Exit interview benefits company, not employee

DEAR CARRIE: My daughter recently resigned from her position with a major employer because of an abusive and threatening manager. She had an exit interview with a human-resources supervisor who asked questions and wrote down my daughter’s responses. This same HR person has previously shown a pro-management bias regarding employee complaints. Many of my daughter’s responses were critical of management’s indifference and lack of concern for a long-festering problem. What is the protocol for an exit interview? My daughter was not given a copy of what the HR person hand wrote, nor was she asked to read and sign whatever had been written. How can management find out about morale-breaking situations when exit comments can be reviewed by lower management and possibly altered or deleted? — Puzzled Dad

DEAR PUZZLED: A general rule-of-thumb for employees in exit interviews is to avoid saying anything negative to a human-resources representative, said Glory Borgeson of Borgeson Consulting Inc., a Chicago area career-coaching firm.

“In other words, to not burn any bridges,” said Borgeson, the author of “Not All Bullies Yell and Throw Things: How to Survive a Subtle Workplace Bully.”

But if your daughter isn’t planning to remain in the industry where she might cross paths with colleagues, or if she is committed to helping the remaining employees at her ex-employer, she was right to be candid with HR about what occurred with the bullying boss, Borgeson said.

Exit interviews aren’t legally required, Borgeson said. So in the future your daughter doesn’t have to submit to one or can respectfully bow out when one goes badly, unless an employment agreement or severance package requires one.

Understanding the purpose of exit interviews could help your daughter going forward.

Ideally, these final interviews provide companies with valuable information, even if the news isn’t always good for them.

“Exit interviews are more of a method for a company to get statistical information,” Borgeson said. “For example, are there hot pockets of attrition somewhere in the company? Are people leaving because of illegal discrimination?”

Still, your daughter shouldn’t lose sight of this: Those interviews are primarily for the benefit of the company, Borgeson said.

“They’re one-sided communications that are designed to help the employer, not to help the departing employee or remaining employees,” she said.

And the role that the HR interviewer plays can be telling.

An HR rep may fail to conduct an exit interview fairly for two possible reasons, Borgeson said. “One is that the HR rep is new or incompetent. The other is that the HR rep is being malicious.”

In either case, your daughter needed to take extra steps to make sure her message got through. And it may not be too late.

“If the departing employee wondered later whether her words would be twisted by the HR rep, she could have sent a follow-up email to the HR rep and to that person’s boss, highlighting the points they discussed,” she said.

By the way, HR reps aren’t required by law to give employees copies of their notes from an exit interview. State law doesn’t even require companies to give employees copies of their evaluations.

Anyway, it doesn’t sound as if anything in writing from the HR rep would have been helpful to your daughter.

Borgeson said your daughter’s decision to leave the company was probably a smart move.

“Poor leaders will look to hire ineffective HR reps because those bosses can continue to lead as they have without needing to change,” Borgeson said.