When employees leave your organization, it's more costly than you realize. Gone are their skills, education and qualifications along with other intangibles like their experience, creativity and productivity at work. You're also losing time and money spent on hiring and onboarding these individuals and you will be spending more time and money to find a suitable replacement once they're gone.

Exit interviews are a good way to recoup some of these losses. It's also a formal and professional way to tie up loose ends with employees before they walk out of your office for the very last time. Not all companies include third-party exit interviews as part of their talent management plan, but they should - if only for the wealth of information that is gleaned from a candid exit interview session.

Here are three reasons why all companies should take the time to conduct third-party exit interviews:

1. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Employees are quick to default to the standard excuses - more money, more vacation time, better fit, etc. - when it comes to explaining why they've decided to leave your firm. But savvy managers will know that there's more to an employee's move than meets the eye. It usually takes an offer 15 per cent higher than an employee's current salary to get him or her to change jobs and this doesn't happen often so there are usually other reasons involved - you need to know what they are.

Many departing employees are wary of burning bridges between themselves and their ex-employer, so they won't cop to the real reasons behind their career move. Third-party exit interviews, however, give these employees an open forum to speak candidly about their former employer without fear of punishment or retribution. The company will benefit from the honest feedback as well, given that they'll be better able to understand the issues that are causing people to leave and resolve them accordingly.

2. Positive employment experiences = corporate success.

Exit interviews show that your company cares about the employment experience and not just about the job that gets done. Employment experiences don't end at the termination of an employee's contract - they continue and remain with the employee long after he's left your firm. Departing employees participating in exit interviews will be pleased to know that they haven't fallen off their managers' radar screens after submitting their two weeks' notice.

Employees will also remember and appreciate the fact that their company values their opinion and wants to improve working conditions based on their front-line feedback. This is evidence of a company's good faith and trust in their workforce, which bolsters the company's overall reputation as a good employer.

3. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Sometimes reform is required not so much for the people leaving your company as for the people who remain with your company. Therefore, take a long, introspective look at the inner-workings of your company. Exit interviews help you understand and establish ways to better retain your current employees and improve the manager-employee dynamic throughout your company.

Employee engagement - whereby employees are attracted to, committed to and fascinated by their work - is not contingent upon a job's perks and pay. This engagement begins at the grassroots level in an organization, namely with the relationship between employees and their managers. One of the best ways to understand problems at this micro level is through exit interviews.

With competition for talent intensifying, it's imperative for companies to understand why their employees are resigning, hence the need to conduct third-party exit interviews. Employees are usually reluctant to disclose the real reasons behind their career move. Accordingly, good managers should be equally reluctant to take their employees' resignation at face value, and it would be in their company's best interest to probe their departing employees for more information via the exit interview process.

Dr. Tim Rutledge, Partner, Retention Services, is a veteran Human Resources Development practitioner with a background in financial services, manufacturing and health care. For more information about Tim Rutledge, and IQ Partners please visit their website at www.iqpartners.com.