Exit with the Click of a Mouse: Exit Interviews Go High-Tech
By Elizabeth Agnvall, October 2006
[From the SHRM Online HR Technology Focus Area ]
When The First American Corp. moved offices from Dallas to a suburb in June, Damon Lovett, manager of HR management systems, decided that it would be a good time to purchase a companywide exit interview management system.
The Santa Ana, Calif.-based mortgage and business information company already had several systems in place to automate HR functions, including an onboarding system and a centralized, web-based annual appraisal system.
Lovett said he realized that asking 2,000 Dallas-based employees to move offices would create some turnover, and he wanted the company to have a better handle on who was leaving and why. He was looking for a system that would allow him to scan the data quickly to see whether resignations spiked during crunch times and to quantify turnover attributable to, for example, managerial styles and compensation.
After shopping around, Lovett chose a system from Insightlink Communications, a Los Angeles-based provider of exit interview and employee survey management systems. Lovett worked with Insightlink to develop a reporting system that takes between 5 and 10 minutes each week to export data into the Insightlink system regarding employees who are leaving the company voluntarily. Employees leaving the company receive an e-mail from Insightlink asking that they take an online exit interview survey.
To offset the problems of timing face-to-face interviews and employee concerns about burning bridges, a number of companies are turning to outsourcing exit interviews to companies who can conduct online or telephone interviews anonymously, if desired, and present companywide data using meaningful metrics.
Although in-person interviews are still the norm at most companies, human resources experts agree that as more companies automate many aspects of HR—from resume gathering to onboarding—exit interview management systems are becoming more and more common. Costs are as low as $35 per survey or $2,000 per year for a small company.
Lovett said that they have had about a 37 percent participation rate but added that the company could probably increase response rate if it could increase accuracy of home e-mail addresses.
Lovett said it’s easier for HR managers and company supervisors to work on improving employee satisfaction if they have easily quantifiable data at their fingertips.
Lovett said HR managers can check data in real time by logging into a web site. An exit survey dashboard tells managers how many surveys have been completed, percentage of participation, monthly exits and the top five reasons for leaving. The system allows managers to delve more deeply into the reasons for leaving, including accessing detailed comments written by former or exiting employees.
Once Lovett and other HR managers analyze trends, he said, they can begin to solve problems.
“I like to call it proactive benchmarking,” Lovett said. “If you can find the holes in the ship, you can plug the holes.”
Robert Gray, president of Insightlink, said companies vary in the way they set up systems. Insightlink software can interface with PeopleSoft and other HR software systems to set up an automatic data feed delivered to a secure site. Smaller clients may enter employee information into the Insightlink system manually.
Gray said that with the growth of the Internet and a trend in automating HR systems, there is a push toward automating exit interview surveys, especially because “most companies don’t have the facility” to enter data on surveys.
Costs, Gray said, depend on the complexity of the system and the length of the exit survey itself, but exit systems for smaller companies can run as low as $2,000, including set-up, hosting, surveys and online reporting.
Kevin Haimovitz, human resources analyst for Malvern, Pa-based software company SunGard, also uses Insightlink to gather exit interview data worldwide when one of the company’s 16,000 employees resigns.
When SunGard HR managers enter information about a resigning employee into the web site, the system automatically generates the e-mail inviting employees to fill out the online survey.
Since SunGard implemented the new system a year ago, Haimovitz said, they’ve seen a 70 percent participation rate—far above the norm for exit interviews in any other format.
“The web site is very user-friendly,” Haimovitz said. “It’s easy to go in, and you can get it done in 10 to 15 minutes.”
Haimovitz gets a custom report from Insightlink, in addition to the regular reporting features on the web site. He uses the data to create a regular report that he sends to HR managers at SunGard offices in 20 countries.
Haimovitz said the web-based survey is used in addition to, not instead of, face-to-face interviews at SunGard.
With in-person interviews and third-party surveys, Haimovitz said, the company uses the exit interview data to form a solid, companywide picture of why employees decide to leave the company that they can then use to improve conditions for current employees.
Meaningful Numbers
Bill Linesch, vice president of human resources for Dayton, Ohio-based Premier Health Partners, which operates three hospitals in southwestern Ohio, said outsourcing exit interviews can help HR managers gather meaningful information.
“Before it was the HR person trying to catch somebody on their way out the door, and that’s not a good situation for a candid interview in the first place,” Linesch said. “Employees are particularly sensitive about burning bridges or not wanting their last day to be awkward. Exit interviews are an excellent activity to outsource to a neutral third party. It’s a way of getting a candid reaction to a variety of HR issues and not just platitudes.”
In 25 years of seeing HR exit interviews, Linesch said, he rarely saw a meaningful use of the data. Today he outsources exit interviews to Deb Dwyer, president of Columbus, Ohio-based Human Systems Development, a company that has performed 32,000 exit interviews since the year 2000. The company conducts exit interviews through phone, mail or e-mail, usually after employees have left.
“We get reports twice a year that give us trend data and information I consider actionable,” Linesch said.
Automating and outsourcing exit interviews can be especially useful for companies with spread-out employees and small HR departments. David Darling, vice president of HR for Atlanta-based Teavana, said exit interviews are just one part of the HR process that he has worked to automate since beginning with the company in December.
Although Darling is a 20-year HR veteran, he said Teavana, which sells loose-leaf teas and tea products in 50 stores nationwide with plans to expand to 230, is his first foray into retail.
“It’s a whole new ballgame,” he said. “I wanted to get a grip on what’s going on in the field and look at why our turnover is 110 percent.” With only two people in the corporate HR department, he said, the company lacks the manpower to do exit interviews in-house, so he outsourced the work to Human Systems Development (HSD).
Employees leaving Teavana are mailed a form that they can complete online or mail back. HSD employees analyze comments and rank reasons for leaving.
As part of an HR-driven general manager’s meeting that includes training on HR policies, leadership styles and motivational theories, Darling took HSD reports and comments and created a PowerPoint presentation for managers. He then spent two hours discussing exit interview data and feedback with managers.
“We used it as a training opportunity,” he said. “I showed them every piece of data we had.”
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Some companies want the benefits of automated data reporting but need the ability to have exit interviews conducted by phone. This is especially true of employers whose workers may not be web-savvy.
At Rinker Materials, human resources assistant Darlene Garcia said the construction company’s Western division in Phoenix uses HSD to conduct exit interviews by phone and compile a report of the data. HSD updates their web-based system daily, and regional managers have passwords that allow them to access the system.
HSD produces a report that includes stats on voluntary resignations by gender, years of service and title, and a compilation of all the exit comments. Garcia forwards the reports as an e-mail attachment to regional managers.
Although employees have the option to do the surveys online, she said, most are done through a phone interview.
Garcia pays HSD per completed survey. At about $35 per survey, she said, the system is worth the investment.
The company is proud of its low turnover rate, Garcia said, noting that it has an average of 20 to 25 quits per month among the 3,400 employees in 11 states that make up the company’s Western region. She said the firm will continue to use HSD data to help keep it that way. She especially likes that the system is anonymous.
“Some may hold back if they are going to be tied to the answers that they provide,” Garcia said. “We’re not interested in looking at who’s saying what. We only want to be able to use the information to be a better employer.”
Elizabeth Agnvall is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer.
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