Employee exit form interview

Employee termination guide including exit interview form and questions

In recent years, we’ve seen a trend in small business owners placing higher importance on having exit interviews with their fired and outgoing employees. If a small business owner does not reinforce on regular basis the communication channels between him and his employees, a departure of an employee can disrupt the business and heavily impact overall employee morale.

Most small business owners assume that an employee leaves because they are moving to a bigger company with advancement opportunities, or because they have found a better paying job. But usually, employees leave because you are overworking them, they have rigid schedules, they have difficulty in getting along with other employees, or they have personal duties.

Or, of course, you may have fired the employee for bad behavior or poor work performance.

You, as a small business owner, because of your responsibilities and schedules, may be unaware of any negative issues in the workplace. Conducting an exit interview will allow you to address any existing issues before they intensify further.

An exit interview is significantly more difficult to conduct than a job interview, or even a performance review, because there is good chance the employee leaving is unhappy with you as their employer. However, it is important to remain objective and allow the employee at least half an hour of your time to discuss their reasons for leaving and how you can improve as an employer.

You should prepare an exit interview form. Here's how.

An exit interview form should contain several questions that allow you to gain a better understanding of why the employee is leaving as well as collect any comments they are willing to give you about the work environment. As a business owner, you have to remain objective as you collect information in the exit interview, and cannot get defensive at the statements made by the employee. Ideally, having a third party conduct the exit interview or having the employee fill out an exit interview form before they leave would yield more honest and objective comments.

The most important task following an exit interview is the manner in which you address the comments the employee gave you. Even if you are glad to see a bad employee leave, you need to take their comments seriously. The information shared in an exit interview can be as important as the comments you receive from your customers -- even if these comments are from a fired employee.

By taking these comments seriously, you can address concerns that your present and future employees may have about the work environment you created.

The secret of stress-free firing of employees