When an employee decides to leave your company, it’s often your last chance to pick up some (often quite candid) wisdom, and use it to improve the workplace for your current and future employees. That’s where an exit interview comes in.
Exit interview questions are a valuable tool for improving employee experience. By collecting feedback from departing employees, your organization can pinpoint areas of improvement, leading to reduced attrition rates and a stronger overall workplace culture.
This isn’t just a theory — there’s data to back it up. A survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 77% of organizations use exit interviews to improve the employee experience, and 48% reported that they have led to changes in the organization’s policies or practices.
Given the value of exit interviews, it’s best your organization takes full advantage of them. It’s important to select the appropriate exit interview questions to ask to get the most out of every session..
In this article, you’ll find 15 examples of exit interview questions to ask, what makes them exceptional and help improve your employee experience.
What is an exit interview?
As the name suggests, an exit interview is a conversation between an employee who is leaving the organization and a representative from the organization (usually someone in HR). The reason for the exit interview conversation is to gather feedback from the departing employee about their experiences working for the organization, both positive and negative.
Because the employee has already committed to leaving, there’s often an opportunity to receive more candid feedback about aspects of their experience at the company they may have been hesitant to share prior. This means you can take a clear look at your company culture and pinpoint opportunities for growth and create a better environment for present and future employees.
Exit interviews have been a common practice in organizations for several decades, and they have evolved over time to become an essential tool for managing employee retention.
Historically, exit interviews were mostly used to gather information about the reasons for an employee’s departure, such as better pay or superior benefits. But with these targeted exit interview questions to ask, exit interviews become more comprehensive, focusing on the employee’s overall experience working for the organization.
An exit interview can be conducted in-person, over the phone, or through an online survey. The format and questions used in the interview can vary depending on your organization’s needs and goals.
However, since the primary goal of an exit interview is to gather honest feedback from the departing employee about their experiences working for your organization, 1-on-1 meetings are often the most effective way to collect this information.
What makes good exit interview questions?
In order to get the most valuable feedback from an exit interview, it’s important to ask the right questions. Good exit interview questions to ask should be primarily open-ended, non-judgmental, and designed to gather honest feedback.
It’s also important to ask questions that are relevant to the employee’s experience and to the organization’s goals, and can ultimately be leveraged to affect positive change.
They’re open-ended
One of the most important aspects of good exit interview questions to ask is that they are open-ended.
These types of questions allow your employee to provide detailed, specific feedback (without feeling pressured) about their experience with your organization. Open-ended questions are typically phrased in a way that makes it easy for your departing employee to share their thoughts and feelings in their own words, rather than providing a simple yes or no answer, which can’t offer much context.
Here’s a few examples of open-ended exit interviews questions to ask for your next exit interview:
- What did you enjoy most about your time with us?
- What could we have done differently to improve your experience?
- What suggestions do you have for improving the organization or your team?
These types of questions encourage your departing employee to provide detailed feedback and can help you gain a deeper understanding of their experience with your organization.
They’re precise
While open-ended questions are important, you should also ask focused questions that dive into specific areas of interest to your organization. Focused questions can help you identify specific areas where you may need to make changes or improvements.
Examples of focused exit interview questions to ask that could be used in an exit interview include:
- Did you feel that you had the necessary resources and support to do your job effectively?
- Were you provided with opportunities for growth and development during your time with the organization?
- Did you feel that your contributions to the organization were valued and recognized?
These types of questions are specific to the employee’s experience with the organization and can help you identify areas where you may need to make improvements to retain top talent.
By using a combination of open-ended and focused questions in your exit interviews, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the employee experience.
They’re non-judgmental
When conducting an exit interview, it’s important to ask non-judgmental questions that allow the exiting employee to share their honest feedback. If they feel judged, or fear retaliation for being candid, the responses they provide will be guarded and offer far less value.
A few non-judgmental exit interview questions to ask that might shed some valuable insight include:
- What motivated you to accept a position with another company?
- What factors influenced your decision to leave the organization?
- Is there anything we could have done to change your decision to leave?
When you approach these conversations without judgment, you’ll allow the employee to share their reasons for leaving in a non-confrontational way, offering deeper insight into factors that contribute to employee churn or dissatisfaction.
When you ask non-judgmental questions, you can create an environment where the employee feels comfortable sharing their feedback, even if it may be critical of your organization.
They’re relevant
Lastly, you’ll want to ask questions that are relevant to the employee’s experience as well as the organization’s goals.
For example, if your organization is focused on improving diversity and inclusion, it’s important to ask questions about how employees feel about the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. You can also ask questions related to the position the employee held and how they impacted their decision to leave.
15 Impactful Exit Interview Questions
Naturally, every employee is different, and the exit interview questions to ask will need to be adjusted to accommodate their personality and individual experience at your organization. But while every organization and person is different, there are certain questions that are universally used in uncovering insights that can help improve your overall employee experience.
Depending on the circumstances surrounding the employee’s departure, some questions may be more appropriate to ask than others — it’s up to you to tailor your approach, using these as a fundamental reference. You can also ask follow-up questions to clarify your employee’s responses and get more context to truly understand the nature of their feedback.
With these 15 impactful exit interview questions to ask, you’ll gain valuable insights into your employee experience, identify areas for improvement, improve retention rates, and overall employee satisfaction.
1. What was your primary reason for leaving the company?
This exit interview questions to ask is first on our list for a reason — it helps you understand why employees are leaving your organization. If you’re seeing a trend of employees leaving for the same reasons, it may be a sign that there are underlying issues that need to be addressed.
For example, if you’ve had multiple employees leaving due to bad management, it might be a good idea to investigate and provide leadership workshops to rectify this.
2. What was the best thing about working at the company?
Next up on the list of exit interview questions to ask, asking your employee about their favorite memory or experience in the organization can help them cast their minds back and relive moments they enjoyed with the company. This also sets a positive tone throughout the entire exit interview, which allows for a more effective session.
3. Did you feel that your work was valued and appreciated by your supervisor and colleagues?
Another great exit interview questions to ask your employees is whether they feel valued and appreciated, which is key to job satisfaction. If your employees don’t feel their work is valued, they’ll be more likely to leave for a company where they feel more appreciated.
This will also give you a sense of how camaraderie is maintained in your workplace, and allow you to do a pulse-check on your organization’s team building success (or lack thereof).
4. Did you feel your job description reflected your day-to-day responsibilities?
There have been cases where employees suffer from burnout because they started doing tasks beyond their job description. Even without overworking, there’s a sense of fulfillment that comes with doing what you’re passionate about.
Asking this question will help you understand if the employee was overwhelmed or underutilized, and also solve potential issues that arise from the mismatch of daily responsibilities and job scope.
5. Were you given enough opportunities to develop your skills and knowledge?
Providing your employees with opportunities to grow their career skillset is absolutely crucial for employee engagement and retention.
If your employees feel like they’re not learning or growing in their current role, they will be more likely to leave. These exit interview questions to ask your employees not only help you get a sense of general growth culture, but also the effectiveness of your existing training modules.
6. Did you feel comfortable communicating with your manager and colleagues?
Building a fair and equitable workplace for all your employees is a key part of employee retention. This should be part of your exit interview questions to ask to assess whether employees feel comfortable communicating with team members and managers.
This question will give pointers to if the employee felt seen and heard during their time at the company, and also help evaluate how best the managers treated their team and vice versa.
7. Did you feel that you had the necessary resources and support to do your job effectively?
Your team needs access to necessary resources and support to do their job effectively. It’s essential to their success and satisfaction in their role.
Without the proper tools, training, and support, employees will struggle to meet expectations, leading to frustration, job dissatisfaction, and a drop in retention.
8. How would you describe the company culture? Did it align with your values?
Company culture plays a huge role in employee satisfaction and retention. By asking departing employees about their perception of the company culture, you can identify areas you need to improve on to create a better workplace environment for new hires as well as your existing team.
You can also ask them to describe the impact culture had on their decision to leave. Are they heading to a company they perceive to have a better cultural fit? What factors define that for them? Also suggestions about how you can create a more inclusive workplace.
9. Did you receive enough feedback and recognition for your work?
Feedback is closely tied to growth in any space. Most employees don’t like to feel they’re working in the dark, and often prefer critical feedback that helps them improve to no feedback at all.
If employees feel like their work is going unnoticed or unappreciated, they are going to be more likely to seek other opportunities. Evaluating this can help your feedback cycle get better and celebrate more employees who have earned it.
10. Did you feel like you had a good work-life balance?
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is an increasing focus for employees.
If they feel like their work is impeding on their personal life, they are naturally going to be drawn to companies that offer them a better balance. This can be a thing to look at especially if they are working on-site and would prefer a remote or hybrid workplace, getting an offer with that benefit would be a win for them.
11. Were you given clear performance expectations, and did you receive regular feedback?
This can provide holistic feedback and performance expectations within teams. If employees are constantly talked at for underperforming without clear expectations, it’s easy for them to underperform even with feedback.
Clear expectations of employee performance and ample time to carry out tasks is crucial to ensure employee engagement and career progression.
12. Were you satisfied with the opportunities for career advancement at the company?
Most professionals want an opportunity to move up in their career. That’s why offering career advancement opportunities is an essential factor for employee engagement and retention, which is why it should be included in exit interview questions to ask.
If your employees feel like they’re not able to grow or they feel stuck in their current role, they may be more likely to leave for a company that provides more opportunities for career growth.
13. Were there any policies or practices at the company that you found problematic or frustrating?
Asking departing employees about specific policies or practices they had negative feelings towards can help you identify areas where you need to make changes to improve the employee experience. This is also a question employees that aren’t exiting might find more difficult to answer honestly, so this should be part of your exit interview questions to ask.
14. What could the company have done differently to keep you as an employee?
Asking employees who are leaving what could be done differently to keep them is tricky. However, when done correctly, it can provide some insight on ways to retain employees.
It’s important to incorporate this into your exit interview questions to ask on a case-by-case basis.
15. Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?
Lastly, this is a perfect example of open ended exit interview questions to ask, it gives the employee an opportunity to talk about anything else you might have missed.
This question also opens up the floor for the employee to voice out comments (both positive and negative) that weren't touched upon previously, making it a more effective and insightful exit interview.
Improve Your Employee Experience with Omni
Exit interviews are an important tool for improving the employee experience and reducing turnover. By knowing which exit interview questions to ask, you’ll gather valuable feedback that helps you make positive changes in your organization.
At Omni, we understand the importance of employee feedback and are committed to helping organizations improve. Our employee feedback platform makes it easy to collect actionable insights from your team , and leverage that feedback to make positive changes within your organization.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Omni can help you improve your employee experience, book your demo with us today.
