Telling your people you are changing the exit process: who to tell, what to say, and in what order.

Many exit processes are introduced by a note to HR and a new line in the leavers checklist. The first a manager hears of it is when a resigning team member says “I have had an email from some company asking why I am leaving.” The manager, unbriefed, shrugs; the leaver, unconvinced, deletes it. The questionnaire was fine. The launch was not. This guide sets out who needs to hear about a new exit process, what each of them needs to know, and the order that makes the difference.

Why the communication matters more than the questionnaire

An exit questionnaire only tells you anything if enough leavers complete it and complete it honestly. Both depend on what people believe about it before they open it. If they think it is a tick-box, they skip it. If they think their manager will read it, they soften it. If they understand that an independent party collects it, that their answers are reported in groups, and that the organisation acts on what it hears, they tend to say what they actually think. How to choose an exit interview approach explains why independence changes the answers; this guide is about making sure people know it is independent.

Who to tell, and in what order

• The senior sponsor and leadership team first. They need to know what the process is for, what they will see and when, and that the first results will show things they may not like. Ask one of them to put their name to the all-staff line. A process introduced by HR alone reads as an HR process; one introduced by a director reads as something the organisation wants to learn from.
• Line managers second, and before any leaver is invited. Managers will be the first people a leaver mentions it to, so they need to be able to answer the obvious questions without guessing. They also need to hear two things plainly: that the questionnaire is in addition to their own conversation with the person, not a replacement for it, and that they must not ask what was said. We suggest a short written briefing two to three weeks before the first invitations go out, with the questions below answered in it.
• The people who will run it third. Someone in HR or the people team will add each leaver to the system. The administration is small: in our process it is five fields per leaver, first name, last name, email address, job title and leaving date, and takes about a minute. What matters is that it is done promptly, because the reminders are timed from the leaving date. A leaver added after they have gone is a leaver who will not respond.
• Leavers fourth, at the moment they resign. The invitation itself comes from the provider. What makes it land is a sentence from your side first: in the acknowledgement of their resignation, from HR or from their manager, saying that they will receive it, from whom, and why. An email from an unfamiliar sender with no warning is spam. The same email, expected, is a courtesy.
• Everyone else, briefly. One line in a staff bulletin or on the intranet, so that when people come to leave in a year’s time they already know the process exists and what it is for. This is also where the organisation can be seen to commit, in advance, to reporting back on what leavers say.

What to say: the five questions every audience will ask

• What is changing, and what is not. Say in a sentence what the new process is: a short online questionnaire, completed in about ten minutes, which asks leavers in a structured way about the reasons behind their decision. Then say what stays the same. The conversation with the manager still happens. The HR leaving meeting, if you have one, still happens. If the new questionnaire replaces an old form, say so, and say why the old one was not giving you what you needed.
• Why we are doing it. Give the real reason, in plain words: we want a clearer picture of why people leave, we want to see the themes across the organisation rather than one story at a time, and we want to act on what we learn so that fewer people leave for reasons we could have fixed. If replacement cost is part of your case, say so, but lead with learning, not with cost.
• Who is asking, and why they are independent. Name the provider and say what they do. Then say why you are using a third party at all: so that leavers can be more open than they might be in a face-to-face interview with someone they know, and so that the analysis is done by people with no stake in the answer. Say what the provider sees (the responses), what they do with them (analyse and report them to the organisation in groups) and what they do not do (share an individual’s answers with their manager).
• What exactly is confidential. This is the question people care most about, and the one most often answered with a word, “anonymous”, that nobody has defined. Decide the design first and then describe it precisely. If HR will see an individual’s personal exit report so that they can hold a better leaving conversation, say so, and say who in HR. If results are reported only in groups, say what the smallest reportable group is and what happens to groups below it. Anonymity and confidentiality in employee surveys sets out what can be promised, and the reporting threshold checker will show you which breakdowns a given number of leavers can support. Promise only what the design keeps.
• What happens with the results. Say how often the organisation will look at the themes, who will see them and what it will do. Then, when the first results arrive, tell people what they said and what is changing because of it. This is the message most launches forget, and it is the one that decides whether next year’s leavers bother. Raising exit questionnaire completion rates covers the other levers.

The managers’ briefing: what it must cover

Managers do not need the whole rationale. They need to know what to say in the moment someone resigns, and what not to do afterwards. We suggest the briefing covers, in a page: what the leaver will receive and when; the sentence to use when telling them (below); that the questionnaire is independent and the manager will not see individual answers; that managers must not ask what was said or treat completion as a loyalty test; that they will see group themes for their area when the numbers allow; and who to send questions to. How to handle a resignation conversation covers the conversation itself.

Illustrative wording

• For the acknowledgement of a resignation. “In the next few days you will receive an email from [provider], who run our exit questionnaire. It takes about ten minutes and asks about the reasons behind your decision. They are independent of us: your answers are analysed by them and reported to us in groups, so that we can see the themes across the organisation and act on them [or, if that is your design: and HR will see your individual report so they can talk it through with you]. I will not see what you say. We would be grateful if you would complete it; it is how we learn.”
• For the all-staff line. “From [month], everyone who leaves us will be invited by [provider], an independent consultancy, to complete a short, confidential exit questionnaire. We will share what leavers tell us, and what we are changing because of it, twice a year.” Adjust the frequency to one you will keep.
• Launching by policy update. A new paragraph in the leavers procedure is not a launch. If managers have not been told, the process does not exist for the people who matter.
• Promising more anonymity than the design keeps. If HR will see individual reports, do not say “anonymous”. One leaver who finds out otherwise undoes the credibility of the whole process.
• Saying different things in different places. The all-staff line, the managers’ briefing, the invitation and the intranet page should agree on who sees what. Write the confidentiality sentence once and reuse it everywhere.
• Letting the leaving date slip past. Reminders are timed from the leaving date, and in our experience response rates fall away once someone has gone. Make adding the leaver part of the same step as processing the resignation, not a later tidy-up.
• Never reporting back. The first cohort completes on trust. The second completes on evidence that the first was heard.

When the process is running, the exit process health check is a twelve-question way to see what is working. If you are choosing an independent provider, LastOpinion is ours, and the communication above is the one we help clients send.