81–90 of 431 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anonymous feedback very, very rarely is. Even when everyone involved is doing their best to keep it anonymous, it very rarely is.
Obviously it's not anonymous to the interviewer. Clearly in this case it was anonymous to the manager receiving the feedback. I think this is not too uncommon.
I have no idea what the author is on about. The exit interview is often the best 30 minutes of a bad job! You can tell them what they are doing well, what they aren't doing well, praise good employees and criticize bad managers. If you are both professionals, it's a cathartic experience that supports your remaining coworkers. If they are not professional, they weren't going to give you a good reference anyway. But if…
> If you are both professionals, it's a cathartic experience that supports your remaining coworkers. If they are not professional, they weren't going to give you a good reference anyway. It seems to me that the author is suggesting a third type of person: one who is professional until they're criticized.
1) The formal exit interview with HR. The HR person was apparently called to do it on her day off (no idea why they didn't just have someone else do it), and made sure I knew it, complained that "we just spent a lot of money on those classes you took and you were on track for Leadership training." Seriously? People leave: it's a cost of doing business!
2) The VP of Engineering called me into his office to say goodbye and ask a few questions. Specifically, he wanted to know if the company's diversity programs were accomplishing anything useful (I'm black) or if they were just fooling themselves. In his words "you already have another job, so I'm sure I can trust you to be completely honest." I took him seriously and tried to give complete, honest answers to. Truth be told, I loved working there. I just wanted to move away from that part of the country and had a great opportunity.
HR's attitude pissed me off so much that if I didn't already like the place I would probably have badmouthed them to anyone who asked.
I got burned once when my company did a annual employee survey. My boss determined who gave the anonymous answer and fired me eventually.
People who provide negative feedback on these surveys do become targets, and not always for retaliation, but because companies (or the subgroups inside them) don't want discontent to spread, or would rather have an unquestioning happy employee they can manipulate.
My issue with the author's claims is that everything is framed in a "what's in it for me" reference. Even when they decided to break their own rule and go to an exit interview, the decision was made because there was the "didn’t think I had any downside risk." There are times when your personal choices may need to take a backseat to more important goals. If you are really committed to a mission, even one you've decid…
If it's something really important, e.g. safety culture, then the employee should have already raised this much, much earlier.
If the company didn't listen then, then evidently they see concerning behaviour as an acceptable cost of running their business in a certain way.
I think it's bad to say anything revelatory in an exit interview, as it shows you as someone who isn't prepared to speak up when you notice something wrong.
Many engineers who are leaving a startup may have a whole bunch of options or equity. This equity has value and one way to preserve that value is to give honest feedback in an exit interview.
And if you weren't giving the feedback prior to you quitting, you haven't been doing a great job of preserving the value of your equity up until now.
For me almost certainly I’ve already addressed what concerns I might have by the time I am exiting.
In an exit interview I've done, it was clear to me that HR was trying to spin a story about why I was leaving that didn't align with what I was saying or trying to say. They were nice enough, but it was full of questions that appeared to be designed to invalidate my thoughts or feelings. For example, the question: "But did you have the resources you needed to do your job?" to my point of "I felt like I was set up to…
In my experience, HR will end up painting something banal as the main reason for an exit instead of ever (publicly) admitting to some creative or strategic differences. Saying "the new job is closer too" will lead to the narrative that the reason was 100% based on commute time.
The first scheduled the exit interview 5 months after leaving my job. Clearly said that they wanted to make sure I was comfortable in my new job before asking for feedback. I think the gap of a few months is a good mechanism to get honest feedback if someone is willing to provide it (and is what I now do for exit interviews myself)
Second time was with a manager I really trusted (I was leaving for other reasons). Gave him a list of the 15 things that I thought needed changing. When I visited almost a year later he showed me the list still on his office wall, with 12/15 items crossed off.
I think game theory might optimize for your own immediate gain, but overall many managers and companies want to do good, and your feedback might actually help if delivered the right way.
I agree with the article. If you leave, feedback is not worth it. I always gave honest feedback at exit interviews and felt like shit for a while afterwards. And I don’t understand why companies are doing this, honestly. Take feedback from your employees and really listen! What is the gain to ask for feedback to someone leaving the company? Is it more honest? Then you have a cultural problem because it means your emp…
Maybe the cafeteria food isn't great, but improving it would have zero effect because it just doesn't matter. But if someone who is leaving brings up the cafeteria food out of all the things they could have brought up? And 5 of the last 6 people leaving brought up the same thing? That's way more meaningful than everyone sitting around whining about how the food isn't as good as at $X company.
It's a lot like getting product direction from your customers. Listen to your customers, but for god's sake, don't just do what they ask for. (And if you can somehow find out why the ones who are leaving are leaving, that's gold.)