Exit Interview Policy

The Exit Interview Policy provides guidelines and procedures for HR teams to conduct interviews with exiting employees, who voluntarily terminate their contracts, and in order to collate and assess the true reasons for their actions.

This policy template is available for download in Word format.

With this Exit Interview Policy template, you can:

• Set up standard guidelines for conducting exit interviews
• Make use of scientific questions that are non-invasive, provocative and suggestive
• Collate productive information in order to improvise on the current work environment

In just a few minutes, you will be able to create an exit interview policy.

This policy covers rules to be followed with respect to:

• Exit interview to be offered by HR to every single exiting employee but participation in the interview remains purely voluntary on the part of employee
• Questions that are simple enough to understand and encourages employees to provide constructive feedback
• Provision to avoid interpretation of answers in a favourable or biased manner in order to create a false narrative
• Provision to investigate matters of bad conduct by other team members that lead to an employee’s resignation

Exit Interview Policy

Objective

< Company Name > endeavours to provide the best of work environment and experience to its employees. It also realises that even in the best of situations, employees tend to leave an organisation for various reasons. The exit interview provides a great platform for HR and the exiting employees to have a frank and open discussion about their work experience with the company and any areas of improvement in making the organisation an even better place to work.

Scope and Applicability

Exit interviews are applicable to all exiting employees but are purely voluntary for employee’s participation. This exercise will be initiated for employees desirous of leaving the organisation. The interviewer should also let the exiting employee know that their feedback will be kept confidential but any critical disclosures will warrant a disclosure internally owing to its importance and action needed.

Policy / Procedures

Exit interviews are coordinated by HR or sometimes through external consultants.

Procedure

Once HR receives a notice of resignation and is approved by the Reporting Manager, it will contact the employee and request for an exit interview.

The preferred timing should ideally be in the employee’s final week of service in the company. HR should avoid scheduling on the last day unless it is completely unavoidable.

HR will always compile and analyze data from exit interviews and share insights and recommendations with Management. These reports can be submitted frequently, depending on the issues involved. However, if an employee mentions at the exit interview that the reason for quitting is due to harassment, discrimination, unnecessary pressures, etc., involving colleagues, peers or managers or associates of the organisation, then a special report should be forwarded by HR to Senior Management for taking corrective actions.

Conducting Exit Interviews

As a rule, HR should focus on collecting information from employees in terms of safety, security, culture, pay and overall environment. Those conducting the interview should not:

• attempt to persuade the employee to take back the resignation
• become sensitive and defensive to negative feedback
• focus only on gathering negative feedback
• interpret / exaggerate the employee’s feedback or quote them out of context to convey a different agenda

< Company > also suggests the length of the interview may vary from person to person. However, standard time should be about 45-60 minutes and the entire process to be completed in one sitting. In concluding the interview, HR should close with a positive and conciliatory tone, thanking the employee on behalf of the company for his/her service during the employment and honest feedback.

In Case of an Important Disclosure

An exit interview may uncover an important issue that would be in the Company’s interest to immediately action it out. These could be incidents such as harassment, discrimination, or embezzlement. HR should record these issues for immediate follow up within the company.

Confidentiality

Exit interview contents must remain confidential, and exiting employees must be made aware of this. HR should assure the employees that the results of the interview are presented to the management without any direct attribution to an individual source.

Special Circumstance and Exception

Since an exit interview cannot be enforced, an employee declining an interview will be treated as an exception. Interviews not possible due to employee absconding will also be treated as an exception.

Non-compliance and Consequences

Any violation or tampering of documents or altering of statements in this procedure will be treated as a violation of the Code of Conduct policy and shall attract strict disciplinary action, including up to termination of employment.