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How To Analyze Exit Interview Data

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Use Of Online Insyncs Exit Survey Portal Vs Phone Based Exit Interviews

Thematic analysis: how to analyze your interview/focus group data

All of our clients use our online Exit Survey portal but some also select phone based exit interviews. The portal has online survey functionality, allowing respondents to complete their exit interview privately from their own computer. Some of our clients also use Insync Surveys trained exit interviewers to conduct phone based exit interviews. While phone based exit interviews are more costly, they can increase response rates and they can enhance the depth of responses as the exit interviewer probes for further information. By having a third party conduct exit interviews over the phone, the departing employee is also often more candid. We then type verbatim comments collected in the exit interview into the clients portal, so everything is online and accessible to administrators.

Ask The Right Questions

Prepare questions in advance but keep it conversational. âYouâll learn a lot more if the exit interview feels like a conversation than if it feels like a questionnaire,â said Garrant. Consider using a template for the framework of what youâll ask but look for openings to ask follow-up questions to keep the conversation flowing.

Garrant said she likes to follow the same loose outline of questions for her exit interviews in general, but that the specific questions she asks change because she tailors them to what the departing employee is sharing.

To begin, Garrant starts by asking, âWhy are you leaving us?â If the employee says that they have a new job, you can ask about the reasons that prompted them to begin looking. âMany people today are leaving their organizations for different opportunities that arenât solely limited to a new or better job,â Garrant said. âYou hear all the time people saying, âI want to go back to school,â âIâd like to pursue a career in another field,â or âIâm going to be a stay-at-home parent,â so I think itâs important not to assume.â

After opening the exit interview by asking about why the employee has decided to leave, Garrant recommended progressing to management-related questions. At this point in the conversation, you can ask questions like:

Then, move on to role-specific questions. Some good questions to ask here are:

Next, ask questions about the company. Be sure to ask:

Development Of Latent Constructs

In my previous article, we reviewed the process of analyzing the statistical rigor of our survey. Feel free to review the but lets quickly review what latent survey constructs are and how they are derived.

In order to develop survey items or questions which maintain good statistical rigor, we have to begin with scholarly literature. We want to find a theoretical model that describes the phenomena we wish to measure. For example, personality surveys very often will use the Big-5 model to develop the survey items. The survey developer will carefully craft 210 items for each component of the model. The items which are meant to assess the same component are said to be measuring a latent construct. In order words, we are not measuring extraversion explicitly as that would be an observed construct but indirectly through the individual survey items. The survey is pilot tested with multiple samples of respondents until a certain level of rigor is attained. Once again, if youre interested in the statistical analyses used to determine rigor take a look at my previous article.

# Calculating latent variables'coaching_offered']], axis=1)df = np.nanmeandf = np.nanmeandf = np.nanmeandf = np.nanmeandf = np.nanmeandf = np.nanmeandf = np.nanmean
mappings = likert = for col in likert:    df = df.mapdf.head

Also Check: What Questions To Ask In An Interview At The End

Organize Your Research Recordings

Start by identifying a recording solution thats easy to use. Depending on the interview method you may record a video, or an audio-only format.

A recording is a highly successful method for customer interviews and focus groups. It allows respondents the freedom to be open in how they respond.

You should ensure your audio or video files are easy to save, compile, and share. You can adopt easy-to-remember naming conventions as well to ensure they stay organized.

Sharing The Results Must Be Embedded Into Metrics Quarterly Reviews And Executive Discussions

Exit Surveys

Its what you do with the information gathered from exit interviews that is a telling sign if employees choose to participate. If they know that their feedback will be actioned, they are more likely to share.

Ive seen companies conduct exit interviews and capture results in spreadsheets, but do very little with analyzing results and metrics and sharing this invaluable information with leaders within the organization.

I found that when I made sense of the information flowing in, summarized trends at each level and correlated it to our company direction/goals, this is what resonated with our leadership team. Presenting the exit interviews with relevant metrics and a correlation to our business drivers/goals, allowed our leaders to see exit interviews as more than just a form but instead a strategic must-have. The metrics derived from our exit interviews became a static agenda item on quarterly reviews and monthly leadership meetings.

Exit interviews provide an opportunity to gain insight into strengths and issues within your organization and pinpoint what improvements need to be made to increase retention and engagement. Adopting best practices will lead to not only a higher participation in your exit interviews but also lead to more valuable feedback on the day-to-day operations, leadership, culture and more.

Read Also: What Language To Use For Coding Interviews

Latent Construct Sentiment By Respondent Characteristics

When analyzing survey data it is quite easy to end-up down a proverbial rabbit-hole of charts and plots only to lose sight of your goal. In other words, we need to narrow our focus. The ultimate goal of analyzing sentiment surveys is to identify areas of weakness where organizational initiatives can be implemented to improve those identified areas. The area we will mainly focus our efforts on are voluntary terminations. First, they make up almost 50% of the respondents. Secondly, this is the employee population where we can make the most significant impact on using organizational initiatives. Finally, we want to limit the amount of voluntary turnover in order to limit the knowledge drain from the organization and minimize the recruiting and training cost associated with hiring replacement employees.

# plotting average likert sentiment by respondent characteristics for voluntary terminationsdef bi_volterm_plot:    ax = round.mean,2).sort_values.plot, fontsize=25)    plt.title,fontsize=30, pad=25)    plt.ylabel    plt.legend

Create A List Of Questions & What Not To Ask

For an effective exit interview, you will need a prepared list of questions. This will help organize the interview and save valuable time for both the interviewer and exiting employee.

Open the interview with an explanation of what an exit interview is. While the term exit interview is widely understood in the HR industry, many employees wont know what it is or the significance of the exit interview.

Once you share that an interviewees responses will directly help the organization, this will make them feel valued and inspired to offer genuine, useful feedback.

Also Check: How Honest Should You Be In An Exit Interview

Benefit : Seek Patterns In The Exit Interview Data

Don’t just conduct these interviews for the sake of it. An effective exit interview process doesn’t try to reverse the resignation. It works to seek out the patterns for why good employees leave. These same patterns will help you outline the retention strategies to reduce further turnover in your company.

Exit Interviews Are Learning Opportunities

How to analyze interview data?

When people leave due to management issues, team conflict, or lack of recognition for their efforts, its important to talk to managers or leadership and see if there might be any changes that can help the situation. It can make the biggest difference to change a meeting format, or how often a one-on-one happens, for example. But knowing where a potential problem is stemming from and then trying out new methods can help turn an occurrence like a volunteer exit into a learning opportunity.

People are always going to leave your company, and thats something you cant change. But you can take a proactive approach to understanding why theyre leaving and make sure that youre addressing any serious issues you discover. Exit interviews offer invaluable insight into whats working at your companyand what isnt. Its up to you to transform that knowledge into action.

Also Check: How To Interview Hr Manager

Define And Share The Purpose Of Exit Interviews With Your Team

As mentioned, many companies view exit interviews as a routine part of the offboarding process.

They equate it to telling IT to deactivate an employees keycard or asking payroll to mail a record of employment.

This is a big mistake. Exit interviews are not a standard, administrative task.

Make it clear to your employees that:

Exit interviews are a strategic exercise for identifying how to motivate and retain employees.

Things Your Exit Interviews Aren’t Telling You

Dan Hoppen

Exit interviews are standard protocol in most corporate workplaces. Though the reasoning for them is sound, most organizations attempts at exit interviews are fruitless. Organizations are leaving valuable information about how to improve the workplace and better retain employees on the table.

Don’t be one of those companies. We have five things you’re likely not learning from your exit interviews, then we offer five tips to fully leverage these processes to gain valuable insights of outgoing employees and their colleagues to consider for future exit interviews.

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Leave The Employee Feeling Good

The exit interview is sometimes the last interaction an employee will have with management or HR. It is important to be patient, friendly, and positive. The employee that leaves will either spread positive things about the company or negative things about the company, sometimes depending on how they were treated when they left. Give the company the best chance by making the exit interview a positive experience.

The 6 Main Steps To Qualitative Analysis Of Interviews

Exit Surveys

Among qualitative analysis methods, thematic content analysis is perhaps the most common and effective method. It can also be one of the most trustworthy, increasing the traceability and verification of an analysis when done correctly. The following are the six main steps of a successful thematic analysis of your transcripts.

Also Check: How To Say Thank You For An Interview

Familiarize Yourself With The Employee

Agreeing to an exit interview is a voluntary, generous gesture on the part of the employee who is leaving. The HR team member conducting the interview can show respect and appreciation by sufficiently briefing themself on the employee and their experience and history at the company before sitting down to speak with them.

To start, youâll want to know the basics, like when they joined the company and in what position, as well as how their career trajectory has progressed. But donât stop there: Be sure to look further to learn about any big wins, accomplishments, or notable successes and celebrate the employee for their achievements during the exit interview.

Youâll also want to learn the tough stuff, too: Were they considered for a promotion but ultimately passed over for another candidate? Has their department experienced a lot of turnover? These could be significant contributors as to why the employee is leaving, and HR professionals armed with the pertinent facts before the interview will be able to ask more pointed follow-up questions to better tease out useful data.

Myth : Exit Interviews Should Be Conducted On An As

For employers, exit interviews are an important employee relations benchmarking tool. Interview questions can cover areas such as salary, benefits or the availability of programs for growth and advancement relative to an organizations peers. Its a missed opportunity if employee relations leaders do not gather as much data as possible from departing employees. Exit interviews should not be relegated to employees who are leaving disgruntled, and although they cant be legally required, many companies are building agreement clauses into the original employment contract. Therefore, to the extent possible, companies should request and conduct an exit interview with every departing employee. Doing so will validate insights gathered consistently and cue the company as to what is attracting its employees to move.

Read Also: How To Write Thanks Letter After Interview

Communicating The Exit Survey

For staff to engage in the exit process the accessibility and benefits of the exit survey need to be consistently communicated to all staff. The easiest and most effective method for communicating this message with staff is though their direct managers. You need the support of your managers to attract staff participation in the exit interview process. Managers need to communicate with all staff that the opportunity to participate in an exit interview is open to them and need to reinforce that confidentiality assured.

In the absence of managers communicating the exit interview message, staff can still be encouraged to participate in an exit interview through information and key messages posted on the client organisations intranet or any other forum accessible staff.

Evaluate Different Means Of Conducting Exit Interviews

Analysing your Interviews

Did you know, some organizations, an exit interview is a paper form that the departing employee has to fill in? If you really want actionable insight from the interviews, the medium becomes a critical consideration.

The HR pro responsible for exit interviews should talk to the operational supervisor of the employee, and decide on the best medium. Everyone has different characteristics. How you interview one person may not be best for a different employee. Web based exit interview surveys are a scalable and customizable option. Data captured helps create aggregated metrics that are easy to analyze and use for benchmarking. Personal communication is the best option for conducting exit interviews because you get the opportunity to dive into the answers and pluck out the latent bits of critical insight, helping you make your organization the best it can be for your employees.

Exit interviews are not as simple as asking tell us what we could have done better. Here are the key ingredients of a well-structured and comprehensive exit interview:

  • Comparative metrics such as job benefits, compensation levels, roles and responsibilities.
  • Specific examples of the employees good and bad experiences with the organization.
  • The one thing about the new job that enticed the employee to accept it.
  • Relationship with managers and colleagues.
  • Availability of tools of enablement and empowerment.
  • Opportunities for growth, training opportunities, and personal and professional development.

Read Also: What Is An Exit Interview

Benefit : Gain Insights About The Company Culture

A company’s culture is built by its employees- the past as well as the present ones. Thus, they are the first to know if anything is actually amiss.

On the other hand, employees can find it difficult to critique the work environment while still working. On the other hand, departing employees are more transparent and frank about their feelings about their experience. Thus, the employee feedback that you get in the exiting process will be extremely genuine.

Everything You Need To Know To Conduct A Successful Exit Interview

A departing employee represents a lot more than a job youâll have to fill â they can be a rich resource for information on how to improve the employee experience at your organization. With a little bit of time, planning, and forethought, you can conduct an exit interview that makes the departing employee feel heard, appreciated, and willing to share frank feedback that can help your HR team bolster company culture, better communication at your organization, and ultimately, improve retention of your employees.

Hereâs everything you need to know about preparing for and conducting an effective exit interview.

Also Check: How To Create A Digital Portfolio For An Interview

Using Exit Interview Data Strategically

As mentioned previously, the key to a strategic approach is to look for opportunities to plug data back into the process as part of a feedback loop. This can come in a variety of options, including recruiting and re-recruiting, as well as talent management practices.

If people are leaving your organization and point out a benefit or two that you dont highlight in your branding, that presents an opportunity. For example, if departing employees consistently talk about the employee social events and other unique perks, those items should be used in recruiting messages to target new employees.

An often overlooked but highly valuable use for exit data is in re-recruiting former employees. For those employees that left who are eligible for rehire, you can identify whether their reasons for leaving were preventable and if theyd consider returning. From here you can then have a strategic discussion and work to re-recruit the employee.

Another option is getting deeper talent insights and using those to target your best performers. If departing staff give you insights into what matters most and what they value, the overall trends in the data can point to better management practices, enhancing employee engagement and productivity.

What Is The Best Method To Conduct An Exit Interview

Types of Exit Interview Documents

There is a range of different ways to collect the information necessary for a good exit interview, as listed below:

  • Face-to-face discussion
  • Online video interview
  • Online survey

You can also use a combination of methods. For example, an online survey can be used to complement a face-to-face interview. Also, a short questionnaire sent to the employee prior to a face-to-face discussion can clarify talking points and the general direction of the meeting so that in-person time can be used more effectively.

Read Also: What Questions To Ask In An Interview For Administrative Assistant

Send A Survey In Advance

Providing a survey in addition to speaking with employees in person increases the odds that youâll actually gather meaningful feedback. Although the employee is leaving your company, many people still want to make sure what they say in the context of an exit interview wonât be held against them, now or in the future. This can cause some individuals to feel hesitant to share as freely as they would with friends, family, or colleagues.

âA lot of people remain politically correct during this process because they donât want to burn bridges,â said Matthew Burr, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SC, an HR consultant and Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Elmira College. âBut the only way the company can get better is through direct feedback.â Surveys, which lack the face-to-face component of an in-person or virtual meeting, may encourage employees to share more freely.

Surveys are also able to collect a wider range of information. For example, an employee who doesnât want to share their actual reason for giving their notice may say they felt they werenât paid enough. But a survey allows you to dig deeper and ask for the top five reasons theyâre leaving, for instance.

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