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Sara, a departing employee, sat across from her company’s HR leader for an exit interview. As a marketing executive for a financial services company, she was resigning after five years to take a CMO role at a fintech startup.

When the HR director asked Sara, “Is there anything else we could have done to keep you here?” Sara paused. “Yes. I wish there had been conversations about my career goals and opportunities for growth,” she said.

This is just one of the discussions that often takes place too late, after top talent is already on the way out the door.

As the number of workers quitting their jobs continues to swell amid the Great Resignation, soon-to-be-former employees are finding themselves in exit interviews with HR representatives who hope to gain a clearer sense of what’s happening inside the company — and who often learn — after the fact — things that management was unaware of. Exit interviews provide “a way to find out what is happening, or what has happened, that may be motivating this employee… to leave,” according to Yuletta Pringle, knowledge advisor at the Society for Human Resources Management.

Yet as the above dialogue illustrates, these conversations may be too little too late. In a recent Gallup study, more than half of employees surveyed said that no one — including their manager — had talked to them about how they were feeling in their role in their last three months before they quit. And 52% of exiting employees stressed that their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job.

Having coached hundreds of employees in career transition for more than a decade, I can validate these findings. Countless clients have told me they wished their employer had asked them questions to encourage their growth before they resigned. They wanted these questions to come from their manager proactively, rather than retroactively from HR.

Before asking questions as a manager, though, it’s critical to know what motivates employees to stay with an organization and why. Gallup research shows 12 needs managers can meet to improve employee engagement, including:

• Prioritizing employee development
• Facilitating a sense of purpose
• Caring about employees
• Considering employee opinions
• Focusing on employee strengths

These five measures map closely with research recently published by HBR on strategies to boost retention. With these five needs in mind, consider incorporating the questions below into routine check-ins with your direct reports, so that you can ask employees the questions they want to hear before they’re gone.

[Here are the first two questions to ask.]

1. How would you like to grow within this organization?

Career development is the most critical of the elements identified by Gallup, and two-thirds of people — regardless of their level — leave their company because of a lack of career-development opportunities. With this in mind, it’s important to figure out what growth opportunities each employee needs for optimum development, whether through sponsorship, coaching, mentoring, visibility, or challenging work assignments.

To get at the answer, you might also ask, “What role would love to do (whether it exists or not), and what can I do as your manager to encourage your development in this company?”

2. Do you feel a sense of purpose in your job?

For the five years that Sara worked for the financial services company that she was resigning from, she never felt that her work impacted people’s lives in a meaningful way. By joining a fintech company committed to improving the accessibility and affordability of financial services for underserved populations, she was excited that her marketing efforts could make a difference in the lives of people who needed access to capital. Her employer and manager missed an opportunity to tap into Sara’s sense of passion and purpose in her marketing role.

Managers can play a meaningful role in helping employees understand how their roles contribute to the organization’s broader mission. But helping employees feel a sense of purpose must go deeper than this to tap into what’s purposeful to employees about their job and connects with their own values.