Entrance Interviews May Be Replacing Exit Interviews

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All HR professionals are well versed in the “exit interview.” But have they heard of the “entry interview”?

We spend so much time and energy trying to find and select the correct employee – but that really is only the starting point. The real HR work starts when the new employee shows up for their first day of work. Orientation and effective employee on-boarding is vital to any organization’s success.

Most organizations are not very good at on-boarding new employees. According to statistics from Hierology website:

  • Approximately one-third (33%) of new hires look for a new job within the first six months, and about one-quarter (23%) leave before a year on the job.
  • The total cost of turnover per employee typically ranges from 100–300% of the individual’s salary.

These are shockingly high numbers and all HR professionals should take note.

It may be time to expand on the exit interview concept and bring it forward as part of your company’s on-boarding process. The entry interview can be a great tool to get to know new employees, make then more productive sooner, and reduce the chance that they will leave your organization.  Click here to read more about entrance interviews. 

Entry interviews are relatively new and there is not much evidence-based research on them yet, but it may be a trend worth watching and implementing.

Discussion Questions

Your VP of HR has asked you to research the benefits of making entry interviews. Conduct some research and develop a list that identifies organizations that are using employee entry interviews.

Develop a five-minute PowerPoint presentation on the potential benefits of these interviews.

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Employer?

Businesswoman Leaving Job vector
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What employment resignations are saying about your organization?

In Paul Simon’s 1975 hit song 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, he may be right when it comes to ending a relationships, but it turns out that there are only seven ways to leave your employer (according to research by Anthony C. Klotz, Associate Professor of Management at Oregon State University, and Mark C. Bolino, Professor of Management at University of Oklahoma).

 

In a recent study the authors identified that there are seven ways or categories of employee resignations:

  1. By the book
  2. Perfunctory
  3. Grateful goodbye
  4. In the loop
  5. Avoidant
  6. Bridge burning
  7. Impulsive

Click here to read the more detailed Harvard Business Review article.

Each of these resignation styles have significantly different meanings in understanding the quality of the employee/employer relationship. It turns out if the employee is using the resignation styles 4-7, the employee is trying to get back at the organization and there are issues with the relationship between the supervisor and the employee.

What does this research mean for new HR professionals? It reinforces the concept of the value of the exit interview. It also expands the concept of an exit interview to include the way employees resigned and the value of this information. It suggests that resignations should be tracked, reviewed and analyzed by the HR department for greater understanding of the deeper workplace relationships issues.

Questions

  1. The last time you resigned from a job, which resignation style did you use? Why did you use that style?
  2. Imagine you are an HR professional who is redesigning your organizations supervisory performance evaluation form. After reading this research study by Anthony C. Klotz, and Mark C. Bolino, you feel there is value in adding a new category to the performance review form to track and monitor the types of resignation each supervisor is having every year. Your HR partner does not think this is a good idea. Debate the pros and cons of adding this type of assessment to the formal annual performance review.