Exit interviews of employees who are leaving are a great way to collect information about how the organization can do things better -- but why not get that information before the employee is halfway out the door? Even better, why not get it early on in an employee's tenure, so you can use the information to improve their experience and productivity, catch issues early, and get the fresh perspective of someone not already steeped in "the way we do it"?
Here's what I ask when I conduct "entry interviews," which I do with every new employee a month or two after they start:
Did your job turn out to be as you expected it would be when you were being hired? How did the reality differ from your expectations when you first joined us?
What improvements could be made to the way you were oriented and trained for your role?
What areas would you like additional training or help with?
Do you have a good understanding of what all our other departments do and who to go to for what?
Are you getting enough feedback? Are you clear on what's expected of you and how you're doing?
How’s your workload?
Are there any policies or rules here that seem silly or frustrating to you? Are there any obstacles that make doing your job more difficult?
Is there anything that would improve your quality of life at work?
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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3 comments:
There are so many good parts to this post that it's hard to pick out one thing to comment upon. I love the idea of an "entry interview" and I think assessing the intake process is crucial. It creates an impression that affects the way a person views your company for a very long time. But I think the most valuable part of the post is the question about feedback. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. It's the way we get better faster. It's also the way that others get better faster so encouraging them to ask for it and asking about the quantity and quality of feedback they get is powerful, indeed.
"Catching issues early" is a key point for me. The difficulty is that it's time-consuming to follow up on what you find out and it can be tough, for instance if you have to tell a manager that shaking his new direct report's hand on the first day is just not enough.
But if you manage to convince management that entry interviews aren't just "a thing that HR does", they can be the first measure against turnover.
This is amazing. You are giving management/HR a good name!
So does that mean that "Catbert, Evil HR Director" is just a figment of Scott Adams's imagination?!
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