why don’t more companies do exit interviews?

A reader writes:

I’ve been a medical practitioner for five years in a field that is highly corporate and I’m really stunned by the lack of exit interviews.

In my first job, I entered as part of a new graduate scheme lasting for two years (though my job contract was permanent past this scheme). There was a lot of dysfunction at the branch, and national chat about the company was not good either. Almost all clinical staff turned over in the time I was there. This is not usual for my field.

When I quit this position, I was not offered an exit interview. All I got was what I felt was an insulting retention call where the guy talked down the job I was leaving for and then offered me a position at another local branch that is well known to be disastrous and also can’t keep staff! I imagine it’s not uncommon for graduates to leave after finishing the program (I left just shy of the two years), but it doesn’t seem ideal for the company as they spent a lot of money training us. I chalked up the lack of exit interview to the poorly organized environment, and with me being a less experienced staff member maybe my feedback just wasn’t that valuable to them.

My next job was as a clinician with a charitable organization where I stayed for a few years. It was a great job when I started, then issues started creeping in (increasing workload and a corporate focus on good attitudes over concrete changes). I was officially recognized as working at a level above my pay grade and given a bonus — so for me, that seems like the type of staff member they would want to keep! The issues got so bad that I quit without another job lined up. And again, no exit interview.

I can’t for the life of me understand why a company wouldn’t give even 15 or 20 minutes to a high-performing leaver to get further information about why they left and potentially retain good staff in the future. (As an aside, two other clinicians left shortly after me, including my direct manager.) And on a personal level, it made my work at the company feel really undervalued.

Is this an issue in other fields? Am I off-base to expect them to want my feedback? And in companies that do perform exit interviews, is this a box-ticking exercise or is this a place where a leaving member of staff can make a difference?

A lot of companies don’t do exit interviews.

And in those that do, a lot don’t do much with the feedback and treat it as a box-checking exercise. Or they pay attention to very black-and-white issues like “our salaries aren’t competitive with the other players in our field” but not to more nuanced feedback about the culture or the management.

But I’d actually argue that companies that really care about retaining good employees and improving their culture don’t wait until exit interviews to hear about issues — and if they do wait, it’s a sign they’re not very interested in acting on employee feedback anyway. Employers that truly value employees’ input create opportunities to hear it while you’re still working there: they foster a culture where people feel safe speaking up, even to disagree, and they act on feedback in ways that lead to meaningful change. They sometimes do things like “stay interviews,” or mechanisms for getting and listening to feedback are woven into how they operate every day. When they haven’t created that kind of culture, exit interviews go way down in value anyway — both because many employees won’t be comfortable being honest in them, and because feedback is less likely to get used in a meaningful way even if it’s provided.

The companies you left should have wanted your feedback. But they also sound like exactly the types of places where it’s not surprising that you weren’t asked, and where it probably wouldn’t have made a significant difference even if you were.

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