NEW HR LEARNINGS _ May 23, 2021 EXIT INTERVIEWS - IS IT NECESSARY?

We, in HR , are very fond of interviewing people. We conduct the interview before we hire someone and we interview when someone resigned. Exit interview specifically is one practice that we do, to know the exact reason why said person is leaving. It is because we believed that in knowing his reason, we would be able to get an idea on what to improve within the organization in order to promote employee engagement.

But are we sure we are getting the true answer from the resignee? Are we getting the right information?

In my own experience, most resigned employees are no longer interested in telling us what we need to change or what are their real reasons from deciding to leave. Why? Well, obviously, because they have decided to separate already. What good will it do for them if they will tell you, " Oh, I am resigning because this company  has a very low salary, management are poor in motivating people, there is really favoritism, I am no longer growing, and so on so forth." Would it help him/her if he/she tells you the truth? And that is exactly the challenge on our part as HR. How can we make them speak-up when they will no longer be a part of the company. It is too late to know how we could make them stay if we will ask these questions only when they are already leaving. The truth is, resigned employee will avoid as much as possible telling words that would hurt or burn bridges. All you would hear from them are nice words because they just want to fast track their clearances and final pay.

Why not do this so-called Exit interview during their employment and just re-termed it into Engagement interview? or as the famous HR group suggested, why not make it a "kumustahan session" during their employment? If we will make this kumustahan session as the practice instead of the Exit interview, I believed there will be more employees who will stay and together with the company, they, too will gain from the positive improvements that were initiated through the so-called Engagement interview or kumustahan session.