Knowledge in the bank - Money in the bank

All too often, when I talk to HR professionals here in Tianjin about the subject of exit interviews, I get the impression that they are treated as something of an afterthought. Too many people seem to view them as a necessary administrative evil rather than a way to add strategic value to their company. This is a crying shame because a well-executed exit interview can help to maintain and improve organizational performance.

I have used the term ‘improving performance’, but this is actually something of a misnomer. It could be better labeled ‘damage limitation’. Let me explain what I mean. Imagine we have a senior manager at a major company here in Tianjin. He has worked there for over five years and, as a consequence, understands his role perfectly. Now, imagine he decides to leave. The upheaval his departure will cause could have a massive impact on organizational performance. It will take time to find and train a replacement, and, whilst he or she is getting up to speed, it is likely that the company’s performance will suffer. This will, of course, cost money. It is as though the manager has a giant dollar – or RMB – sign painted on his back. And, when he walks out the door, the company can wave goodbye to all that cash! In the current fiscal climate, many organizations simply cannot afford for that to happen.

So, how can exit interviews help to save money? Simply put, they need to act as a safety net, capturing knowledge that might otherwise have been lost. Let’s take a look at three areas of knowledge that all organizations must strive to keep:

· Personnel: This factor is particularly useful when dealing with a manager who is leaving a company. If he or she has spent a significant time with the company, they are likely to know the employees who work under them well and may have even made the decision to hire them. Therefore, they will have an intimate knowledge of what makes their department tick.
· Systems: Senior employees are likely to know a company’s internal systems and operations with great intimacy. They may even have created or, at the very least, modified these systems.
· Clients: Just as a manager will have crucial knowledge about the members of his or her team, a top sales person or marketing executive is likely to have a detailed knowledge of a company’s major clients. If the company wants to continue productive relationships with these clients, this knowledge needs to be transferred.

Currently, many organizations undertake brief exit interviews that discuss the reasons why the employee is leaving and his/her thoughts on the company. In itself, this is by no means a bad thing. However, it is merely skimming the surface. To ensure the transition in personnel is a smooth as possible and does not impact on organizational performance, the exit process needs to be expanded. It should kick into action as soon as the employee announces his or her decision to leave and should be as extensive as possible. Here are a few pointers:

· Overlapping: This one is probably of greatest use if an organization intends to promote from within or can find a replacement quickly. Basically, it involves having the replacement in place before the departing employee has left, thus allowing direct knowledge transfer between the two.
· Shadowing: If it is going to be difficult to get someone in place before the departing employee has left the organization, then assigning a member of the HR team to shadow the employee for a week to collect as much information as possible that can then be passed on to the replacement is a possible alternative. The HR professional can put together files to help brief the replacement once he or she is on board.
· Technology: Often when an employee leaves a company he or she will turn-off their PC and then just head home. This certainly should not be the case. As part of the exit process, HR should spend time with the departing employee cataloging files (both hard-copy and soft-copy) so that these can be passed on to the replacement.
· Caretaker: This is a potential tactic for any management roles that become vacant. If the company decides to hire from outside, but cannot get the perfect person straight away, it could make a temporary appointment from within. The caretaker can then glean as much useful information as possible from the outgoing manager and, then, pass it to the new manager once he or she is on board.Discussion: This is probably the simplest, but most effective technique. If a departing employee is full of valuable knowledge, it is vital that HR and management spend as much time discussing their role and asking questions as possible. Lots of open questions are vital here: what, why, where, when, who, which and how.