interview information is used as a guideline for
future organizational improvement for 50.2% of survey participants. It is used
to create an action plan to resolve issues that surfaced for 20.7%. Of those
who create action plans, 92% utilize internal resources led by an internal
initiative leader.
Metrics
When asked about the type(s) of metrics used to monitor
the effectiveness of action taken with regard to exit interview information,
4.3% track their action plan success rate, and 2.7% track retention rate.
Turnover rate is tracked by 9.7% with 2.72% tracking turnover by department
and/or supervisor and 1.8% tracking voluntary turnover.
A hefty 40.5% have no metrics for monitoring the
effectiveness of their action plans. Their responses included interesting
comments such as:
“We are a small organization with only 2 people in our HR
department and once we conduct the exit interview we don’t do anything with the
information. Some of our senior management don’t see the value and look at it
as a way for the employee to bash the organization.”
“We are so small of a company that HR can report back to
the CEO if there were positive or negative improvements as a result of sharing
a negative exit interview.”
“We do not even use a standard list of questions. Each
manager will ask or not ask whatever they think is important or relevant.”
“Turnover has become so problematic that keeping the open
positions filled with competent staff is consuming most of the available
resources.”
“We have no metrics since we haven’t implemented any
action plans.”
“We do not use anything formal; we simply follow up or
know the status because we’re the ones taking the action.”
Another 37.3% indicated that using metrics is not
applicable for their organization.
Source: HR
Daily Adviser
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