15 Effective Exit Interview Questions for Better Employee Insights

Exit interviews are no new concept — but many HR managers are recently realizing the importance of this final touchpoint while offboarding employees to improve their retention strategies. They can be a great way for HR to understand why an employee left and what you can do to keep others from leaving, as well as learn about other opportunities for improvement.

If you're in a hurry, we'll cut to the chase and give you what you came for: Here are 15 effective stay interview questions you need to ask every employee who leaves your organization:

1. Was there a specific factor or element of working here that prompted you to seek a new job?

2. Would you ever consider returning to the company? If so, under what circumstances?

3. Were there any policies that lacked clarity or were otherwise not suitable?

4. Did you feel that your contributions and achievements received adequate recognition?

5. Did you feel you had the necessary training, tools, time, and resources to be effective in your role?

6. Did you feel that your job was rewarding? Challenging? Too easy or difficult? Could the working conditions be improved in any way?

7. Did you have opportunities to learn, develop, use your strengths, and work on what you enjoyed?

8. Was your manager a contributing factor in deciding to stay or leave? If so, in what ways?

9. Was there anything in particular that you liked about your job, team, or the organization?

10. What was your biggest accomplishment at this company, and how did you achieve it?

11. Did you ever felt disengaged or unmotivated in our workplace? If so, what contributed to those feelings, and how were they addressed?

12. What aspects of your job were most fulfilling, and what tasks or responsibilities did you find less enjoyable?

13. Can you describe a time when you felt particularly supported or valued by your manager or team?

14. How do you feel your role aligned with the overall goals and mission of the company, and do you have any suggestions for improving that alignment?

15. Do you have any suggestions or opportunities to improve our company and culture?

What You Can Learn From Exit Interview Questions

Every HR manager knows the value of an exit interview, but only some know how to maximize this last touchpoint with former employees. By asking the right exit interview questions, you can gain priceless insights into employee morale, company culture, and workplace practices that will help strengthen and improve your business.

Let's look at each of the 15 questions listed above and discover the critical insights your business can gain from them.

Was there a specific factor or element of working here that prompted you to seek a new job?

This question can help us better understand areas of the company that need improvement or might be causing employees to seek employment elsewhere.

Would you ever consider returning to the company? If so, under what circumstances?

The answer to this question can provide insights into what changes the company could make to improve employee retention and potentially bring back former employees.

Were there any policies that lacked clarity or were otherwise not suitable?

By exploring this question, we can glean insights into policies that may need to be reviewed, revised, or better communicated to employees.

Did you feel that your contributions and achievements received adequate recognition?

This question provides insights into the company's recognition and rewards practices, which can be important for employee morale and motivation.

Did you feel you had the necessary training, tools, time, and resources to be effective in your role?

Exploring this question can help you better understand areas where employees may need more support or training to perform their job responsibilities effectively.

Did you feel that your job was rewarding? Challenging? Too easy or difficult? Could the working conditions be improved in any way?

This question can help you identify areas where employee job satisfaction can be improved, which can lead to increased retention rates.

Did you have opportunities to learn, develop, use your strengths, and work on what you enjoyed?

The answer to this question can provide insights into how the company supports employee career development and growth.

Was your manager a contributing factor in deciding to stay or leave? If so, in what ways?

This question provides insights into the effectiveness of company leadership, management practices, and employee-manager relationships.

What did you like about your job, team, or the organization?

This question can help identify things that are working well at the company and should be continued or expanded.

What was your biggest accomplishment at this company, and how did you achieve it?

This question reveals vital insights into the employees' perception of their achievements and the company's contribution to those achievements.

Did you ever feel disengaged or unmotivated in your workplace? If so, what contributed to those feelings, and how were they addressed?

This question helps you uncover areas where you can improve employee engagement, company culture, management practices, and work-life balance.

What aspects of your job were most fulfilling, and what tasks or responsibilities did you find less enjoyable?

The answer to this question can provide insights into how the company can adjust job responsibilities or tasks to better meet employee preferences and strengths.

Can you describe a time when you felt particularly supported or valued by your manager or team?

This question helps you better understand where the company effectively supports employee well-being and morale.

How do you feel your role aligned with the overall goals and mission of the company, and do you have any suggestions for improving that alignment?

The answer to this question can provide insights into how well the company communicates its mission and goals to employees and can provide suggestions for improving employee engagement.

Do you have any suggestions or opportunities to improve our company and culture?

The answer to this question can provide valuable information about how the company can improve its culture, employee engagement, and retention rates.

5 Tips to Get the Most Out of Exit Interviews

1. Clearly define the goals.

Exit interviews can have many purposes. They can uncover HR-related issues, such as misaligned salary and benefits, or challenges with the talent management processes. Similarly, they can provide insights into competing organizations' HR benchmarks and market conditions. 

They can help you understand how employees perceive the work, including the working conditions, organizational culture, how the job is designed, and other areas related to motivation and effectiveness. 

Exit interviews can also be tools for learning about manager styles and effectiveness, soliciting ideas for improvement, and ensuring the employees leave the organization feeling respected and appreciated.

2. Carefully select interviewers and interviewees

Will you interview every employee that departs from the organization, or will you limit it? Depending on the organization's size, some limit interviewers to people of a certain rank or position and high-performers that are difficult to replace. 

Who will conduct the interview? It's typically best practice to ensure that this person is at least one layer removed from the employee - as you can imagine, it might be difficult to be candid about an ineffective manager if the manager discussed is the one conducting the interview.

3. Get the timing right

There's an ideal spot between when the employee submits their resignation and before they've lost engagement and mentally "checked out" from the role. Exit interviews often come too late, and people are interested in sharing - or being as forthcoming and pensive as they would've otherwise been.

4. Have a structure in mind

Some organizations conduct two exit interviewers, one led internally and one run by a more impartial external consultant. Others hold them exclusively face-to-face or by telephone. 

These are considerations that might change depending on your resources. But regardless, you should place great importance on the interviewer's manner. Interviewers should be patient, friendly, and non-reactive. They shouldn't rebut or try to resolve, and they should bring an open mind free from judgment and bias - to the degree that it's possible.

5. Don't wait to take action

How will the organization collect, analyze and act on the data and insights they gain from exit interviews? How will they ensure confidentiality and discretion? If there are gaps identified, will they be communicated back to employees? Some organizations even allow exiting employees to select their interviewer, location/method, length of the interview, and other details to give them a sense of sharing on their terms.

What are the next steps?

One of the quickest ways to demoralize employees is to ask them to be honest, open, candid, and vulnerable - and then do absolutely nothing with the insights that you receive from them. You must analyze the data from exit interviews: 

• Are there common refrains that come up repeatedly? 

• What is the most significant cause of attrition? 

• Are people having problems with their managers? Policies? Culture? Health and safety? 

From there, you can develop takeaways and action plans for tackling turnover head-on.

How GoCo Can Help

• Automate and Standardize your employee offboarding process - Offboarding doesn't have to be messy and painful. With GoCo's offboarding checklists, HR managers can standardize and digitize termination to-do's and make offboarding smoother: tasks and due dates are assigned dynamically in GoCo, teams are always in sync, reminders are automated, and you can see tasks statuses at a glance. Build a custom offboarding/exit interview checklist, dynamically set owners and due dates for offboarding tasks, and track workflow progress.

• Ensure exiting employees have a copy of any relevant policies — An HRIS platform like GoCo makes it easy to upload these documents to an employee's account so they can access them at any time — you can also track the dates documents were assigned or acknowledged by employees for report and compliances purposes.