News & Views
EXIT VS STAY - STOP THE EXODUS!
Exit
Interviews can ensure your investment in recruitment, training and
development.
Why wait until some of your best employees have mentally packed
their bags before having a hearty discussion around their
satisfaction levels? Exit interviews are a valuable way for
senior managers to gain insight into a company’s culture from
an employee point of view. Invariably employees residing in
the departure lounge will give you a warts and all account of their
experience. This may prevent you from losing another team
member for similar reasons however, in many cases it is an exercise
in locking the gate after the horse has bolted.
Timely and well planned “stay” interviews (as they have
so appropriately been coined) can ensure your investment in
recruitment, training and development, along with an invaluable
amount of intellectual property, does not up sticks and walk to
your biggest competitor.
Often issues such as a change in reporting line, revised processes,
new people entering the business, a merger or take over, a personal
issue with a colleague or even whispers of poor company or economic
performance can send employees into a tail spin. Pre empting
issues in stay interviews through asking structured, non leading
questions will assist you in getting to the root of your star team
members concerns.
Start by getting an overall wellness check on how the employee
feels about their role. This will give them the opportunity
to mind dump all major issues, then allowing you to filter down to
what they enjoy and most importantly, do not enjoy about the role
or company. By probing in a genuine fashion you will ensure
the meeting does not deteriorate into a whinge session and really
gain some constructive information. Leaving the stay
interview with action points on both sides will ensure commitment
and momentum to change.
Like it or not, it is a candidate market out there. Talented
individuals are in short supply. Competitors and recruiters
are regularly on the look out for new candidates. This is why
now more than ever you must stay close to your employees, be honest
about their own and the company performance, and above all get them
excited about working for you.
Employers regularly speak about noticing a drop in performance or a
change in attitude and have pre empted the writing on the
wall. Often by this time it is too late - ignoring the
problem and shelling out huge amounts of cash in salaries whilst
someone is most likely surfing job boards is not a solution.
Employers who are brave enough to confront issues and talk to those
staff members they really want to retain will reap the
benefits.
Planning and prioritising these meetings to occur on a quarterly
basis will mean they are in the diary and not seen as a reactive
move based on what is happening in the business at the time.
It’s well known that retention is far less costly option than
recruitment. Taking into account the cost of a vacant desk,
the subsequent stress this places on other staff members and the
resulting fall in productivity on top of the monetary investment
recruitment calls for, it’s a wonder any company survive an
employee exodus!
Sticking with the concept of stay interviews means talented
employees will stick with you and not move to greener pastures as a
result of issues which could easily have been solved… had
you known about them!