Examination of employee demographics and voluntary reasons for leaving stated during the exit interview process

Abstract

Although many organizations conduct exit interviews for a variety of reasons, very few, if any, use demographic characteristics of personnel leaving the organization to identify policy, retention, and managerial issues impacting individual employees. This study examined the degree of relationship between former employees' demographic characteristics and their voluntary reasons for leaving stated during the exit interview. The results of the study identified a relationship between employee demographics and voluntary reasons for leaving, therefore, supporting the need for organizations to regularly employ the use of demographics in the exit interview process to further identify abnormal attrition problems, decreased levels of managerial effectiveness, outdated organizational policies, and retention issues. Identifying a relationship between employee demographics and voluntary reasons for leaving as a result of this study may also provide benchmark data that organizations may use to evaluate and compare their exit interview results from other companies.