Good Exit Interview Questions to Ask Departing Employees

To gain insight into why employees leave their positions, good exit interview questions can be constructive. Exit interviews reveal how employees feel about their tenure with the organization.

Need help with what to say to your departing employees? The following questions below are typically asked during an exit interview. Of course, you need to modify them to fit the needs of your own business, but this should serve as a guide.

Interesting Exit Interview Questions Worth Exploring

Use these questions individually or in combination to get honest answers that will help you enhance the workplace for current and prospective employees.

• Are there any specific reasons why you’re leaving?
• Do you have any additional comments to make regarding your decision to leave? 
• Have you spoken to your superiors or anyone else about your concerns regarding leaving?
•  What do you think of your position within our company? Did you think it was adequate?
• What about your job here? did you find most fulfilling and rewarding?
• Please describe the most challenging aspects of your work here. 
• Did you believe you had a clear purpose and understood what was expected of you? What was lacking?

Good Exit Interview Questions

Want to know why employees are leaving their positions? Conducting an exit interview might yield important information about your employees, their departure, and your business.

• What are your thoughts on management? 
• Did you receive enough feedback on your work?
• What would you say about your team’s interactions as a whole? 
• Do you have any suggestions for increasing productivity in your team or workplace? 
• Did you believe you had everything you needed to perform your duties?
• Describe how you felt about the performance evaluation process.
• What recommendations do you have to enhance how we conduct business at this company? 
• Were the instructions clear-cut and unambiguous, or confusing and conflicting? 
• Can you offer suggestions for enhancing organizational culture and practices?

Important Exit Interview Questions

Whether for a job transition or evaluating an employer, an exit interview makes all the difference. While there are ways to assess and trust them, you must be thorough in your investigation.

• What would you say about the current state of our company culture and employee morale? 
• Has there been any significant changes to your role or feelings toward the company during your time with us?
• Would you think about coming back to work here in the future? 
• Would you suggest this company as a great place to work? 
• Do you have any additional comments to make that we haven’t already covered? 
• How would you describe the working relationship you had with your boss?

Guidelines for Exit Interview Questions and the 5 Whys Technique

The goal of an exit interview is to learn the real reasons for the employee’s departure. An exit interview also helps identify employee engagement or happiness issues.

You want genuine opinions, not simply the ones that will make you look good. Your responses to these inquiries can’t possibly be incorrect. Instead, their comments will serve as a unique record of their time as an employee.

Even though every departing employee has a unique story, an effective exit interview will identify common tendencies contributing to employee turnover. These free-form questions will help you get the information you need to enhance employee retention by making improvements for your present staff.

The 5 Whys Technique

The 5 Whys Technique can help you get to the bottom of any issue you encounter.

Start with an open-ended inquiry to see how the other person responds. Once they’ve given an answer, reframe their words into another why question. This will naturally prompt people to think about it more deeply. 

After they give you a response, you should keep asking, “why?” until you’ve gone around the loop five times. Inquiring into this further could provide information that surprises you.

It is crucial to remember that the departing employee’s immediate supervisor should not conduct the exit interview. It’s essential to keep in mind that the departing worker’s immediate supervisor should refrain from conducting the departure interview. A representative from HR is the most qualified to conduct exit interviews.

Conclusion

Good exit interview questions are necessary to determine the feelings and thoughts of outgoing employees. However, knowing what not to ask during the interview is just as important. This is because asking specific questions can come off as intrusive or potentially threatening to the company.