The practice of exit interviews isn’t as widespread in Russia as in the West. However, more and more Russian companies realize its usefulness over time. “In small or medium business, a great HR manager could be aware of the forthcoming quitting long before the employee brings their letter of resignation,” says Ekatherina Boytsova, HR management director at BDO Unicon Outsourcing. “In big businesses, however, resignation is harder to trace, so the use of exit interviews is obvious.” According to Liubov Malinovska, HR director at Pomogatel.ru, exit interviews in Russia are most common for oil & gas industry, major IT players, banks, and modern production facilities.
POST-BATTLE RECONNAISSANCE
One of the most obvious reasons to have an exit interview with a top employee is to find out what’s wrong and to try to keep them from leaving. Still, there is a use in exit interviews if the employee is confident about quitting. “When leaving, when all decisions have been made, the company might get a unique insight of how the things are going in the team and the business, what’s good and what’s bad, and hear some rumors and news that a manager usually has no idea about,” says Marina Nichiporenko, head of Wyser consulting team at Gi Group.If a company is relatively small, yet staff turnover is high due to industrial pecuiliarities, exit interviews and stats of reasons for quitting could also be useful. They give the top management an insight of what are the company’s cons, and therefore give a chance to work it out, Ekatherina Boytsova notes.
“The practice of exit interviews ensures that the reasons for staff turnover are thoroughly analyzed,” says Diana Prischepa, HR department head at Ascour. “The final interview always features honesty from employees. It’s much easier to tell the truth when there’s nothing keeping them in the company.”
“Sometimes the reasons behind frequent resignations are quite unexpected,” says Vladimir Vinogradov, president of GK Pro-Vision. “Once a customer requested a corporate audit due to high staff turnover, which seriously affected the business. We asked all former and actual workers and discovered the ‘boiling point.’ The top managers were amazed when they realized that the most employees felt uncomfortable at work because there had been just one bathroom on the entire floor.”
Interviewing the resigning employees might prove useful even for those employees who don’t care about the reasons. “It’s a great opportunity to remove the residual bad feelings and leave the employee with positive feelings about the company,” says Ekatherina Boytsova. “It doesn’t cost much, and the meeting usually takes 30 to 40 minutes. It would be unreasonable to miss such an opportunity.”
THE HOW-TO
To avoid turning the final talk into an endless stream of complaints from both sides, the interviewing process has to be thoroughly organized. In Ascour, for instance, an employee receives a detailed questionnaire prior to the exit interview. They enter the final meeting prepared: all nuances marked in the questionnaire are thoroughly talked-through during the interview.It has to be face-to-face. “It would better be done by a psychologist capable of getting a sincere answer,” Liubov Malinovska notes.
“The questionnaire includes questions on what was wrong, what was right, what was the reason to quit, are there any factors that could keep the employee on board,” says Ekatherina Boytsova. The HR manager then talks with the quitting employee, clarifies their answers, and asks some more if necessary. The results go to the immediate manager of the resigning employee, and once a quarter the turnover figures go to department head. The main thing is to remember that just gathering data isn’t enough. One has to take it into consideration and do something about it.
WHO IS EXEMPT FROM EXIT INTERVIEWS
Still exit interviews aren’t for everyone. Some employees don’t want full disclosure, while some managers don’t want to hear the truth. There’s no need in such interviews during staff rationalization as they would only make the employees angrier, Liubov Malinovska reasonably warns.Marina Nichiporenko, on the other hand, notes that exit interviews are for everyone who leaves the company. “It’s a unique opportunity to leave the information you deem important,” she explains. “For instance, you may say you’ll always be glad to have them back, or you’d love to keep working with them as a partner.” Ekatherina Boytsova says that all employess at BDO Unicon Outsourcing have an exit interview when resign at their own request, regardless of their position in the company.
Source: dp.ru
Subscribe to our publications
We write only about the most important. You will be the first to know about economic events that affect your business, how to reduce costs, optimize the company's operations and make the right management decisions without immersion in operational processes.
Subscribed
