
Ask HN: A colleague is leaving. How to investigate what went wrong? - theSage
A colleague at work is leaving the company soon saying &quot;I don&#x27;t feel like I&#x27;m a fit for &lt;xyz&gt; company&quot;. I&#x27;ll be speaking to them in unofficial capacity soon. What all should we talk about? A few things that came to mind:<p>- what all do you need to get a new job?<p>- why do they feel they are not a &quot;fit&quot;<p>- is there a systemic problem?<p>- when did this feeling arise since they joined with lots of enthusiasm?<p>- what could I have done personally &#x2F; in official capacity that might have stopped this<p>- how do you think we missed this?<p>To the HN community: What other things can I ask them to prevent&#x2F;improve this situation in the future? Is there even something to improve here?
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lubujackson
Your curiosity, professional or personal, probably has little bearing on what
they tell you. The wording you use doesn't matter - exit interviews are always
framed as "what we could have done better/could do better in the future?" but
it is rarely so innocent in reality, and people know this. At best, companies
use divulged complaints as a basis for negotiation retain the employee (what
if we raised your salary to match your offer? What if we reassigned you to a
different manager?) but often it is simply used get the employee to sign a
waiver relieving to company of any legal blame. And a likely outcome is that
their complaint about their boss gets passed along and it bites them in the
ass when they need a referral down the road. So what advantage do they have
for being honest? In what way could it possibly benefit THEM to tell you
anything?

To be honest, a company should always know or be able to figure out the real
answer to this question if it their own doing. Either the employee got a
better job or the writing was on the wall. If you as a company have people
leaving and no one knows why, you don't ask the leaving people you ask the
people who are staying - Bob is leaving, is there anything we can do to
improve YOUR experience? When they are out the door it is too late, so focus
on the employees that are there.

~~~
unforeseen9991
The HR at my last job were so incompetent they tried reaching out to me
(repeatedly) for a exit interview three weeks after I had already left.

~~~
sloaken
I cannot argue their competence, but giving someone a 3 week cooling off time
to reflect on why they left seems reasonable.

Although trying multiple times does not seem reasonable.

Many companies I have left, never cared about why.

------
PaulKeeble
Most of the time people leave bosses, not the job or the company. Almost all
interactions are relatively close by, colleagues and their direct boss and if
that isn't a comfortable environment with trust then usually that is what
leads to resignation.

If you don't know this individual it is unlikely they will honestly tell you
why and the boss or coworkers may very well give no honest insight either
regardless of the questions. They want out and they don't want your
organisation ruining their future prospects with a bad reference. Most people
do try to fix the problem before they just leave so at this point they
consider it not worth voicing the problems further.

~~~
theSage
I'm their coworker and this is what I'm afraid of. I am haunted by the
question "what if it has been our work environment that caused the move?"

I don't suppose toxic people think/know that they are toxic, so how do I find
out if we are?

~~~
x0x0
Here's the thing. Your writing doesn't make it sound at all like this person
trusts you, and you said you're doing this in a quasi-official capacity.

Those two things make me think your management either sucks, or fucked up and
wants to know what your coworker will say.

If you had a good relationship w/ this person already, you could take them out
to coffee and pretty much ask, "so, what happened?". Since you don't, and
since your coworker is presumably not stupid, you're probably going to get the
same answer that your management team would get.

Which brings me to my next point: your management team should know. If this
person's boss isn't doing weekly 1-1s and closely monitoring this person's
enthusiasm for the job and company, then they're an incompetent boss. That's
table stakes for competent management.

Particularly when a coworker quits over an "I'm not a good fit", that means
(1) there's a problem, and (2) I don't trust management. Acting as an agent of
management isn't going to get the answer.

~~~
cbanek
Totally agree with this, and I'll take it one step further - if they trusted
you and were on friendly terms, they probably would have already told you or
asked you for help on what is going wrong, long before they quit.

~~~
itronitron
The leaving coworker can still be friendly and trust their colleagues but may
not share details so as not to ruin their colleagues' perception of their
employer.

------
codingdave
> what could I have done personally / in official capacity that might have
> stopped this

Were you their supervisor/manager/lead? If so, the standard answer is to have
regular 1:1s with your staff, so things like this do not come as a surprise.

And you cannot always keep everyone. Sometimes things really are not a fit.
The last job I left was for reasons that had nothing to do with the team or
product, or anything easily changeable. I simply wasn't OK with the commute to
a new office. There are a myriad of personal reasons that someone might not
want to work somewhere. That doesn't mean the company is flawed - it just
means people are different, and have different preferences and needs.

I'd recommend spending less focus on why one person left, and more on ongoing
discussions with the people who remain, as well as being sure new staff has
every opportunity to learn about the company, so they can self-select out
before they are hired if they see anything that would not work well for them.

~~~
ellius
Amen. I'll throw in a pitch for "High Output Management," which does a good
job of describing how and why to do 1-on-1s. Everyone hates meetings, but
they're the primary way for people to propagate information and vent feelings.
If you don't have 1-on-1s, people will bottle up feelings that don't have an
outlet in other standard meetings. And if you don't have an environment of
trust, no one will talk to begin with. So focus on creating an atmosphere
where people can talk and then formalize and consistently create occasions for
them to share their feelings-about themselves, about their careers, about
their projects. Anything that you want visibility into needs to have a
channel. And then just accept that your organization will evolve and you can't
keep everyone, or make every project successful, or always beat your
competition. Life isn't perfect. Being a leader is about driving a strategy
and culture while bound by the constraints of your particular situation and
the world in general.

------
DoreenMichele
I left my corporate job for personal reasons largely unrelated to the job per
se. I certainly had my criticisms of the company, but probably needed to leave
regardless.

So while you try to gather information, keep in mind that "not a good fit"
could be a polite way of saying "It's none of your business and kindly butt
the hell out of my private life, thank you."

Not everything that happens around you is about "you"/the company. That's not
how life works.

~~~
theSage
I understand. Maybe if the conversation takes that tone we'll just have a nice
tea and go back to life.

------
mooreds
I think it depends on your trust level with the colleague. Or rather, their
trust in you.

When you leave sometimes you don't want to help improve things for people
staying, you just want/need to get the heck out. It can feel petty to present
a laundry list of things you wish your former employer would change.

I'd approach that head on and assure them that:

1\. You will keep anything they say confidential (unless there's anything
illegal that surfaces)

2\. You are acting in an unofficial capacity, not as a company person

3\. You are having the conversation to help the other team members, not the
company (because they will likely care more about them)

4\. You want to hear whatever they have to say, no matter how big or small

~~~
bayesian_horse
The time to listen for "what's wrong" would be before they are leaving.

But I generally find that people who are leaving are quite open about the
reasons, when asked. Especially if they are more about the job rather than
themselves.

------
goatinaboat
If you search workplace.SE for this you will know that the consensus is to say
_nothing_ in an exit interview

[https://workplace.stackexchange.com/search?q=exit+interview](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/search?q=exit+interview)

------
wenc
If you google "exit interview" you will find tons of opinions and ideas
(example [1]).

Timing is important -- if you want to get useful information, you need to time
the exit interview 1-3 months after departure so there's (typically) no fear
of repercussion so folks' views tend to be more candid.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2016/04/making-exit-interviews-
count](https://hbr.org/2016/04/making-exit-interviews-count)

~~~
robjan
Not sure how many people would actually go to an exit interview after they
have left and presumably started somewhere else.

~~~
mentos
I imagine you could offer an economic incentive to give the feedback

------
ChuckMcM
These conversations don't work in the same way that conversations about why
you declined to hire someone don't work. They always push into negotiations
between the decider and the person who didn't like the decision. They have
decided to leave, that is that.

If you want to avoid these things in the future, a reasonable strategy is to
be really clear in setting expectations of the people who work there and the
metrics by which they are evaluated. Then check in with them regularly and
talk about both of those things. That will keep the employee and the manager
on the same page and it will be a surprise to neither of them when things
change.

------
perfunctory
"what went wrong"? I don't like the phrasing. People leaving and wanting to do
something else is perfectly normal. There is nothing wrong about it. It's just
a fact of life. The best way to deal with it (apart from offering a better
compensation) is to wish them all the best and say they are always welcome
back.

~~~
theSage
Hmm, perhaps I should have said "How to investigate if something went wrong?".

You're right that people leaving is normal. What I'd like to be sure of is
that they are leaving because of the right reasons.

~~~
neltnerb
Just ask them about what they're doing next and what they're excited about. If
they want to get into details it might give insight into what they've been
missing, at least you'll get to know them better.

------
davismwfl
This will all depend on what your role in the company is today and what your
relationship with this person is.

If you are in a leadership role at the company he/she may not want to open up
to you for fear of reprisal even if you two have been friendly. If you two are
teammates and you do not have a leadership role they may still not feel
comfortable opening up to you because likely they have made comments and if no
one picked up on it to discuss with them then they will feel you are complicit
or accepting of the situation and don't want to create tension.

There is no harm trying to learn why for sure, but also know sometimes
(especially with more senior people) people recognize when their thought
processes, methodologies just don't align well with a team or company so they
will remove themselves. This doesn't actually mean there is anything wrong
with the company/team or with that person, just they recognized the
differences and know those would create conflict, tension or struggles for
themselves on the team. This is a healthy thing to have happen. That said, it
is a very small number of the people that leave usually, more common reasons
of leaving are for a lack of recognition, money and/or progress.

If you and the person leaving are both IC's then ask them from a place of
curiosity to better understand what they might have seen that you haven't.
This is probably the best way to get data points and be non-threatening to the
person. When I say non-threatening, I don't mean you literally threatening
them, but if you come at them with 20 questions it can start to feel like an
interrogation and the persons self defense mechanisms will go up and
conversation will go no where.

If you are in any kind of leadership role at the company, come at them from
the place of not wanting to lose a good person, but respecting that sometimes
people move on for a whole host of reasons. From your perspective you are
trying to confidentially understand what the company could do better or change
that might make the difference for the next person. Approach it this way, once
they tell you if the asks are reasonable say if we made these adjustments
would you stay, but don't approach the entire conversation from a place of
would you stay. Approach it from the point of view to make sure issues are
resolved for the rest of the team and the next people coming in. This is the
best way to get data points usually and do so in a way people feel more open
to chat. If at the end you ask them if these changes were made would you stay
and they say no, then ask why not? That sometimes will open up a more true
reason.

*edit: changed a word for readability

~~~
theSage
I don't understand what IC's means. Is it a standard term?

~~~
discordance
Individual contributor - people not on the managerial path, who can continue
to grow and be rewarded in their career as do-ers (as developers or whatever
else)

------
imsofuture
Are you their friend? "Hey, why are you leaving?"

Not their friend? Why on earth would you think they owe you an answer to any
of the questions you listed?

------
aj7
The zeroth order term in persons leaving is usually some sort of systemic
insult to them. As a manager, identify the insult. Later, your organization
will have to judge whether these conditions are "worth it" or localized to the
individual.

------
house9-2
> I'll be speaking to them in unofficial capacity soon. What all should we
> talk about?

The weather.

You are talking in an unofficial capacity I don't think any of your proposed
questions should be discussed; except maybe showing interest in their future,
did they already get another job? If not let them know you can be used as a
reference.

> What other things can I ask them to prevent/improve this situation in the
> future?

Don't ask, if they trust you they will let you know. May have nothing to do
with your company at all.

Honestly, I think you need to ask yourself the questions you are proposing, if
you are paying attention then you already know the answers.

------
muzani
To answer the last question, management needs to regularly have one-on-ones
with engineers.

A lot of one-on-ones are done wrong. 80% of the talking should come from the
employee not the manager. Ask them what they want, where they want their
career to go, what anxieties/insecurities/discomfort they have with the
company and what they're working on, what needs to be moved out of the way.

To answer the first question, this is what needs to happen. Just listen to
them. Don't come in with a list of questions.

------
opportune
>"I don't feel like I'm a fit for <xyz> company"

This is a really good general cop-out answer because it avoids creating hard-
feelings or burning bridges if there was actually a more specific complaint (I
hate working with that guy, my manager sucks, the work is super boring,
product is stupid, pay sucks etc.)

First thing to check is, where the person is next going, are they going to be
making more money? If so that is likely a reason. Another reason could be that
they thought their potential for advancement at your company was low, at least
in comparison to somewhere else. If the employee is an engineer, it could also
be that they thought their learning had slowed or they were not working on the
right kind of tech they wanted to for their career. For me, these career
related reasons are the most likely reasons I would jump ship.

It's important to note that you shouldn't take a career-motivated jump
personally. The only thing you can do is try to reorganize your company to
make this less likely, by paying more, giving more opportunity for
advancement, or working on/with sexier tech.

If it's not about career, it's probably either interpersonal or cultural.
Maybe they feel socially excluded? Maybe their manager is too distant, an
asshole, or a creep? Maybe they don't want to work as long / the same hours as
everyone else?

Regardless, there is a very good chance you will never get a straight answer,
or will get some fake, nice excuses. This type of thing requires
introspection, not an exit interview.

------
op00to
I would never tell the truth about why I leave a job. There’s nothing in it
for me.

------
Causality1
More often than not it's because their boss doesn't care about the answer to
those questions, even if you their peer do.

------
chvid
Personally I would not say anything of substance at an exit interview. And I
know many people wouldn't either.

Maybe wait until 2 weeks after the person has left and invite him or her out
for a beer or a coffee and then have an informal chat.

------
duxup
Provided you've some relationship with this person / they feel free to speak I
would try to get them to speak in a more open ended manner about the job and
their experience.

Personally I find when folks ask me specific questions about my job ... we
don't have a common language and I have no idea what they really mean by what
they're asking.

Also be open to the idea that this was just bound to happen and it is nobody's
fault. Some jobs just aren't for some people depending on any number of
factors.

~~~
theSage
I don't think I fully understand what you've said. I'm sorry for butchering
this but, do you mean to say that when specific questions are asked the
underlying assumptions are so out of sync that you cannot formulate an answer
they would understand?

I think an example would help?

------
Ididntdothis
I don’t think such a conversation would do any good. If you had had a good
relationship you would probably already know what’s going on. I don’t like
exit interviews where you get asked why you are leaving. These questions
should have been asked much earlier.

Personally I don’t think seeking such a conversation when somebody is leaving
won’t do good for anybody.

------
cryptozeus
Look into underlying reasons

1) employees leave mostly because of manager

2) Not being challenged enough at work

3) Got a job at another company with better pay

4) personal reason, burn out etc.

~~~
taneq
Just to break out 1/2 a bit more:

1a) Employee not being given clear guidance of what they're meant to achieve

1b) Employee being micromanaged intolerably

1c) Employee being told to take responsibility for something while not being
given the power to fix it

1d) Employee not being allowed any autonomy or scope for creativity

1e/2a) Employee being forced to spend their entire working life cleaning up
others' messes with no chance to work on anything new and interesting
("because you're good at fixing problems!") while those same others go on to
trainwreck each new project

2b) Corporate goals limiting employee's ability to build the best product they
can build (through some attempt to avoid competing with another product line,
for instance)

------
bayesian_horse
Talking about the quality of a "fit" can be misleading. It presupposes that
the factors which make people leave are actually beneficial to other people or
the company.

That's certainly not the case with toxic coworkers. Probably there are more
examples...

------
JamesSwift
I think in many ways it's too late at this point. Keep the conversation casual
and if it happens to veer into productive territory in terms of figuring out
motivations then fine, but I wouldn't be asking probing questions unprompted.

------
AlexCoventry
What's your interest in this? Are you their peer or their superior?

------
bryanmgreen
Small plug for anyone interested here:

My company “Thanks For Sharing” is a straightforward app to help organizations
avoid situations like these.

It’s designed to encourage employees to share feedback before issues reach an
unsolvable state. Organizations can collect that feedback easily and built-in
analytics will show trends to identify top issues.

We’re soft-launching next month... if you’re interested, shoot an email to the
link in my profile and I’ll hook you up.

~~~
Ao7bei3s
How is this any better than Google Forms, or Glassdoor?

Are employees answers anonymous?

If yes: How do you deal with employees not trusting your word on this?
Especially given that, since it's an app, people would presumably need to
install it on their own devices?

If no: How do you incentivize employees to give honest (both truthful and
complete) answers?

Do you have any answer to the scenario where management ignores any feedback?

Do you give provide any analytics to employees that anyone is actually reading
and acting on the feedback, or is this another one-way street?

I'm skeptical - I don't think this is a problem that can be solved by an app
-, but I wish you luck. In the unlikely case that you succeed it'll be great.

~~~
bryanmgreen
Good questions. Hopefully you’ll be satisfied to know we’ve thought all them
through.

It’ll be more sophisticated than other survey options that aren’t built for
this purpose. It’s solely for internal use and NOT a public reviews website
(so that bad eggs can’t use rage to infect others).

It will default on anonymous with the option to share your identity. Based off
feedback, this seems to be the best route.

As for incentivizing honest answers, we believe, again based off research,
that most people will be inclined to provide that on their own, especially if
they have the shelter of anonymity. There are a lot of details I don’t quite
want to give away yet, but you’ll see it soon.

We’re excited and learned a lot with the feedback we’ve gotten so far and are
excited for the soft launch to get more data and iterate quickly.

------
ynsaX
If you want an honest answer, perhaps _he_ or _she_ does not like the singular
_they_.

If I read your question, I'd not be a fit for this company either. It creeps
me out when people use _they_ for someone with a known gender.

~~~
perl4ever
Their gender is not "known"...by you.

------
9wzYQbTYsAIc
Not to be rude, but rather to provide some perspective, and totally guessing
here, but perhaps the person is leaving because you are always getting up in
his business and acting like a tight ass.

~~~
nrmitchi
Prefacing your statement with "Not to be rude" does absolutely nothing here.
This is an entirely rude and unnecessary comment.

~~~
mwfunk
"Not to be rude" is one of those statements that does the opposite of what
people who use it seem to think it does. It basically announces that that's
exactly their intention and they think it gives them a get-out-of-jail-free
card for saying it. It's always followed by something totally unnecessary,
it's never followed by something useful or insightful that the other person
might inadvertently take the wrong way.

These types of phrases are common and obvious enough that I'm surprised
there's not a word for them. See also:

"I hate to tell you, but" (they don't hate to tell you, in fact the delight
they get from telling you is why they're telling you)

"NOW, this may NOT be a poe-lit-tic-cull-lee core-rect thing to say, BUT" (in
practice, for some reason it's very important to linger on every single
syllable of "politically correct" when playing this card, maybe even roll it
out so slowly that there are extra syllables, because apparently this is still
1995 and political correctness is some hot button issue that exists in their
world that they're always inadvertently stumbling into) (also they're about to
say something totally shitty and stupid, guaranteed, and political correctness
has nothing to do with it)

"I'm not a racist, but" (they're about to say something so totally racist, and
if they weren't racists themselves they'd know not to prefix anything with
this phrase- it's up there with "but I have black friends" as being an obvious
and transparent tell)

"I'm just keeping it real" (they really want to say the quiet part out loud
and think this gives them license to do so)

"I'm a straight shooter and don't pull punches, and I hope everyone treats me
the same way" (only ever said by the thinnest skinned people you'll ever meet)

"I'm going to be brutally honest" (in practice, the people who preemptively
declare themselves to be brutally honest are always in it for 100% of the
brutality and 0% of the honesty.)

~~~
perl4ever
I feel like it is, or is adjacent to praeteritio, apophasis, and such things.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis)

------
rajacombinator
Sounds like this person is your employee or direct report. Are you underpaying
them? Do you use toxic “agile” practices at work? It’s very likely you can
figure out why they left without asking.

------
techslave
you’re overthinking it

