Frankly I don’t understand the hostility towards them. If you don’t like your former company or trust your HR feel free to decline in a two sentence email. But it also seems like many want to complain about how bad their jobs were and then refuse any attempts by the employer to identify problems.
+1
Although I would tweak it to be "if you don't want to help your former company or believe your feedback will have an impact" feel free to decline. I don't get the angst. Either you are willing to do it or you are not, but there's no reason to think nefarious purposes or be hostile. But much like if you don't vote, then imho you don't have so much room to complain about your politicians, I think if you are going to complain about your company than at least give them the feedback if you don't believe it will hurt you (e.g. make it difficult to get a reference, take too much time, etc.).
I wondered "Why the angst?" myself, as I was having difficulty making a decision. For decisions of less-than-great importance, usually that's not an issue. I suppose the angst may come from having mixed feelings connected to trying to make a difference at work in the past, with mixed results; a fair number of changes I suggested were adopted, which I'm proud about, while a fair number of other suggested changes never came to be. Part of me wanted to make suggestions, while part of me did not.
On reflection, though, the exit survey / interview are going to be formulaic and it will be summarized into a larger annual report before anybody in a position of power reads it. And, input from those leaving typically only leads to changes when it's delivered in person to somebody with power in the organization or when lawyers become involved. That's unfortunate. But, it is what it is. Given how things are, there's no grounds for believing that participation would lead to a productive use of anybody's time.
As for "decline" vs "not respond", on reflection I lean toward not responding to the request. They wouldn't necessarily like it if I showed up and used some office space for an afternoon after my retirement, even if that space would otherwise have been empty; it's just not an appropriate thing to do. Likewise, sending me a "to do" item after I'm no longer employed, when they could have done otherwise, strikes me as similarly inappropriate. I don't feel that I owe the organization a response in this situation.
This in no way invalidates the views of those who think that participating is likely to be productive; in a different context there's a good chance that would be true.
For me this situation is fully resolved and my thanks to those who helped to bring that about (which is everybody).
