Thoughts Decoded

Aftermath of RECESSION… Now we are glad to hear markets are strengthening, new projects are coming in, more work to come and new learnings will continue; IT industry once again in boom and its rocking again. Though we had no adverse effect on us @ WA as promised by the company (anyone remembered Stephen’s lecture on Effect of RECESSION on WA in project meet when there was rumors that India will lose more jobs due to recession?). Unfortunately (if this is the reason) this is resulting in bad news for many companies as their employees are leaving their current jobs and looking for changes when market is ON! Recently many resignations have come forward whilst many are still struggling to get jobs and looking for newer changes.

At such time exit interview comes into picture and plays a key role for the company to know itself and improve its standards if lacking anything or feel proud if fulfilling all employee’s needs. For employee it may not be that useful or it doesn’t help much still employee should participate in exit interview because, employee can give honest replies to certain questions and help a sincere employer improve working conditions for remaining employees. Moreover, some career experts question the usefulness of an exit interview. (A better time to conduct such a meeting is while an employee is committed, not while he or she is on the way out the door and concerned about burning a bridge) Most of the companies conduct such interviews just as formality and regular HR routine however many companies do this to find out what exactly went wrong that prompted an employee to look for change and if the reason is not obvious then they try their level best to retain the employee convincing or negotiating on any part.

During a job interview we leave no stone unturned to ensure that the interviewer is left impressed because the need of the hour is ours! Whereas during an exit interview, that certainly is not the case. You will be glad to know that several companies are trying to turn it into a more productive, knowledge-generating exercise. And you(if) the exiting employee have a major role to play in this… For this, here onwards I will discuss the possible exit interview questions that many companies ask in order to find the reasons for employee leaving and the scope of improvement on the basis of answers given by exiting employees.
Whenever any employee comes with the resignation, before accepting resignation employee can be asked as:

Q. 1 Why you (employee) want to resign or What is the problem?
Significance of the question before accepting resignation: Employee would feel proud if he is been asked such questions which will hardly take not more than 5 minutes, by this employer will come to know the exact reason and can guess if employee can be retained. Its like showing empathy to employee who has been like family in organization for whatever period he/she has worked.

Q. 2 Are you sure the decision is not related to your position or compensation? Are you happy with what’s been offered here?
Significance of the question before accepting resignation: Employer can find out the reason, if the answer is yes then employer can negotiate the possible options available at company for best performers. Or even if it’s not related to the above reason, employer can convince the employee with some magic words or management skills to retain best performers.

I tell you I have seen many employees came back from Immediate manager’s cabin changing their minds from resignations and not only that I have seen many managers convince till the end to retain the good employee.

Here I would like to share one experience at my previous company: Delivery Head retained an employee (who was resigning) with the simple following advice: Reason for resigning…. Going home late, mom’s getting angry on both of us (husband and wife) blah… blah… blah… So manager suggested take a break for week, go out with family and buy some Sarees and Jewellery for your mother and tell her that you got increment (Increment was done indeed!). You know what it worked and he is still in the same company and happy too……

Some questions at the time of exit interview:
Q.3 Would you prefer your family and friends to work for us? (Chetan Shah, MD, Synygy India.)
Significance: An employee would refer someone to his/her previous organization only if he/she truly believes that it is a good place to work. An affirmative answer to the above question will give the company a true understanding about the way our employees rate us as an organization.

Reply can be: The decision is entirely employee’s choice, if is fine either way as it will help HR understand where we are providing good opportunities and where we need to improve.

Q.4 What are things we do well and should continue to do so? (Chetan Shah, MD, Synygy India.)
Significance: It’s as important to know our strengths as it is to know our weaknesses. The main reason behind this is to get feedback so as to build upon our strengths, capitalize on the policies that go down well with employees and ensure they are reinforced adequately.

Reply can be: Feedback has to focus on both, what the company does well and how it can improve on things it does not.

For this question my answer @ WA would be few things like… WA has an AWSOME feature called Pantry Service I just love it!!! I never felt hungry @ WA; three cheers to pantry managers… thank you guys! Second one is Immaginnovative IDEAS; this one got some real sporting feel in company as I have seen company implemented few ideas suggested by employees on this. Apart from these we have Project Meet as finest event, Birthday celebrations, blogs, Sports Day, Annual Day, many other cultural events too. Well I missed TEAM TREATS  Can any one share it in short by commenting. Next one…

Q.5 What was your supervisor’s response when you broke the news (of quitting) to him/her?
Significance: The idea here is for the organization to gauge whether the supervisor reacted with empathy and the understanding to your decision to move onto newer opportunities.

Reply can be: The idea again is not to give employee judgment about the supervisor as this question is asked to understand the exact or verbatim response of supervisor to the decision to leave the organization.

Q.6 What were the parameters you considered while accepting the new assignment? (Dr. S.S.Sindhu, HR Head, Godrej Agrovel)
Significance: This will help the organization change its process/policy actions proactively and the employee will be able to reflect on his/her decision. The employee will be able to better understand whether the decision he/she has made was in haste or was it well planned.

Reply can be: Employees can share the factors and have a dialogue on whether these factors are missing in the present company and if so, how different they are in the new company.

Q.7 Will you rejoin the company in the future? (Dr. S.S.Sindhu, HR Head, Godrej Agrovel)
Significance: The organization can be in touch with such employees as source of learning and the employee can also be have a good understanding to develop his/her capabilities for future roles with the current organization.

Reply can be: Employee can share his/her career aspirations and plans to develop your career.

Q.8 What was the occasion or event that prompted you to look for an alternative?
Significance: They say “ Employees leave the managers, not the organization.” The answer will provide inputs to HR as to whether the reason for leaving is a managerial or leadership issue. The replies could a trend or pattern; for e.g.: higher resignations in a particular department. This could be primarily due to the leadership in these pockets. HR, in such cases, needs to be proactive and bring these findings on the table and work towards improving the management skills of identified supervisors and where absolutely necessary, even work out an exit plan for them in the interest of the organization.

Reply can be: It is unlikely that the exiting employee would be straight enough to admit that he/she is quitting because of the immediate boss actions! HR, would, therefore need to be receptive to what is unsaid and read between the lines.

Q.9 Could the company have done anything to encourage you to stay?
Significance: The answer will help HR to identify steps that can be taken to minimize attrition. This will also indicate whether HR could have played a role in retention.

Reply can be: Employee could be honest about his/her views and express desire to have received a promotion or higher responsibility earlier or any sort of increment.

Q.10 Were your career aspirations met in the company?
Significance: Most employees join any organization with an aspiration to build career.  Organization would like to know how much of it they able to fulfill were.

Reply can be: Was employee satisfied with his/her career here? Did he/she face any temporary setbacks? Was there a mismatch of company and individual expectations? Be honest if really faced any problem so that it can be improved next time by organization.

There are many such questions which can be asked and get the feedback, this will help any organization to find its lacking, challenges, problems, etc. Once found, the problems they can be tackled by introspecting actions.
The above are the few with very little explanation, following are also the most possible questions that are asked, please read and think over them. Out of all these questions you can reply to as many questions as you can. Especially exiting employee can answer many questions as this is one of the best way to give honest feedback to your previous organization and who knows you will be glad to see your previous company in one of the finest organization that you worked for!…

1. What was most satisfying about your job?
2. What was least satisfying about your job?
3. What would you change about your job?
4. Did your job duties turn out to be as you expected?
5. Did you receive enough training to do your job effectively?
6. Did you receive adequate support to do your job?
7. Did you receive sufficient/honest feedback about your performance between merit reviews?
8. Were you satisfied with this company’s merit review process?
9. Did this company help you to fulfill your career goals?
10. Do you have any tips to help us find your replacement?
11. What would you improve to make our workplace better?
12. Were you happy with your pay, benefits and other incentives?
13. What was the quality of the supervision you received?
14. What could your immediate supervisor do to improve his or her management style?
15. Based on your experience with us, what do you think it takes to succeed at this company?
16. Did any company policies or procedures (or any other obstacles) make your job more difficult?
17. How do you generally feel about this company?
18. What does your new company offer that this company doesn’t?
19. Can this company do anything to encourage you to stay?
20. Before deciding to leave, did you investigate a transfer within the company?
21. Did anyone in this company discriminate against you, harass you or cause hostile working conditions?
22. Any other comments?

References:

• I recently gone through an article in news paper on current job scenario, this one I found interesting so I thought it would be good to share in the form of my first blog with my own thoughts and views.
• Google.com

Please feel free & be honest while commenting on this blog.
Thanks for reading….you can answer the questions with no.s as reference.

Cheers,
Laxman Mankala.