Exit interview form

When an employee resigns, it’s advisable to ask them to complete an exit questionnaire and/or attend an exit interview. Our form enables you to keep a written record of the interview.

Resignation reasons

An employee might resign for a variety of reasons, but the most common is because they’ve found another job elsewhere which they perceive to be more advantageous to them, whether that’s financially, for career progression or related to flexible working opportunities. They might also resign for personal/domestic reasons or because they’re relocating or to go back to further education or on ill-health grounds or due to retirement; everyone will have their own specific reason for resigning. Normally, there will have been no dispute between the employee and their employer and so they’ll be leaving on reasonably good terms. However, occasionally, there may be issues or problems surrounding an employee’s resignation, even if their resignation letter says little. Asking an employee who has resigned to complete our Exit Questionnaire and/or to attend an exit interview (see our Invitation to Attend an Exit Interview) will permit you to potentially identify any such issues or problems and to take steps to try and sort these out before their departure and this might then decrease the risk of a successful constructive dismissal claim being brought. In addition, it will enable you to gather useful information about the employee’s views on their employment, including on their job duties, workload, training and career development, pay and benefits and working relationships with their line manager and work colleagues, and these may enable you to improve your practices, procedures, management styles, etc. It’s up to you whether you ask an employee to complete an exit questionnaire, attend an exit interview or both, but you can’t force them to do so if they don’t want to; it must be a voluntary process.

Exit interview

Where you’ve arranged an exit interview with an employee, you should keep a record of that interview, which you can do using our Exit Interview Form. The form will help guide you on the matters to be discussed at the interview, including, in particular, the employee’s reasons for leaving. If they say they’ve resigned to go to a new job, do explore that in a little more detail – they must still have had their reasons for looking for alternative employment in the first place. The person conducting the exit interview should preferably not be the employee’s line manager but should be a member of the HR team or a senior manager. An employee is more likely to give honest input when talking to someone they perceive to be a little more impartial and distant from their situation. Plus, it’s quite possible that the employee is leaving because of problems in their working relationship with their line manager. If there’s any further action to be taken following the exit interview, such as further meetings to try and persuade the employee to change their mind about their resignation, our form enables you to record that. It also allows you to record whether the employee is recommended for re-employment in the future. It’s not unknown for former employees to seek to return to work for their old employers, sometimes many years later.