A statistic that we recently read and gasped at is that a mere 5% of UK businesses conduct any form of exit interview or study. The same report highlighted that the vast majority of the 5% also conduct a standard interview with the departing employee, which is led by either the outgoing staff member’s line manager or with HR.
For those in the 5%, this may seem fine, but the truth is that using this methodology, most outgoing staff won’t provide a thought out and frank critique of their motivations to leave. Neither will they highlight areas where the organisation excelled or could improve. Typically these meetings can either be pretty short and silent affairs or indeed turn into a rant fuelled emotional outpouring rather than an objective information sharing exercise.
At Augment, we see exit studies as a critical component of managing people within an organisation. We believe that the same lean thinking processes that are used within manufacturing processes should also be evident in people processes. Therefore, the motivations that have led to a resignation, dismissal, or any other form of exit should be explored. The resulting dialogue should be fed back into the people processes with the goal of tweaking the relevant areas to prevent history repeating itself.
As expressed in one of our earlier blogs, getting this right will open up a huge financial saving and promote greater engagement, foster a better culture and positively impact individual and team performance.
One of the crucial aspects to consider is obtaining full, frank and candid feedback. Only by getting this are you getting the truth behind any sub optimal processes, procedures, dynamics or cultures. This can be more easily achieved if departing employees either participate in anonymous data gathering methods online or offline, or indeed if they are interviewed or hold discussions with unbiased 3rd parties. Of course the methodologies used and the structure of them should be consistent.
In the same way many companies have invested heavily in customer feedback, perhaps they should do the same in a meaningful way with their biggest asset, their human resource, after all, they spend an average of 77% of annual operational expenditure on it.
If organisations truly value their people and proclaim they are the key asset, then perhaps it’s time that was reflected in the strategy taken to manage and develop them. Furthermore, doing this will generate a huge financial return. What is there to lose?
