How to handle negative feedback during an exit interview

When someone hands in their notice, the question you should be asking yourself, as an employer, is whether you'll learn anything useful before they go.

Exit interviews are one of the few times that an employee will tell you what they actually think. They've got nothing to lose. The filter comes off. And if they've got complaints about how they were managed or why they started looking elsewhere, this is when you'll hear it.

That feedback can be uncomfortable. But it can also tell you what your current employees might be thinking and not saying.

Critical feedback can improve your business

The feedback that stings is often the feedback that can move the needle in your business.

If someone tells you that their manager never gave them clear expectations, or that nobody listened when they raised concerns, those are things that your remaining employees might be experiencing right now.

Exit feedback gives you a direct line into how people actually experience working for you, day to day. When you act on it, you fix the things that drive people out. When you ignore it, you keep losing people for the same reasons.

How to handle it when the feedback is tough

Try and remember that the more critical feedback you get, the more you can use to make a positive effect on your business.

If the person sitting opposite you says something critical about a manager or about how things are run, the worst thing you can do is get defensive and/or dismissive.

Ask open-ended questions and write everything down.

A few other things to keep in mind:

• Let them talk without interrupting or justifying

• Ask follow-up questions so you understand the full picture

• Take notes during the conversation, not afterwards from memory

• Thank them for being honest, even if you disagree with what they've said

The goal is to understand their experience, not to win the conversation.

Spotting the patterns

One person's feedback is an opinion. The same feedback from several leavers is a pattern.

Track what comes up across your exit interviews. If two people in a row mention the same manager or the same frustration, that's telling you something specific about your business.

This is where it can benefit you commercially. Recruitment is expensive. Losing experienced people disrupts your team and your output. If your exit interviews keep pointing to the same problems, fixing those problems is cheaper than constantly replacing people.

What to do with what you hear

Collecting feedback and filing it away achieves nothing. The value is in what you change as a result.

After each exit interview:

• Look for themes that match what previous leavers have said

• Share relevant findings with your managers

• Decide on one or two specific actions you can take

• Follow through and let your team see that feedback leads to change

That last point is crucial. When employees see that exit feedback actually changes something, they're more likely to raise concerns before they get to the point of leaving.

Keep it confidential

Exit interview feedback needs to be handled carefully. Employees should feel safe to speak openly and that means keeping individual responses confidential.

If someone shares feedback about a specific manager, don't pass on the exact words or make it obvious who said what. Use the information to address the issue, but protect the person who raised it.

This also helps you to get better feedback in future. People talk. If your leavers feel that their comments were handled properly, word gets around.

How we can help

We help business owners to set up a straightforward exit interview process that actually delivers useful information. This includes designing the right questions, running the interviews on your behalf where needed and helping you to spot patterns and act on what comes up.

If you're not currently running exit interviews, or you're running them but nothing useful is coming from them, get in touch. We're happy to talk through what a good process looks like for your business.