Exit Interview Worksheet

This document is a structured exit interview form used during offboarding to capture why an employee is leaving and what the organization can improve. The questions focus on reasons for departure, the role of salary and benefits, working conditions, and promotional opportunities. They ask what the departing employee liked most and least, whether training and support were adequate, and what changes could make the job better. The form also includes prompts about harassment, discrimination, or a hostile work environment, along with general impressions, retention possibilities, and open comments.

For business leaders, this tool supports risk management, security, and productivity. Responses about harassment or discrimination are early-warning signals that should trigger investigation and remedial action to reduce legal and cultural risk. Feedback on compensation and benefits informs market alignment and total rewards strategy.

Input on training and support highlights gaps that may block worker performance. Notes on what employees liked least reveal systemic friction points that slow teams and reduce productivity. Aggregated insights guide investment in leadership development, clearer career paths, and process improvements.

Operationally, HR should place the completed form in the employee's HR file, restrict access, and handle it under existing data security policies. Summarize trends-such as workers citing stalled advancement, heavy workloads, or poor tools-and connect them to measurable outcomes like turnover, hiring costs, and time-to-productivity for replacements. Coordinate offboarding steps to reduce security exposure: collect assets, confirm knowledge transfer, and ensure account access is blocked on time. While this form does not cover every step, it creates a consistent record of key information.

Typical use cases include a tech startup evaluating why engineers leave for higher pay, a manufacturing firm assessing training adequacy for shift workers, and a professional services company comparing benefits and growth opportunities against competitors. Managers can use the suggestions section to prioritize quick wins and longer-term changes.

Proposal Kit can help teams operationalize this process. Its document assembly tools let HR produce consistent forms and related policies quickly. The AI Writer can generate supporting documents, such as summary reports, talking points, or offboarding checklists.

Automated line-item quoting helps when preparing budgets or vendor proposals related to offboarding or replacement hiring. The extensive template library and ease of use support a faster, more reliable paperwork workflow.

Beyond capturing reasons for departure, this form can anchor a broader talent intelligence program. Standardized questions enable year-over-year comparisons and coding of themes-compensation gaps, career ceilings, or management issues-so leaders can quantify which factors drive turnover and where workers feel blocked. Pairing these insights with hiring, time-to-fill, and onboarding data helps forecast skills gaps and budget for interventions that protect productivity.

Exit narratives also inform culture initiatives by distinguishing isolated incidents from systemic patterns when a response flags potential misconduct, organizations can apply established protocols to reduce risk while maintaining confidentiality and fairness.

Governance matters. Treat the completed form as part of the HR record and store it in the employee file with limited access and clear retention schedules. Align handling with security policies, especially when comments reference customers, projects, or sensitive processes.

In distributed or remote teams, a consistent offboarding interview helps surface knowledge-transfer needs, undocumented workflows, or tool permissions that must be closed to prevent lingering access. During mergers, restructurings, or seasonal ramp-downs, consolidated summaries reveal where to streamline roles, revise training, or rebalance workloads.

Proposal Kit can strengthen this workflow by helping HR generate a family of related documents from shared content: the interview form, manager guidance, policy summaries, and a neutral script for consistency. The AI Writer can write roll-up summaries, FAQs for departing staff, and knowledge-transfer checklists. Automated line-item quoting supports budgeting for follow-on actions such as training programs, compensation studies, or external consulting.

Using an extensive template library reduces writing time and improves consistency, which supports audit readiness and smoother reviews. The result is a clear, repeatable process that turns individual interviews into actionable insight while safeguarding security and organizational continuity.

To extract more value from this questionnaire, convert qualitative answers into structured data. Add optional rating scales alongside open questions to quantify sentiment, then code comments by theme and root cause. With consistent tags, leaders can analyze patterns by department, manager, tenure, or role to pinpoint where workers feel blocked and estimate vacancy cost and time-to-productivity impacts.

De-identify responses before distribution to reduce bias and protect confidentiality. Track boomerang interest and referral willingness; both are practical indicators of employer brand health.

Use exit insights to refine recruiting collateral and job descriptions. If departing staff cite unclear expectations or limited advancement, build realistic job previews and publish growth maps. Pair this with stay interview pulse checks for current teams to mitigate risk earlier. Create a playbook that routes different signals to owners: compensation feedback to Total Rewards, workload issues to Operations, and culture signals to leadership development.

Tighten offboarding controls that intersect with information security. Map access by system, revoke SaaS tokens, rotate shared credentials, and audit file permissions to prevent lingering exposure. Capture knowledge transfer tasks as line items and verify completion during handoff meetings so productivity loss is minimized.

Establish governance beyond storage in the HR file. Define retention windows, purge rules, and a quarterly executive brief that summarizes trends, actions taken, and outcomes. Close the loop with managers via anonymized learnings and with alumni through courteous follow-ups that keep doors open for future engagement.

Proposal Kit can streamline these activities by generating consistent, role-specific interview variants, manager guides, and knowledge-transfer checklists from shared content. Its AI Writer can assist with neutral phrasing, de-identified summaries, and companion FAQs, while automated line-item quoting helps budget for response initiatives such as training refreshes or tooling upgrades. The template library and ease of use support a disciplined, repeatable process that improves decision quality without slowing teams.

How do you write a Exit Interview Worksheet document? - The Narrative

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