Have you ever wished you could conduct an exit interview with your ex? What went wrong, a multiple-choice questionnaire, or even the chance to learn how sometimes it is you?

Well, HR professionals are in a unique position because they can find out what went wrong—with an exit interview. While there’s not an approach that will work for every company, experts told HR Brew that there are some surefire ways to make the process more effective.

Back up. Exit interviews are the company’s last opportunity to not only make an impression on a departing employee, but to gain a window into potential issues within the organization. Perhaps there’s a culture problem that HR isn’t aware of, but it’s causing good employees to want out.

“[HR is] mining the departing employee for information that they can use to potentially make their organization better,” Brooks Scott, a career advisor, told CBS News this month.

You say…stay. We’ll resist shouting any Lisa Loeb lyrics (tempting as it is), but stay interviews are a tool managers can use to find out if workers are content or if they’re looking for an exit. Anita Grantham, head of HR at BambooHR, told HR Brew that stay interviews should be part of any exit interview strategy. “We save ourselves exits if we incorporate the process before [employees] leave. Because by the time they’re gone, they’re gone,” she said.

Jana Galbraith, VP of people experience at Xero, agreed that stay interviews are a valuable piece of the puzzle. Xero instructs its leaders to conduct stay conversations to understand why employees enjoy their jobs and what drains them, so they can make changes before talent leaves.

So, let’s talk strategy.—KP

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Rebecca Short is wary of the “bring your whole self to work” movement. What if workers don’t want to be vulnerable at work? At 88 Acres, she has been trying to create space and opportunities for those who want to share, without pressuring those who don’t.

Short came to HR from volunteer management in the nonprofit sector, channeling her skills and experiences recruiting, onboarding, training, retaining, and managing volunteers at Habitat for Humanity into usable HR skills at the healthy snack bars and seed butter manufacturer. As its first HR generalist, her work at 88 Acres has been a “stretching opportunity” to learn more about HR and create changes and improvements to the company’s people policies. She also refers back to “not a particularly positive experience with HR at a previous job” and endeavors to do things differently now that she’s got the opportunity. “I want to be that person that hopefully handles things the right way, and can turn the way that people think about HR,” she told HR Brew.

What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?

As 88 Acres moved to a new facility in another town, we were faced with the challenge of how to get our employees who don’t have vehicles to our new space. I investigated a lot of different options, but ultimately landed on the company subsidizing and facilitating a vanpool. Employees now have the freedom and control of getting to work through the vanpool, and they now also have access to the van on the weekends to use for personal needs. This allowed us to keep most of our workforce when we moved, and gave our team the freedom that comes with having access to a vehicle.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?

Some people are stuck in an old-fashioned mindset that HR is just there for discipline, benefits, and payroll. In reality, HR professionals are trained, and equipped with so many resources to help employees professionally and personally.

Keep reading.—AD

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Never-married women in the US earned 92% of what never-married men earned in 2022. (CNN)

Quote: “What became apparent really early on is [that] what we offered pre-pandemic wasn’t going to cut it moving forward.”—Heather McHale, CHRO at OneMain Financial, on why her company expanded caregiver-related benefits for employees (CNBC)

Read: As desired skills keep changing, some hiring managers are leaning into behavior-based interviewing, as well as screening candidates for a variety of soft skills in an attempt to measure openness to change. (Time)

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Data download: Join HR Brew on March 28 as we chat with Hilton’s SVP of HR Strategy & Talent about leveraging data pools to improve organizational outcomes and strengthen HR decision-making. Save your virtual seat. Sponsored by CareerBuilder.*

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