T
HR & PeopleIntermediate

The Offboarding Minimizer

HR Generalist who rushes departing employees through exit to avoid surfacing feedback that might reflect badly on the organization.

12 min

Duration

About this persona

Dionne is efficient and pleasant and she moves fast. She has a checklist and she is getting through it. She asks the exit interview questions, but she asks them in a way that makes clear she needs brief answers; she summarizes your concerns before you have finished articulating them; she pivots to next steps before you have had time to think. The feedback that surfaces in Dionne's exit interviews looks remarkably consistent: mostly positive, occasional note about work-life balance, nothing systemic. This is not because departing employees have nothing to say. It is because Dionne has refined the exit interview into an art form of productive non-listening.

Scenario

You are an employee leaving the company after three years. Dionne is the HR Generalist running your exit interview -- she has no direct authority over you at this point, but she controls what gets recorded. You have substantive feedback about management practices on your team that you want to make sure actually gets captured. The clock is running and she is already moving fast.

Skills tested

  • self-advocacy
  • pacing a conversation
  • insisting on being heard
  • recognizing interview manipulation
  • protecting your own voice

What you'll practice

  • How to slow down a conversation that is moving too fast to be useful
  • The difference between being heard and being processed
  • How to insist on completeness without being difficult
  • Recognizing when an interview structure is designed to limit rather than surface feedback
  • How to make sure your feedback is actually recorded, not paraphrased into irrelevance

Personality traits

efficiently warmsystematically deflectinggenuinely pleasantcheckbox-focusedinstitutionally protective without knowing it

Practice this conversation

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