Senior executives spend much of their time focused on organizational growth, performance, and strategy. Yet too often, a key source of insight gets overlooked: employees who quit. Even organizations that use exit surveys may not capitalize on the feedback well, keeping results at a local level, and disconnected from other key data. Yet a well-designed and actionable exit survey program can be a crucial part of a larger listening strategy. Results from these surveys don’t focus on why one particular individual left; rather, they are about detecting patterns, identifying risk, and preventing regrettable turnover.
Why Exit Surveys Matter at the Executive Level
It’s common wisdom that replacing employees can be costly. But more than that, you’re also losing institutional knowledge, interrupting workplace dynamics, and potentially creating turmoil. Exit surveys, which are often a place where employees feel more able to be honest, are a powerful tool for executives to better understand the concerns of their workforce. They also provide insight into areas that may be at risk for losing talent and key drivers of loss. When exit surveys are aggregated and trended over time, they help flag problems before they show up in engagement scores, customer outcomes, and ultimately in the organization’s long-term outlook.
The Key to Successful Exit Surveys
The most important aspect of an exit survey is to be sure to use the data. Too many organizations administer these surveys but fail to truly understand the feedback. This is where working with an I/O psychologist can come in handy; at OrgVitality, for example, we link your exit survey data to any previous census or engagement surveys so that you can identify leading indicators and be proactive on these before losing key employees. This data is incorporated into a user-friendly dashboard, ensuring that your project team can get an accurate and holistic view of all employee listening programs within the organization, bringing together insights across different programs.
[Read More: Learning From Who Left: Optimizing Employee Exit Surveys]
The Role Executives Play in Exit Surveys
Executives have a different role when it comes to exit surveys compared to a census survey.
A census survey is administered to the entire population at one time, providing you with data on the entire organization. Additionally, there are automatic assignments to learn from the date, to identify improvement goals, and to continue to drive improvements throughout the entire organization all year long.
By contrast, exit surveys happen in real time as people leave, with results slowly accumulating. Your HR or Talent Management team generally has access to the results, which they should be monitoring on an ongoing basis, looking for spikes or unusual patterns or connections to themes in other programs. HR should bring these patterns or insights to you to discuss and act upon; if this hasn’t been happening, it’s worth having a conversation with your team and setting specific times or noting triggers that would be worthy of a conversation.
Ultimately, exit surveys should work in tandem with other listening initiatives to help inform leadership development, workforce planning, and improvement efforts. While you can’t always prevent valuable employees from leaving, you can use it as an opportunity to learn from them and make adjustments that are within your control.
If you would like to discuss how a disciplined, executive-ready exit survey approach can strengthen your organization, contact us today.