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Success Through People

Exit Survey

Process - Purpose

The Government of Nova Scotia is committed to finding ways to make the workplace better. One important way to get this information is by speaking with departing employees. Our Exit Survey provides us with valuable information to measure our success and will help us identify ways to continually improve the working environment.

Research has shown that a structured exit interview process is a way to provide better information as to why people are leaving and to determine if there are any trends that may expose an organization and allow the organization to make some positive changes.

As important as the questions themselves, it is equally important how the exit interview is done and who performs it. Ideally, when an employee announces that he or she is leaving the organization (whether this be leaving the government or transferring to another department) arrangements should be made to have someone in Human Resources do a face to face exit interview.

It is recommended that a Human Resources professional conduct the exit interview, this allows for objectivity and for the departing employee to be allowed to comment confidentially. Throughly explaining that the exit interview is voluntary and completely confidential is an important part of the process. It is also important to clearly explain where the information goes, who sees it and what is done with it.

The Human Resources professional, prior to meeting with the departing employee may download the exit survey from the website.

When meeting with the departing employee the interview should take place in a private interview room or office. The location of the interview should be away from an employee’s direct managers and peers, this will assist the employee being interviewed to feel as comfortable as possible to speak his or her mind and share insights. The interviewer should make it clear to the departing employee that the sole purpose of the exit interview is to gather information, opinions and perceptions for helping senior management improve retention. Best practice suggests that only employees who are leaving on their own should be interviewed. Employees who are terminated often will have a personal agenda and provide information that is filtered through emotion rather than logic. This is what we are finding from best practice, however, each Human Resources professional is in a much better position to determine if an individual should be interviewed prior to a departure.

A telephone interview can provide a safer medium and more relaxed setting for someone to speak candidly. Telephone interviews can be more effective than in-person sessions because of the psychological barrier that a telephone creates. It then becomes important for the interviewer to find a match that works best for the person leaving.

The final alternative should the departing employee request is that the individual completes the exit survey either on line via the web, or hard copy and send it back to their Human Resources Division. If the employee has already left the organization and wishes to complete the survey manually, the Human Resources professional should copy the interview survey and send it to the employee along with a self addressed stamped envelope for ease of return. A business card with the Human Resource professionals phone number should also be enclosed should the employee have questions.

Once the survey has been completed either through an interview with the employee or hard copy returned, the human resources professional should input into the data base.

There is no hard and fast “rule” that says that a personal exit interview cannot be done by the manager of the departing employee, again, this should be determined at the time of the notice who is in the best position to do the exit interview. What is important is that we make an attempt to allow the departing employee an opportunity to provide information for us.

Summary

  1. Exit Survey, the process in detail, checklist is located on the Public Service Commission internet under:the HR Practitioner section - more. You will note that each of these documents can be opened by a click of the mouse or click on the pdf file and copy the documents for manual use.

  2. Should you currently be in a CSU or department that has your own exit survey and find that it works well for your organization, continue to use that. This has been designed for those organizations that don’t have anything currently in place or want something more formal. What we want is for the Human Resources Community to have the tools that they feel they can use. It is important to have exit interview performed and we hope that you will begin to use these documents if you have not been doing exit interviews.

  3. At the end of March 2005, Jeannette Smith will be in contact with you to see if you have had the opportunity to use this information. If you have used it she will be asking for feedback on the ease of use, or changes that you would like to see made. The plan will be that changes will be made at that time and communications sent to the Deputy Ministers announcing the introduction of a corporate exit interview process. Your feedback is vitally important to ensure that we are capturing the information that you feel is necessary.

  4. The data collected will be housed at the Public Service Commission with the Executive Recruitment area, however, all information that comes in from your departments will also be forwarded to the HR Director of that department to ensure that the HR Divisions also have the information that they need. Statistics and a roll up of information will occur in six month intervals and again will be sent to the HR Directors.
Jeannette Smith
HR Initiatives
February 2005