Exit interviews.

Then again, between the span of a year 221 nurses (20 percent) had left the employment of the hospital. Price and Mueller (1981) used the procedure that involves using a series of regression models to estimate the effect of determinants on job satisfaction, the effect of determinants and job satisfaction on intent to stay and finally, the effects of determinants, job satisfaction and intent to stay on turnover. The result found what to have a statistical significance influence on job satisfaction, with the strongest influence is for routinization, with instrumental communication and promotional opportunity also being relatively important.

From these findings, one learns that how low routinization, high instrumental communication, high promotional opportunity and high participation in decision making all contribute to greater job satisfaction. In contrast, unexpected net effects indicated a greater opportunity, a lesser level of job satisfaction; the older the nurse the greater the job satisfaction; and full time nurses are less satisfied than the part time nurses. Since job satisfaction had the strongest influence: the more satisfied the nurses are the ones who intent to stay. Although pay has been expected to have an influence only indirectly through job satisfaction, it was found that nurses with the highest pay are more likely to express intent to stay, regardless of their level of job satisfaction. Opportunity and promotional opportunity also have significant influence on intent.

However, the examination of these direct effects is only part of the information available from a path model and by itself can be misleading. As already discussed in the turnover literature, major arguments appearing in the organizational characteristics producing varying levels of job satisfaction, which, in turn, influences the person’s intent to stay in the organization, which, in turn, is the major direct determinant of turnover (Price & Mueller, 1981).

In view, the fact is that this research by Price and Mueller is dated 1981, exit interviews was not part of this research. But what are shows is the fact that on what factors were most important, when considering the profession of nurses, to retain employees. Price & Mueller concluded with these suggestions.

1. Intent to stay should be replaced by ‘commitment’ conceptualized as ‘loyalty towards the organization’. Loyalty is a more abstract line of attack when referring to commitment and thus, is a more parsimonious technique to conceptualize commitment.
2. Size of the organization should be included in the model. Often researches have indicated that increased size reduces turnover because it results in more pay, provides a window of opportunity for promotion and increases intent to participation.
3. Some organizations studies should be located in large urban areas where turnover rates are considerably high. Certain variables for instance opportunity, for example, might have a stronger influence in these large communities.
4. Males and females should be included in future research. Some of the variables – integration, pay, promotional opportunity, professionalism, and kinship responsibilities are promising examples – may have effect on turnover that differs by sex.
5. Occupations that differ considerably in the extent to professionalism should be selected for study.
6. Further research should shorten the time period between data collection for the independent variables and the data collection for turnover. Quite a few changes can transpire relating to the elapsed period.
7. It is possible to make turnover, a continuous variable by recording the amount of time spent with the organizations after the independent variables are measured.

Another study in which companies based on the ‘expert informer’ (from colleagues, friends and so on) theory were selected. Companies surveyed varied in sizes from the Fortune 500 firms to the small companies. Nevertheless, each selected firm were either established leaders in their fields or had exhibited a pattern of recent rapid growth, also they represent a diverse group, both in terms of their size and geographic location. Seeing that, Woods and Macaulay (1987) were interested in collecting specific information, each participant responded to a semi-structured interview format with the same set of open end questions for all, with chances to elaborate or explain on their responses.

It was found that exit interviews are far from universal in the hospitality firms. Some appear to be quite consistent in exit interviewing but others used them rarely. There were also remarkable consistency in both the type of information that is collected and in the manner the data collection among firms who employ the procedures. It was observed that virtually all the firms asked questions about such matters as the reason for leaving, salary experience (past and prospective), quality and supervision, and the quality of training. On the other hand, few companies managed to find the courage and ask departing employees questions relating to attitudinal causes for turnover or whether the cultural values and beliefs of the organization caused the employee to leave. In no case were the question concerning whether the individual and the organization fit each other. It was also detected that there was great consistency in how companies conducted the exit interview. Convincingly, the methodology the company used to collect data had a bearing value of the information collected.

It was noticed that very few relied on formal written documents for data collection, and no firms used computer-based data collection. It could therefore be concluded that many organizations primarily collected exit interview information for the purpose of completing an employee’s file and for the purpose of protecting any potential liability caused by the turnover (refer to exhibit 1 in appendix).

Voluntary turnover in many fields, especially IT, is reaching epidemic proportions. It is expected that 40% of the IT staff members currently employed plan on switching jobs within the next 12 months (Watson, 2000). Articles published by ComputerWorld and PC Computing report money as the primary factor for turnover. Other reasons include the need for new challenges, more competent bosses, and greater training opportunities (Gerencher, 1999; Watson, 2000). In an attempt to retain professionals organizations are offering this group of professionals some of the most aggressive salaries ever seen.

Despite this many IT personnel’s are unsatisfied with respect to compensation, especially the entry level people (i.e. 25 years or younger). Mobley (1977) determined that a significant and consistent, yet weak, relationship between job satisfaction and turnover does exist. It’s assumed that the rational actor (employee) follows a sequential process when deciding to terminate employment with a particular organization. As mentioned this process begins with an employee experiencing dissatisfaction. Many items influence the degree of job satisfaction, including the job itself, management beliefs, future opportunity, work environment, pay, benefits, rewards and company-worker relationships (Locke, 1976). As the level of dissatisfaction increases, he/she contemplates the option of quitting.

In spite of this, one interesting thing in Mobley’s model is that once an individual thinks of quitting, the next step involves an evaluation of the expected utility of searching for another job versus the cost of associated with quitting the present job. From a modular perspective, Steers & Mowday (1981) described voluntary turnover as a 3-step sequential process with each step containing 2 constructs (refer to figure 1 in appendix). Step 1 involves the manner in which job expectations influence ones attitudes regarding the job. Step 2 involves the affective responses elicited from step 1, which includes the construct of job satisfaction and how those responses influence ones desire to leave the organization. These decisions could be based on non-working factors – such as family, hobbies, religion & political influences (Cohen, 1995). Here there are organizations-focused factors that influence employee’s attitudes and therefore their intentions to leave.

The more an organization perpetuates the interaction of non-working factors along with organization-focused factors, the more one becomes socially and professionally ‘tied’ to the organization, and there, the greater the likelihood of retaining IT professionals. The final step highlights, one’s intent to leaving and actually quitting or remaining with the organization. As one expects, if favorable alternatives exist, intent to leave leads to actual turnover. Even though there may be nothing dissatisfying about their current positions, the new offer may be too good to forego.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON EXIT

A fruitful trend in recent researches has been linking job satisfaction and its rich research tradition to specific work behaviors. It is now documented that low job satisfaction is related to high turnover. In addition, low job satisfaction is a major correlate of low commitment. Low commitment has been recently linked to high absenteeism. Others behaviors that have been tentatively linked to job dissatisfaction includes: request for transfers; lateness; error rates; and internal political activity. Recognition, of the wide range of options or possible responses, is linked also to job dissatisfaction.

The theory of exit, voice and loyalty suggests three possible options as response to job discontent. The first being exit, which is equivalent to voluntary separations or turnover from the job. However, the exit option is regarded as uniquely powerful and expected to produce a ‘wonderful concentration of the mind’ for the abandoned employer (Hirschman, 1970). Another factor contributed to the organization behavior is the ‘voice option’ defined as ‘any attempt at all to change rather than to escape from an objectable state of affairs’ (Hirschman, 1970). The third category is loyalty. When confronted with the deteriorating conditions in the organization some members choose neither to exit nor voice. They ‘suffer in silence, confident that things will get better soon’.

This final portion of this paper is devoted for critically analyzing exit interview as a valuable management tool. As indicated most of the companies used some form of exit interview or determined reasons for turnover in some form, some companies never did or did but in an isolated pattern when specific problems had been previously brought to their attention. Yet some companies have limited their interviews to managerial-level employees. When considering line-employees, interviews were done sometimes by the manager or an intermediate supervisor; varying in duration and topics and the methodology used was inconsistent.

The basic purpose for collecting the data is to assist management in detecting employees’ problems or organizational events that may either foster or reduce employee turnover. An inherent assumption in the part of the organization is that exit surveys can discover what causes employee dissatisfaction so changes can be made and costs (example unwanted turnover) can be reduced. Reducing turnover is not the only advantage on exit surveys, information gathered can be complied into database organization diagnostic information for problems. For example, information can used to detect unfair business practices (i.e. sexual harassment, discrimination), to uncover competitive compensation issues, to locate faulty supervision procedures, to understand ineffective training practices, to identify inconsistencies is appraisal systems and to discover problems in general working conditions (Bruce, 1988; Drost et al, 1987).

In short exit interviews have potential to improve the overall quality of the workplace by providing information that can be translated for the HRM.

Despite the potential advantages, there can be problems with data. The validity and reliability of the processes have been questioned because of biased responses that may occur. Theorist and practioners noted that although many organizations use EIS, the process and data gathered have been criticized, both from administrative and methodological standpoints. The administrative criticisms of EIS has generally been emphasized that the data are seldom used, the process is poorly administered (Woods & Macaulay, 1987) and often feedback to management is erroneous. One can conclude that many organizations don’t use EIS effectively.

Conversely, the methodological aspects on exists argue the underlying techniques used in EIS processes are fundamentally flawed, leading to low reliability and validity. These deficiencies include poor conceptualization, testing and implementation. At the heart, methodological criticism is a basic concern that existing personnel may not provide the organization with appropriate and accurate feedback, either because the interviewer’s attitudinal approach is not always completely objective or because the responses of the existing personnel may be driven by personal or professional concerns that may make their responses defensive (Giacalone, Knouse & Ashworth, 1991).

One major factor that has an impact on an individuals’ willingness to honestly discuss information processes is attitude towards authority. An underlying theme in EIS literature is that feelings/attitudes towards the person gathering the information may raise or lower the potential for distortion. For example, there is a fear that information provided to management may hurt fellow employees – perhaps in the eyes of a new employer. Those whose attitude towards authority is positive may be willing to discuss issues that would impress authority figures, whereas those who do not hold a positive thought may discuss other issues and agendas. The question, however, remains whether these attitudes are targeted at the exiting individual’s manager (who is collecting the data) or towards authority figures in general.

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CONCLUSION

The EIS process in HRM is of particular importance given the rapid and massive restructuring and reengineering that is underway among many organizations. Yet little attention is given to the process from a rigorous theoretical and methodological stance. However, different types of interviews are appropriate for different organizational environments. Perhaps most importantly, while the ‘real reason’ employees leave may never be under the control of management, exit questionnaires can be designed to facilitate direct, straight forward responses which will be useful both in terms of diagnosing ongoing organizational problems and in-framing references for departing employees.

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