Our HR Department interviews all those who leave jobs at ALM. And every quarter they compile the results of those exit interviews and provide me with a summary. In general, the results don't change much from quarter-to-quarter, but some of the findings are worth noting:

1. Not surprisingly, there has been a dramatic drop-off in the number of those voluntarily leaving positions at ALM. Given the state of the economy during the first half of the year, with new jobs tougher to find, that makes sense to me.

2. Those who leave have generally positive things to say about ALM. Almost 90% of those who left would recommend ALM to their friends as a good place to work. And over 90% would be willing to work for the company again in the future.

3. Among those who leave, the majority (59%) have been with the company for less than 2 years. Fully 88% of those who leave have been with ALM for 5 years or less.

4. Why do they leave? It generally comes down to moving for a higher level job or promotional opportunity elsewhere. Relatively few left to take the same level job at higher pay. But a significant minority left to change careers or for personal/family reasons unrelated to the job, or to find a more flexible work schedule.

5. Our exit interviews show that there is still room for improvement in providing training and development opportunities. Given that those who are leaving are generally only with us for a few years, it would seem that we need to work on how we can create more promotional opportunities at earlier career stages.

6. The majority of departing employees were extremely satisfied with the relationships they had with their manager, co-workers in their department and employees in other business groups. Those satisfaction levels have not changed from previous quarters.

7. And while most employees voiced satisfaction with their immediate manager, they also shared some dissatisfaction with our Reward and Recognition programs. And our benefits programs in general received rather mixed reviews, with a higher percentage than in the past expressing dissatisfaction with our Health Benefits and Retirement/401K plan. Those will be especially difficult issues to address given the current economic climate, but we need to keep them in mind for whenever the recovery begins.

These exit interviews are helpful to us in providing insight into the company's strengths and weaknesses. And they help us to identify where we have work to do and how to prioritize our various HR initiatives. In this case, the story is a pretty good one, but there's always room for improvement.