Exit interview

[MiamiWindMachine]

I’m about to leave my job after five years. I was headhunted, so it wasn’t that I was particularly unhappy or desperate to leave - I just got a very good offer. I have a great relationship with my boss, who is disappointed I’m leaving, but understands that it’s a great opportunity. I’m glad to be leaving on good terms with her and the team and will only have good things to say about them in my exit interview.

However, I don’t feel the same way about HR. I know that, as a sector, it doesn’t exactly have a reputation for attracting the best and brightest, but this is genuinely the worst team I’ve ever come across in my career. I had to deal with the then Assistant UK Manager a couple of years back and she was robotic, utterly lacking in empathy and made several mistakes. She’s since been promoted to UK Manager 🙄

As you can tell, I have no time for her, but it isn’t about personal dislike. The whole department is run extremely poorly. Everything is very “computer sez no”; there’s nothing approaching common sense in any of their decisions. Last year, they opened the annual review feedback system - with a fixed window of two weeks - on 12 December. Our annual review deadline was Boxing Day. They used the same system to open an important survey on 17 December. It’s like Christmas and New Year - which in my experience roll around roughly every year - and all the associated disruption don’t exist in their world. They must have had complaints, because they moved the annual review forward by six weeks without a word, meaning you were buggered if you’d happened to book those two weeks off. There have been many other organisational issues too.

I wanted to say all this in my exit interview. But now I find they’re sending the most junior member of the team possible to do it. Not even the Assistant Manager; I’m essentially getting the secretary. I feel insulted, and it’s just another sign of their lack of interest, or even general critical thinking. They haven’t even bothered to find out whether the company is desperate to keep me or thrilled to be rid of me.

As I say, I wanted to talk up my boss and leave on a high note. But I feel like I have to get all this out there. Maybe it won’t do any good, but at least I’ve got closure.

WWYD?

It's a shame because the OP has failed to accept the way they communicate is problematic. It's not an HR problem, it's more likely, based on the communications on this thread - an OP problem.

Or maybe the way YOU respond is “problematic”. That’s why your posts got deleted. Something to consider.

Some of the deleted posts weren't in breach of talk guidelines, so I can't work out why they went. 🤷‍♀️

Obviously MN disagreed.

You also had posts deleted. 🤷‍♀️

and here we go… 😂

OP - you sound so angry, so… unhappy.

Of course you will deny it because it’s so abundantly clear. A very angry woman

You reported them? why out of interest?

Because they quoted deleted posts. Standard procedure.

You sound so… ridiculous.

I was with OP on the first post, and then read the updates. Well, fck me 😂😂

I have worked for people before with this sort of self important, stuck up and disregarding attitude and all I can say is good luck making friends in your new company! (Although no doubt you’ll point out that’s not what the workplace is for LOL)

Op in your attempts to not appear like a doormat and to value yourself you come across as rude, aggressive and defensive. I sincerely hope you conduct yourself differently in your professional life but if not you have much to learn and I get that you won't take it from randomers on the internet...I wish you and your new colleagues all the best but I am done here. Peace and love folks.✌

I am done here.

The first valuable post you’ve made.

Reading between the lines OP, I think your nose is out of joint that they're letting you go and not competing with Jonny New Job to keep you this time. It doesn't matter what kind of company you work for, HR is there to do what management want in the interests of the company. Chances are some of the things you've complained about were sitting with management waiting to be signed off and finally were, with two weeks to go before the end of the year and had to be completed in that year.

That;s just not true, OP. You have 3 posts deleted for breaking talk guidelines.

Why would you lie about something so easily verifiable?

But what’s your POINT? Apart from the fact that I didn’t go back through the entire thread to check, the fact that I’ve had posts deleted doesn’t change the fact that a consistently bitchy, sniping poster had also had posts deleted. Posting “You also had posts deleted. 🤷‍♀️” (complete with passive aggressive shrug emoji) adds nothing.

This! Exit interviews are quite standard and have a structure so it makes sense to give it to someone more junior. You make it sound like you’re some super special employee. You’re just another person leaving.

You’re also really overthinking this exit interview thing.

i have never read a thread where every single poster is unanimous in their…. dislike of the OP

I’ve never met anyone who… overuses the ellipsis so much.

i know what i’d rather be known for out of those two options 😂

I also wouldn’t call the same few names ganging up out of boredom “unanimous” either. Check the poll results.

are you working your notice currently?
when is the interview?

This has prompted me to vote in the poll now.

Don't do it! Will only hit you in the face.

OPs whole attitude to work seems a bit… off.

I can’t imagine particularly caring who conducts my exit interview. Surely even if it was a more junior member of HR staff they’d feed anything high-level or serious back to the HR director if needed.

FWIW I’m not as cynical about exit interviews as a lot of previous posters. Yes HR are not going to leap into action and do everything that someone raises in one, but if there’s common problems across a range of exit interviews then this can lead to action.

And the whole drama about them letting OP leave and not trying to retain her. The one certainty in workplaces is that things change and people move on. It’s natural and in my experience workplaces that don’t have enough turnover are stale and not great places to be.

OP, is the junior staff member's job title Secretary? Because if it isn't, using it as an insult doesn't do you any favours.

My manager has failed to put through my agreed pay rise for 5 months and my mum said I would complain to hr… I laughed a lot. That would be pointless. Love my mum’s nativity though. No good will come of it, especially if hr is that bad.

This.

Companies have little interest in their employees when they're at work, even less when they know they're leaving!!

I wouldn't waste my breath with an exit interview.

It's a waste of everyone's time.