Can We Still be Friends? The Role of Exit Conversations in Facilitating Post‐Exit Relationships

• Author: Carol T. Kulik,Shruti R. Sardeshmukh,Belinda Rae,Sanjeewa Perera
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21642
• Date: 01 November 2015
• Published date: 01 November 2015

Human Resource Management, November–December 2015, Vol. 54, No. 6. Pp. 893–912

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21642

Correspondence to: Carol T. Kulik, School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia,

Australia 5001, Phone: 61-8-8302-7378, Fax: 61-8-8302-0512, E-mail: carol.kulik@unisa.edu.au.

CAN WE STILL BE FRIENDS? THE

ROLE OF EXIT CONVERSATIONS

IN FACILITATING POST-EXIT

RELATIONSHIPS

CAROL T. KULIK, BELINDA RAE, SHRUTI R.

SARDESHMUKH, AND SANJEEWA PERERA

Organizations might benefi t from maintaining relationships with former employ-

ees, who could be rehired later or encouraged to refer job applicants and cus-

tomers. We integrate the management literature on voluntary resignations and

the communication literature on relationship dissolution to explore how con-

versations between an exiting employee and his or her manager facilitate (or

constrain) post-exit relationships. Employees who had recently resigned from

full-time jobs described their exit experiences in semistructured interviews with

the research team. The results suggest two dominant patterns. When employees

exited for external reasons (e.g., to pursue a program of study), they engaged in

very direct communication strategies, elicited positive responses from their man-

agers, and left with high interest in a post-exit relationship. But when employees

exited for internal reasons (problems within the employment relationship), they

engaged in multiple exit cycles and moved from indirect communication strate-

gies toward increasingly direct ones. Managerial responses to these strategies

failed to capitalize on opportunities to nurture post-exit relationships and some-

times generated a “vendetta effect” among exiting employees. The results sug-

gest that managers might benefi t from training in how to conduct effective exit

conversations, particularly with employees who are leaving for internal reasons.

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: turnover, communication, interviews

Employees are increasingly mobile, mov-

ing across employers as their careers

advance. In Australia, for example, more

than 1 million workers changed jobs

in the 12 months preceding February

2013 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013). More

than 60 percent of these workers are voluntary

leavers—employees who make a personal choice

to leave their employer. In today’s war for talent,

organizations are being encouraged to maintain

relationships with their former employees. One

obvious benefit of maintaining relationships with

ex-employees is generating a future hiring pool. It

costs half as much to rehire an ex-employee as it

does to hire a brand-new person and rehires are

40 percent more productive than a new hire in

894 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2015

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

The first steps

toward a post-exit

relationship occur

very early in the exit

process, during the

“exit conversations”

the employee has

with organizational

representatives.

see a resignation as a relationship betrayal. For

example, Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of

New York City, refuses to rehire employees who

have resigned, throw them a farewell party, or—if

he can help it—even shake their hand (Hopkins,

1998). Even when managers sincerely like the

employee who is resigning and wish them well,

managers may be grappling with emotions of

anger and hurt (Robbins, 2007). Managers receive

a great deal of advice, and even formal training, in

how to terminate employees (Bogomolny, 2005;

Labich & Davies, 1996), but they may be caught

by surprise when an employee resigns and fumble

the exit conversation.

In this research, we examine the role of exit

conversations in facilitating (or constraining)

positive post-exit organizational relationships. We

first use the unfolding model of turnover (Lee &

Mitchell, 1991, 1994) to predict which turnover

pathways are most likely to be associated with

positive post-exit relationships. We then examine

the content of the exit conversations that take

place along these turnover pathways. Exit con-

versations during organizational disengagement

have received little attention in the management

and communication literatures (Gordon, 2011).

Therefore, we draw on communication research

(Baxter, 1984, 1985) that has developed taxono-

mies of the strategies that individuals use to exit

from personal relationships and the responses

those exit strategies elicit from their partners. We

ask recently exited employees to describe how they

communicated their resignation decision to their

managers, and how their managers responded.

Our goal is to identify the most common patterns

in these exit conversations, and to see which pat-

terns generate the greatest potential for a positive

post-exit relationship with the former employer.

We focus specifically on employee perceptions

because these perceptions have a direct impact on

employees’ feeling of “fit” with their manager and

their organization (Boon, Den Hartog, Boselie, &

Paauwe, 2011). When employee and employer

perceptions misalign, it is the employee’s per-

ceptions that have the strongest impact on sub-

sequent employee attitudes and behavior (Den

Hartog, Boon, Verburg, & Croon, 2013; Kehoe &

Wright, 2013).

Employment Relationship Dissolution

Recent theories of turnover describe multiple

pathways by which an employee exits an employ-

ment relationship, with some exits instigated by

discrete events and others resulting from ongoing

problems within the employment relationship.

The management literature demonstrates that

employee and manager perceptions frequently

their first quarter at work (Sertoglu & Berkowitch,

2002). But rehiring is only one of many ways that

maintaining positive relationships with former

employees can benefit a company. Ex-employees

can be loyal consumers of the company’s prod-

ucts and services (Sertoglu & Berkowitch, 2002).

They can influence opinions about the company,

affecting other people’s choices about joining

the company or buying the company’s products

(Kulik, Pepper, Shapiro, & Cregan, 2012; Serto-

glu & Berkowitch, 2002). And if ex-employees

join “cooperators” (companies that might act as

customers, suppliers, and partners to the original

employer), maintaining ties with former employ-

ees can create and strengthen cross-organizational

business relationships (Somaya & Williamson,

2008).

These benefits have motivated organizations

to pay more attention to nurturing relationships

with their former employees. Some

companies maintain formal alumni

networks that allow ex-employees

to view job postings, network with

their former coworkers, and earn

money from referral bonus pro-

grams. Others take a more casual

approach by organizing social

events for ex-employees, sending

them company newsletters or invit-

ing them to company-sponsored

activities (Weaver, 2006). However,

the first steps toward a post-exit rela-

tionship occur very early in the exit

process, during the “exit conversa-

tions” the employee has with orga-

nizational representatives (Sertoglu

& Berkowitch, 2002).

Exit conversations may play an important role

in helping the employee and employer to transi-

tion from a formal employment relationship to a

different kind of relationship. Research suggests

that employees maintain fairly stable impressions

of their employers, reprocessing and updating

these impressions only at critical “turning points”

(Lind, 2001; Lind, Kulik, Ambrose, & de Vera

Park, 1993). Studying employees who had been

recently fired or laid off, Lind, Greenberg, Scott,

and Welchans (2000) found that the exit experi-

ence was twice as likely as the overall employment

experience to influence an employee’s decision to

sue the company for wrongful termination. This

research focused on involuntary terminations,

not voluntary resignations, but it nonetheless

highlights the impact of exit conversations on the

quality of the post-exit relationship.

Unfortunately, exit conversations present

a real challenge for managers. Some managers