Exit interview for disappointing charity job - honesty or not?

[JackieWeaversExitButton]

I have been working for a medium sized health charity for a year, totally remotely. I have recently accepted a role elsewhere that is paying me 20% more so too good to turn down and I’ve since resigned.

My experience in the current role has been disappointing and I’m wondering whether I make this clear in my exit interview. Alternatively I’m wondering whether to stick to the ‘couldn’t turn down a promotion’ line and keep everything ‘nice’.

Some of my experiences:

• totally disengaged line manager. Said manager wouldn’t always turn up to teams meetings, wouldn’t delegate work and would often cut across me in meetings. As a consequence I have been pushing forward new initiatives with very little interest or support from her. The role was newly created and it appeared that no one really wanted to ‘manage’ me! Given that I was the first fully remote worker it felt more jarring because I didn’t have an existing relationship with the team therefore felt very sidelined

• my role was reliant upon another member of staff involved in systems and data. It is common knowledge that said colleague was overstretched but this would mean nearly all deadlines to do with my projects were missed. This left me incredibly frustrated/ bored and it was simply accepted that things couldn’t be done because said colleague was under the cosh. Cue: loads of time for me to do not a lot!

• whilst I was made aware of travel (I live 100 miles from the head office) there have been occasions where I’ve been given two days’ notice to come in and to arrange antigen tests etc. Likewise, my IT was shocking. I changed laptops twice and didn’t receive full assets until I was 6 months in…also had to chase for confirmation that I’d passed my probation/lock in a development meeting that kept being postponed

I could go on 😜

So wwyd? Keep things brief and upbeat or make them aware that things haven’t been ideal?

I think if you do want to give honest opinions then you should focus on the role and not the people. So instead of "I was often frustrated and bored because I wasn't getting the data quickly enough from Frank" you would say ”moving forward the role needs more support from data analysts so I'd suggest looking at the capacity of the data analyst role and deciding if there needs to be another post created there.”. That feels like you're helping the orgs future performance rather than just whinging.

@SouthSideSally that’s a good approach. I’m definitely going to do this.

I think southside’s suggested way of phrasing things is good. The other thing id say is to just answer the questions they ask, rather than setting off on a laundry list of what you’ve found to be less than positive.

If you are going to say anything, I'd make it as constructive as you can and definitely don't point the finger at individuals.

I've had a couple of terrible roles and when I left I just smiled and said what a wonderful experience it had been and I was leaving for an opportunity I couldn't turn down. To be honest in both cases I think they knew full well what the issues were.

It sounds like some of these charities, and no doubt commercial organisations too, are hopelessly disorganised and inefficient.

I thought an exit interview could include the leaver's comments as to what she thought about the role and why she was leaving. In the OP's case, I would certainly point out some of the things that have made my job difficult and stress-inducing. Hopefully the next person who takes on the role may get the benefit of her input, though that may be over optimistic.

I'm hearing more and more stories like this from people starting new jobs. It really isn't the way to create a pleasant and efficient environment and motivate staff.

I work for a charity and it's the same. I've had it now. I'm hoping to leave soon and I'm already wondering what to say in my exit interview (if there's even such as thing).

I would flag the things that could be easily resolved such as new employees having an induction pack and giving adequate notice when travel is required.

is IT always outsourced to India?

IT are so useless

I'd keep the tone light and be complementary but I would mention the issues they could do something about. I'd tone it down and keep it objective.

I would suggest dropping a few subtle hints about the issues and see if they take the bait and ask more.

If they brush it aside you’ll know they don’t care.

It's a problem with the sector. I'm lucky that I have a wonderful manager but the wages are pants really. I wouldn't say anything. If I reported anything bad like this on my exit from my current organisation, don't think I'd need to though, I don't think I'd work in that area locally again. It all depends on the charity and how they treat their staff.

I'd be honest as I'd feel better, my degree of honesty would depend on whether I needed to rely on them for a future reference.

It seems to me from my experience that the Charity sector bid for funding by claiming they will achieve all sorts of unrealistic outcomes, create a fixed term role say 18 months for that project so that a designated person or small team has all responsibility, expect the new person to completely create that role with zero training, input or support, on a very low salary (I've seen positions paying 18k in London...surely they'd need the charity themselves on that wage) and then expect outcomes to be met, or even worse not really care about the outcomes as they are focused on the next funding bid, and then that contract is over so they don't really care about the long term for the employee or the project. And rinse and repeat...

Very strange way to work.

Recently left a charity role after many many months of poor management and lack of support, entire team in same boat. I am afraid I was brutally honest.

"It seems to me from my experience that the Charity sector bid for funding by claiming they will achieve all sorts of unrealistic outcomes, create a fixed term role say 18 months for that project so that a designated person or small team has all responsibility, expect the new person to completely create that role with zero training, input or support, on a very low salary (I've seen positions paying 18k in London...surely they'd need the charity themselves on that wage) and then expect outcomes to be met, or even worse not really care about the outcomes as they are focused on the next funding bid, and then that contract is over so they don't really care about the long term for the employee or the project. And rinse and repeat...

Very strange way to work"

Spot on. That's exactly my experience too.

Be factual and honest in the exit interview. They are often used by senior management to understand issues that may not be brought to their attention otherwise. They can help change organisational behaviour

You lot have a duty to come clean - who are you working for - so I can target my donations on somewhere that actually achieves something???

I would give honest feedback but project-based not personal.
So
I feel I’d done as much as I could within the constraints of the resources available. Anyone new coming in will need more timely data from the x department in order to work efficiently. The new initiatives need to have full management buy-in and some time / resources should be devoted to ensuring that all the internal stakeholders are on the same page. Etc etc.

Yes, I agree with SouthSideSally 's advice. Be constructive and system-focused but don't pull your punches. Usually they know but don't care (filling the gaps is too expensive and not easy to fund, unlike all the outward-facing project work that makes demands upon their Cinderella back-office. Managing poor performers out is too difficult and time-consuming) but sometimes they need evidence to support a suspicion, or to be told, so they can't say 'but no-one ever mentioned this' five years later, when some shit does eventually hit a fan.

I also recognise icelolly12 's experience. I would add; there's usually no final report or dissemination, as there isn't time to produce it, the contractor leaves before the end of the contract, or no-one planned that into the contract (and colleagues are too busy to be 'disseminated to' anyway). Then, a year or two later, someone from another organisation or department says to one of your ex-colleagues, 'you did some work on topic X, didn't you?' and they can't even remember, or bluster and delay sharing anything about it, until everyone forgets.

Your 'money for the work' comment though (was that another poster) has to be contextualised to the sector. There simply is no comparison to equivalent roles in other sectors, unless you're in admin or finance - something purely back-office, for which no charitable motivation is expected and recruitment is truly competitive with other employers in the area.

Oh, there's also the fun part where senior management just assume that the post-holder will fundraise for the continuation of their own post. Even though there's no time allocated for that. And they forget to mention it until a month or two before the end of the contract.

To the person who's recently started work with a charity, my suggestion would be that you keep your own daily timesheets, so you can provide evidence of how long it actually takes to perform x, y, z tasks on your work plan (notes on why, if longer than expected, or delays occur) and what other, unexpected tasks are making demands upon your time.

Then, if you're asked why X is taking longer than planned, or whether you could take on Y too, you can produce an evidenced workplan, or just a priority list showing hours taken per task and say 'well, delivering the top five priorities from my workplan / task list / job description (as agreed with my manager, committee etc) takes this many hours a week and will continue to do for the next six months. So, if you'd like me to take on task Y, please could you agree with my manager / project committee which of those tasks I should drop, reduce or delay, to make time for it?

You don't need to be arsey about it but having the evidence available will help you hold your ground, be constructive and avoid a nervous breakdown.

@Spiindoctor I feel like I have to make it clear that the charity I am referring to does important means-tested work with clear outcomes - in no small part due to being excellent at raising funds. Think: purchase of medical equipment etc.

To infer from this thread that these charities don't 'achieve' anything is in my opinion, the wrong and unhelpful conclusion to draw. I don't deny, however, that certain charities could be more effective. So too could private companies and the like.

My critique (and certainly the criticism that appears on this thread for other charities) is not directed at how the beneficiary/ies are treated, but rather the inner workings of management and how this plays out internally with staff time being wasted and misdirected. I've raised a lot of money but haven't been treated in a way that would encourage me to stay.

Another thought OP. Was your post a new one? When it was proposed, especially if externally funded but also if not, someone should have put a project proposal together, that included all the on-costs; the % of management time, IT time etc needed to support your post. There should be a standard organisational calculation for that stuff. It might vary with external funders, according to their terms.

Did you receive the % of other people's time allocated to your post?

Had that been translated into work plans or at least general direction to critical support functions, like IT, so those staff knew they needed to be focusing on your project during particular months?

That would be a point to raise in your feedback. It refers back to something quantified and, if things didn't work as planned, indicates a larger organisational problem.

If externally funded, there's a further issue that a funder may have been misled. Of course on-costs are not an exact science but if your post brought in money earmarked to pay for 20% of a FTE IT person's time and you received 7% of their time and not actually when you needed it, that's not just poor organisation. The people writing funding bids and those reporting back to funders need to know about it.

I've worked for a few charities and there are great ones and there are terrible ones. It's a mix just like private sector. The absolute worst are the vanity projects where the founder is sticking around though - complete hell. All other established ones I've worked at have been really professional and good experiences.

@lottiegarbanzo Great questions. Yes, it was a newly-created role that was born out of various functions being split between teams and therefore seen as a way to bring disparate functions together within the one role. Culturally the organisation is very laid back/loose with no formal expectations around 1:1s or professional development etc. For many this feels like a lovely family-type culture (several colleagues have been there for over 20 years), but for me it's felt disorganized and unprofessional.

I was not aware of a project proposal for my role and suspect there wasn't one. This would have been hugely helpful, though! My go-to was the job description and I relied heavily upon a business plan to carry out core tasks and bring on new initiatives. Said initiatives were things that wouldn't fit elsewhere or other teams claimed they had little capacity for... I don't even think I had probationary objectives and my 'yes, you've passed probation' meeting was 2 months late!

The charity is in a robust financial position so wouldn't have had to apply for funding to cover my role which was/is permanent and I think will remain so.

Ok, so they've squeezed the role into existing structures. They must, at least, have some idea of many line-reports each manager can deal with and how many members of staff each IT person can support. So feedback that some functions seem stretched beyond capacity has to be useful.

Also about your expectation vs reality of management, appraisal and development. They may fail to attract or lose other people for the same reason but not even recognise that the way they do things isn't most people's normal. (Especially so if they've retained a lot of staff for a long time, so their culture has ossified).

Anyway, you may find you're limited by the questions you're asked. Up to you if you want to take a handful of bullet points in for the 'anything else' bit at the end!