Getting honest feedback from a departing employee can be tough. However, conducting exit interviews when an employee is leaving provides constructive feedback and actionable insights that help businesses reduce turnover and improve the workplace.

As an employer in a short-staffed world, you want to know why an employee has made the decision to leave so that you can take steps to improve your retention rates.

Hourly workers are one of the most at-risk groups for job turnover. This is because they often have less job stability and are paid lower wages. Their job description may also be more fluid, which can lead to less satisfaction with their work.

By understanding why they’re leaving, you can take steps to reduce the number of good employees that will exit your company in the future. This allows you to retain top talent.

What is the best way to conduct exit interviews, and what are the best exit interview questions to ask? In this article, we’ll cover exit interview questions for hourly employees in the retail and fast food industry.

Should you ask Open-Ended or Closed Questions During an Exit Interview?

Manager conducting exit interview in a coffee shop

Open-ended questions allow an exiting employee to provide feedback in their own words. Closed questions, on the other hand, invite the interviewee to choose between a set of predetermined answers.

Open-ended questions are generally better for exit interviews because they allow employees to provide feedback in their own words. Closed questions can often result in canned responses or defensive comments from the interviewee.

That said, there are some situations where closed questions can be useful. For example, if you’re trying to gather specific data about a certain issue, closed questions can be more effective.

When conducting exit interviews with exiting employees, ask both open and closed questions. This will give you a well-rounded understanding of why departing employees are leaving an organization so you can decide what can be done to improve retention.

Exit Interview Questions to Ask

The best exit interview questions are listed below:

  • What was your experience of working for this company?
  • What did you like best about your job?
  • What did you like least about your job?
  • Do you feel that your team members were helpful?
  • How could we improve the employee experience?
  • What was your work environment like?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve the business?
  • What is the best way for us to retain talent?
  • Did you feel there were enough development opportunities for you at this company?
  • Do you think that our employees are treated fairly?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could better support our employees?
  • Are there any areas where you feel that the company is falling behind the competition?
  • Would you recommend us to other hourly employees looking for work?
  • Is there anything else you would like to share with us before you leave?
  • What didn’t you like about your job?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve our store?
  • What do you think of our company’s management practices?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could better train our employees?
  • Did you feel like you had adequate breaks?
  • How do you feel about our compensation and benefits package?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve our safety procedures?
  • What do you think of our customer service policies?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve our product selection?
  • Did you feel like you had opportunities for growth and development?
  • What was your favorite thing about working here?
  • Why did you choose to leave your job?
  • What do you think could have been done to prevent you from leaving?
  • What do you think about our company culture?
  • How was the work-life balance?
  • Did you feel like you had job security?
  • How can we improve employee morale?
  • Was team collaboration encouraged?
  • Do you think our company values its employees?
  • What do you think we could do to better support our employees?
  • Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve communication between management and staff?
  • Was there anything about the company that made you uncomfortable?
  • Can you rate your level of job satisfaction?
  • Do you have any other comments or suggestions?

These exit interview questions for hourly employees will help you get to the root of why your employees are leaving. Use them to improve retention and keep your best employees happy. 

How HourWork Helps Improve Employee Retention

Magnet and figures of people symbolizing staff turnover rate and employee retention

Once you’ve worked out the right exit interview questions to ask, you can start taking other actions to improve employee retention. One way to do this is by using HourWork.

HourWork is a cloud-based HR platform that helps businesses manage their hourly workforce. With features like automated check-ins to build employee loyalty, HourWork makes it easy to support your employees and keep them happy.

HourWork helps improve employee retention in two ways: by automating exit interviews and pulse surveys, and by helping businesses understand why employees leave and take steps to prevent it.

Automate Exit Interviews and Pulse Surveys

Imagine if you could learn what employees were thinking and feeling about their jobs without having to rely on a manager to schedule a time to ask people individually. HourWork’s exit interview and pulse survey tools allow you to do just that. You can automatically schedule an exit interview every time you have a departing employee.

Pulse surveys allow businesses to gather feedback from employees regularly. This gives you the ability to track employee satisfaction and identify any issues before they turn into full-blown problems. You can also use pulse surveys to track employee engagement and understand their experience of management practices.

Understand Why Employees Leave

Hand choose to rating score happy icons symbolizing pulse survey for employees

By understanding the root causes of job turnover, businesses can take steps to prevent it. HourWork’s exit interview and pulse survey data can help you identify issues like poor management, lack of development opportunities, or low pay. With this information, you can make changes to improve employee retention.

HourWork’s cloud-based platform makes it easy for human resources to collect feedback from employees, analyze the data, and take action to improve retention for current and future employees.

HourWork Can Help You Improve Your Company Culture

Losing good employees is expensive and disruptive.

It’s hard to keep track of how your employees are feeling and what they’re thinking. Without this valuable information, you can’t hope to have top retention rates.

HourWork is the solution. Our software, used by over 5,000 restaurants and stores across the US, helps employers and managers get honest feedback from current and exiting employees. It also helps you to identify problems early so you can fix them before they become irreparable.

Get in touch to discuss your hiring and retention needs.