Nobscot Corporation and HRPA Retention and Mentoring Tips

Nobscot Corporation is partnered with Human Resources Professional Organization (HRPA), the top HR association in Canada. On this page, you’ll find the latest tips featured in HRPA’s weekly e-newsletters.

Employee Retention Tips

How to Create an Effective Exit Interview Strategy

As the economy picks up in 2014, more and more publications are reporting that employees are indicating they plan to change jobs this year. Has this begun to occur in your organization? Do you have a plan to prevent valuable high performers from leaving? Exit interviews are the first step to gather the data on what motivates employees to leave. Here are some tips to help you set up an effective exit interview plan:

Choose a methodology.

The paper and pencil method is the default method when organizations do not have anything else in place. The common issue with this method is that they do not all get returned (15-35% average participation rate).
The in-person exit interview method gives a personal touch and gives HR the opportunity to probe for more information. However it’s difficult to get open, candid feedback and the resulting information is difficult to analyze.
The telephone method used to be a great method, and may still work with employees who do not have access to computers, but in the modern age, it is very difficult to reach people via telephone so it’s hard to get high participation rates. Like, in-person exits, the information is anecdotal and difficult to break down by department, division and other demographics.
Technology-based exit interviews work by inviting departing employees to complete an exit interview online. Exit interview management systems track the data and can be used to generate reports. Done properly, participation rates for this method can average 65% or higher.

Conduct the exit interview in the "sweet spot" time window. The ideal time to exit interview an employee is between 3 days before the employee’s last day and 3 days after the termination date. This is when employees still feel emotionally connected to the organization, and they will be more apt to give honest feedback.

Think about your demographics BEFORE you start exit interviewing. One of the most important features of exit interviews is looking at the results by demographics. This allows organizations to view the data in different ways. For example, if they ask if the employee is male or female, they can compare why males are leaving vs. why females are leaving.

Ask the right questions. Make sure that you’re not asking two questions in one. Use a combination of qualitative (numerically-rated) and quantitative (open-ended) questions so that your numbers will point to where the issues might be and the comments will flesh out that information.

Communicate! Let your employees know that you are conducting exit interviews because you want to get their feedback to make improvements. Publicize any organizational changes that you’ve made based on exit interview feedback, as well. When an employee resigns, notify him or her about the upcoming exit interview when you’re giving other departure instructions, such as where to turn in his or her office key, etc.

How to set up or improve your exit interview program

All Employee Retention Tips

Mentoring Tips

How Can a Mentoring Program Improve Employee Retention?

Want to learn how top organizations like Toyota, ConAgra, American Cancer Society and AHLA retain their employees? They have mentoring programs! These cost-effective tools can help reduce employee turnover by giving employees opportunities for career development, visibility within the organization, increased promotions and higher salaries.

You can learn about their mentoring stories, best practices and tips at a FREE webinar that will feature a panel discussion with these top organizations’ mentoring program administrators. They’re going to share valuable information about how to set up and manage a successful mentoring program, from general mentoring programs to specialty programs, including programs for high potentials, diverse employees and much more.

If you’d like to learn more about managing mentoring programs and how they can help YOU combat employee turnover, join us for this FREE, informative webinar on Wednesday, December 11, at 2pm EST. Click here to sign up for it.

All Mentoring Tips