Exit interview

This incident happened few  years back when I was  working  in MNC. I was gearing up for a meeting at 10:30 am on Monday morning with a Architect  accompanied by a experienced   lighting design person  who had spent more than 6 yrs with the company and had put up his papers recently.I knew the employee was fairly engaged with his work, liked by his peers and was taking active participation in most of the cross functional teams across his area of work. So what went wrong?

 During  our journey to  the  Architects office  which  was on  the  other  part  of  the  city  I  had ample  time  to  discuss  and  figure out the trigger of his exit and also to explore the options of retaining him by changing the location or  his  job  profile if  needed.

What stumped me while having the conversation with him was: he said: “you are the first person who is genuinely interested in me and talking about staying back”. After further quizzing him I learnt that his immediate boss knee jerk reaction was “now that you have planned to go, go after some time and not immediately” as it will hamper his ongoing project work. Lighting team  dept head reacted by saying “since the entire year you did so and so work I can’t give you more than certain rating during EMS  which will translate into 12% increment”. His  immediate Boss  didn’t have the courage and cheek to go and influence the dept head about retaining the employee nor the dept head bothered to check out the trigger for his exit. He fairly assumed it would be money and started talking the language of EMS  12% rise and so forth.

However, what left me in greater thoughts was about the emotional and psychological contract that the employee had towards his work, supervisor, team and company which no longer was the same post he put his papers and saw the reaction from his Boss  and   also his dept head. I  also  found  out  he  had lots to  give back  to  our  company  in  terms  of  feed  back  if  Exit  interview  was to  be  arranged , but surprisingly  non  of  my  team  mates  or  his  boss nor  his  Department  head was  interested  in  hearing  his  feed  back!!

Could the similar situation be handled in a different way? The answer is Yes. Maybe the employee may have still left us and gone but he would have continued to be our brand ambassador despite not working with us  and  also his  rich experience  in  being  with  us  for  5  plus  years would  have  benefited  if  at all  we  could  have  arranged a  exit  interview  , , but  alas the  opportunity  was  missed  and  in  few  days he  left  our  organisation  and  recently when  I  met  him  he  was   heading  a  design team in  big  MNC  and  doing  really  well .

 How can one aim for that sort of engagement when your ex employees talk highly about you while they are no longer working in the same organization? The answer is simple and not rocket science – make their stay including the exit as memorable as possible and treat them with humane approach as they were welcomed in the system on the first day of joining. Create enough memorable memories and experience to cherish so that the employee continues to give his best productive performance even on the last day of his work!

“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.” – Stephen R. Covey

Even  during  Ramayana  and  Mahabaharatha  there  was a  sort  of  exit  interview   which  was  useful  for  to be   crowned  kings  Lord Rama  and Yudistra

  In  fact During  death  bed  of  Ravana  Lord  Rama took  advise  from Ravana the  learned  King  how  to  conduct  as  successful  King  so  was  Yudistria   under  instruction   of  Krishna sought  the  advise  of  Bheeshma  pittamaha which  is  well  documented  in  bheeshma  parva  .This  is  exactly  what  we  call  as  knowledge sharing ..

This  is  what  Devadatt  pattnaik says ......

. “In triumph, it is easy to claim the material possessions of the defeated – his cows, his gold, his slaves, his kingdom, his palace. But it is not easy to claim his knowledge. When he dies, his knowledge and all his experience goes with him. Knowledge does not outlive death.

 Similarally. Every day, people leave organizations, taking their knowledge with them, knowledge which they probably acquired because they are part of the organization. They take with them knowledge of clients, markets, business processes, tricks of the trade. These may not be confidential information or patented information, but information that does give an organization that competitive edge.”

The days are gone when employees used to work for single organizations for the rest of their lives. Can we do something genuinely on retaining good talent?

“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.”