A few years ago, I was working in the human resource department of a well-respected organisation which taught me a lot about managing people, resolving conflict and returning staff. It quickly became apparent to me that a lot of people in the organisation were not kin on doing exit interview; the advisers would say things like I have got better things to do than listen to people complain about their managers. Advisers would come out of an exit interviews and they would actually laugh about what the employee was complaining about. What surprised me the most is that the advisers did not do any investigation to try and find out the extent of the problem. I think the problem was that these advisers had no information of problems been solved as a result on an exit interviews.
A lot of advisers used to say that someone will always have something negative to say about the organisation, this is not true at all. Some employee had a great time in an organisation and they only leave because a better opportunity has come up elsewhere. I have changed jobs a few times and most of the time it was because I had reached a stage where I had learnt all I was going to learn in that job. However the same cannot be said for a lot of people. A lot of people their job because of something that is going in the organisation. One day I was giving a task to file all the exit interview outcomes so I thought I will do my own little research and I was amazed at what I found.
75% of the people who left the organisation that year left because of the person who was directly managing them, 5% left because of bullying, 5% left because of lack of opportunities, 10% left because they felt the organisation did not value them and only 5% left because of new opportunities or spouses getting better employment in different towns and cities. I was amazed! Out all the staff that left that year only 5% left because they wanted to and 95% left because of something happen in the organisation. I spoke to someone about my findings and I was told people just like complaining but this figure has always stayed with me. Recruitment costs a lot of money and every organisation can save a lot of money by spotting these trends and dealing with. Exit interviews will show which managers need extra training to manage people. Before you ignore a complaint from an employee who is leaving the organisation, remember this, you will only get the truth from the people who will not be in the organisation, almost everyone else will tell you what you want to hear because they afraid of reprisal. An organisation can improve their staff turnover by Listening, Investigating and sorting the problem and exit interview gives you an idea of where you need to start to make your organisation a better organisation to work in.