How to choose an exit interview approach (and why independence changes the answers).
Most organisations run exit interviews. Few get much from them. The difference is not effort; it is five design choices that are usually made by default.
On this page
Settle five design choices before you choose a provider: who asks, when, what, how to get it completed and what the report shows. A checklist for choosing is at the end.
An exit interview is the one moment an employee has very little reason to be polite and every reason to be honest. Whether you hear the honest version depends on who asks, when, how, and what you do with the answer. If you are deciding how to run leaver feedback – in-house or independent, interview or questionnaire, a provider or a spreadsheet – these are the questions to settle first.
Who asks?
A conversation with the line manager produces the politest possible account of why someone is leaving, because the manager is often part of the reason and always part of the reference. HR does better. An independent process – a questionnaire run by someone outside the organisation, with a visible promise about confidentiality and reporting thresholds – does best.
When?
Ask during the notice period, not after the leaving date. People still working their notice are reachable, still invested, and still remember the detail. After they have gone, responses are much harder to get and the answers thin out. The practical rule: invite at least three weeks before the last day, with a reminder each week.
What do you ask?
A free-text question alone gives you anecdotes. A structured set of reasons alone gives you a bar chart with no story. You need both:
- a consistent frame of leaving reasons (growth, progression, the line manager, well-being, reward, teamwork, working conditions and so on) that can be compared across teams and over time, each marked as a reason for leaving, a contributing factor or a strength;
- a clear happy-or-unhappy classification;
- whether the new role is a step up;
- whether they would recommend the organisation and whether they would come back;
- and then their own words.
Keep it short – fifteen minutes at most.
How do you get people to complete it?
Completion is a process problem, not a motivation problem. The levers that make the difference: a named senior champion whose signature is on the invitation; an invitation that reads as personal rather than automated; enough notice; a weekly reminder; line managers briefed to mention it in the last one-to-one; and a monthly count of leavers invited against leavers who actually left, because a frequent failure is simply not inviting people.
What does a useful report look like?
Three levels. For the board: the happy-to-unhappy split, the share of avoidable loss, the trend, and how that compares with a benchmark for your sector. For HR and people teams: reasons by team, site, role and tenure, so you can see whether the problem is a department or a manager. For the leaver themselves, where you want a follow-up conversation: an individual report you can share with them so that nothing is hidden. If a provider cannot show you all three before you sign, keep looking.
Then do something with it
Prioritise follow-up conversations rather than trying to hold them with everyone: top talent and key skills, unhappy leavers, and anyone leaving a part of the organisation where attrition already worries you. Be clear with the leaver about how confidential the conversation is and who will see your notes.
Share their own report with them so they are reminded of what they said. Focus on the items they marked as reasons for leaving, ask which one mattered most and why, and ask whether the actions they suggested would have changed their decision. If they said they would come back, make sure you have a way to reach them: in our NHS leaver data, half of the leavers who left dissatisfied said they would consider returning.
A short checklist for choosing
- Independent collection with a stated confidentiality promise.
- Invitation during notice, with automated reminders.
- A consistent reason framework that can be benchmarked across your sector.
- Happy/unhappy and would-return questions as standard.
- Reporting at board, team and individual level.
- Data hosted in the UK.
- A trial on real leavers, not a demo on sample data – the quality of the answers is the product.
Drawn from great{with}talent’s exit interview practice since 2003, our interview guide for follow-up conversations and our guidance on raising completion rates. LastOpinion offers a free 30-day trial on real leavers, and our turnover cost calculator puts a number on what avoidable leaving costs.
See what your own data already knows.
Send us your last twelve months of leaver data and we’ll show you what it reveals – no charge, no deck, no obligation. Or start with a free trial or a 30-minute conversation.