The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Exit Interviews
By Catherine Murtagh, Director at Hall Recruitment
Every recruiter hears it eventually:
“I didn’t tell my manager why I was leaving — there didn’t seem much point.”
It’s a statement that should make every business leader pause.
When employees leave, many organisations treat it as the end of a chapter. But in truth, it’s one of the most valuable opportunities they’ll ever have to learn. The exit interview — when handled properly — is not just a courtesy. It’s a diagnostic tool. A chance to understand what’s really happening inside your organisation, unfiltered by the fear or diplomacy that can colour internal conversations.
Yet so many employers either skip it entirely or treat it as a tick-box exercise. The result? Missed patterns, preventable turnover, and the gradual erosion of workplace culture.
🧩 Why People Don’t Stay Silent by Accident
Employees often stop speaking up long before they hand in their notice.
By the time they reach their final week, they’ve already spent months weighing up whether it’s worth trying to fix what’s wrong.
When there’s no structured, safe opportunity to share honest feedback, they leave quietly — and management never gets to see the full picture. Instead, they assume the issue was money, or a better offer, or just one of those things.
But underneath the surface, the real reasons are usually far more telling:
- Poor communication or unclear expectations
- Lack of recognition or development
- Frustration with management style
- Burnout from unrealistic workloads
- Feeling unseen or undervalued
These are fixable problems — but only if you know they exist.
💷 The Real Cost of Losing (and Replacing) People
Let’s look at the numbers.
Replacing a full-time employee can cost between 6 and 9 months of their annual salary when you account for recruitment, training, and the productivity dip as new hires get up to speed.
But that’s only the financial cost. The cultural cost is often higher:
- Morale suffers when good colleagues leave.
- Remaining staff question their own position.
- Institutional knowledge disappears overnight.
A single unexamined resignation can create a ripple effect, prompting others to start looking elsewhere.
🗣️ What a Good Exit Interview Looks Like
A good exit interview isn’t a form — it’s a conversation.
To be meaningful, it needs three things: trust, structure, and follow-through.
- Create psychological safety
Have someone neutral — ideally from HR or an external consultant — conduct the interview. Employees need to know their honesty won’t harm anyone or anything. - Ask open, specific questions
Instead of “Why are you leaving?” ask:- “What would have made you stay?”
- “How well do you feel your work was recognised?”
- “Were there any barriers that made your job harder than it needed to be?”
- “What advice would you give your successor?”
- Act on what you learn
Nothing damages credibility faster than asking for feedback and doing nothing with it. Even small visible changes show that leadership listens and cares.
🌱 Turning Departures into Growth
Handled thoughtfully, exit interviews can do more than explain departures — they can strengthen retention.
Patterns emerge. Trends surface. Managers learn where communication has broken down or where workloads have become unsustainable.
When feedback leads to visible change, remaining employees notice. It sends a clear message:
“Your voice matters — even when you’ve chosen to move on.”
That message, repeated consistently, builds trust. And trust, once established, is what keeps your best people where they are.
✏️ Final Thought
After more than 20 years in recruitment, I’ve learned that people rarely leave for one big reason — they leave because of a hundred small ones that were never addressed.
Exit interviews can’t fix the past, but they can prevent the same story from repeating itself. And that’s an investment no employer can afford to ignore.
