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?

Really? You should get out more..😂

VP doesn’t really exist in the UK does it?

Depends on if you might need to go back some day, or how incestuous your industry is and how big the risk is you may end of working with the same HR people again!

What an awful attitude. I would hate to work in any company where you had any influence.

Mind you, I can't think of any decent company who would employ someone like you.

Exactly. I worked in a company with the most deadful HR manager who had favourites etc.

Everyone celebrated when she (and her friend the bitchy credit control manager) were made redundant. They both thought they were untouchable. Karma is great.

Never do an exit interview. If you like people and the place, tell them that directly before you leave. If you didn't, put it behind you. There are often nice, capable people in HR roles, but I've never worked with a department that I had much time for. And they can cause problems if you need a reference or want to come back.

Don’t burn your bridges!

In my experience exit interviews are just a box ticking exercise and waste of time. No-one cares, they just do them because they have to. In my last job I declined the opportunity as a waste of everyones time.

Caring about the quality HR if you are leaving seems like a waste of your precious energy to me. Focus on your great new role, and don't burn any bridges.

You obviously think you're a cut above HR, which is never goingto endear them to you.

I would say an exit interview is for offering constructive views, not for a general slag off.

I’m sensing you think you’re indispensable, and have rather large delusions of grandeur OP. I guess you feel that senior management see you leaving as a momentous occasion, and absolutely want to be present at your exit interview to sing your praises and say how you will be missed, blah, blah. In business, no-one is indispensable, and as soon as you walk out of the door, it will be business as usual with your replacement. They won’t remember your name this time next year.

This 100%

You are way overthiinking this. No changes come from being honest and giving feedback at exit interviews. Either decline or say "all good, just had another offer which was better" and leave it at that. Then if you need to work there again you can. If you slate HR you close a door for yourself.

It’s an exit interview 😂

A goldfish could do it.

no one cares what you think. You’re leaving.

I kind of get how OP feels.

I recently left a company after 12 years and my exit interview was online, it's not a big corp or anything and I really thought it would be in person - I wouldn't have minded if it was with an assistant but felt not to meet in person after all that time was a bit off, especially when they preach what a close knit family we all are and blah blah.

Sounds like you are upset that a junior member of staff is doing the exit interview and you feel that you are worthy of someone more ‘important’.

Its an exit interview. Not a people strategy meeting! Get over yourself!

Your OP says ‘’I know that, as a sector, it doesn’t exactly have a reputation for attracting the best and brightest’’ … you sound like a lovely person to be around!

good luck in your new role, you are going to need it!

Honestly, if all you've got is that they didn't time the annual appraisal very well and she once made a mistake when you met her, I'm not actually sure it's worth mentioning. HRs main job is not to make life nice for employees or to listen to them moan. If their policies actively made you leave, or their reward strategies were out of industry norm, or there was bullying and harassment in management - then that's an issue HR would be interested in. You being a bit annoyed that in your opinion the HR team weren't quite what you wanted is really utterly irrelevant. The whole "HR are rubbish because my payslip was once wrong/I don't like the performance system/my holiday form isn't very user friendly" is not of interest to anyone, despite what most junior employees think. A good HR senior manager will spend most of their time working closely with very senior management on ensuring they have (on a macro scale) the best people, working their best, in the best place and coaching senior management on achieving that. You sound very self important and totally unaware how organisations should work. Go or don't go to the interview, it won't bother them either way and say what you like, the HR manager won't care if you didn't like the appraisal timings, it won't bother them at all.

You are being ridiculous. (And how you refer to the junior member of staff it ultimate twattishness)

I used to conduct Exit Interviews early in my career. Deliberately given to me as a junior member of staff as they are not exactly rocket science (except for very, very, very senior manager who would see the HR Director). I did everyone else as it was not something a decision maker/highly paid manager needed to do. It is an informaion gathering exercise. It is not something that will immediately bring about the sacking of a whole department.

For me, exit interview results were largely kept anonymous so people would be more open. With the information I collected had to

1. Raise something immediately if it was a compliance/risk to regulations (never happened).
2. Keep a log of the actual tick box paperwork to see if patterns emerged... and then escalate.
3. Report the non immediate findings up the chain - but monthly, so again, results were vaguely anonymous.

It was more than a tick box exercise. It was not a "Joely has said X manager is crap in her exit interview...we must immediately sack/train/berate X" - as that could lead to all kinds of erroneous witch hunts. Instead they were used as a gathering of trends/thoughts. We would rarely "listen" to one exit interview as all kinds of petty or imagined grudges could come out when someone was leaving. But when you get 3 separate reports of something (eg men's toilets are grim on the night shift or Charlie always gave the best overtime to his mates, or X manager is a bullying twat) then you look into it.

Personally, I don’t think an exit interview is the place to provide feedback like that. It’ll only burn bridges. It’s a small world, you never know where they will go and who they know. (Yes, I have encountered HR managers again, in a city, in a different company and different industry I was considering applying to. I have also encountered two situations where I interviewed and found that the interviewer knew someone I knew and asked them for feedback).

I have got two rules for myself, 1) if asked for feedback before leaving, only provide feedback they can/potentially would change something about or which might have an impact. No point slagging anyone off.
2) I generally offer a chat to my boss to see if they’d like feedback and ask if they can provide me with feedback. Then apply rule 1.

Your OP says ‘’I know that, as a sector, it doesn’t exactly have a reputation for attracting the best and brightest’’ … you sound like a lovely person to be around!

I’ll leave being “lovely” to volunteers at a WI Christmas fair. It’s a job, not a bloody coffee morning.

OP I work in the tech industry.
Have done for 30 years.

The one thing I know is HR are only there to protect the company. They actually don't care about why you are leaving, they are only there to mitigate any risk of you leaving.

I've never agreed to an exit interview, it's pointless and besides the most honest and anonymous way to provide feedback is via Glassdoor.

I always check that out before any move and HR monitor it usually.

Just curious OP, did you have a leaving do and did many people attend? You sound like a peach of a colleague.

Wow … the fact you actually have the nerve to say that the HR sector doesn’t have a reputation for attracting be brightest and the best… just wow!!! I’m not HR but I’ve worked under an HR function many times with some of the most brilliant, smart , progressive people (mainly women) I’ve ever met. They fought for employees to be taken good care of, for improved benefits, hybrid/flex working, D&I, wellbeing, bonuses, pay rises, promotions etc. I’ve seen brilliant women in tears over trying to get these things over the line because they see the value and importance they bring to employees.

however, all of these great initiatives have to be ultimately approved by someone (cos they cost money) and that someone is usually the CEO or similar, who is simply focused on the P&L and shareholders rather than the employees.

I suggest you stop with your superiority complex, it’s gross to read tbh.

Wow … the fact you actually have the nerve to say that the HR sector doesn’t have a reputation for attracting be brightest and the best… just wow!!!

Oh come on. Even if you don’t agree with it, you must be aware of that perception of HR. “Just wow!!!” 😄

I suggest you stop with your superiority complex, it’s gross to read tbh.

Well your scrolling finger isn’t broken, is it?