Give new hires a voice

Onboarding surveys give new hires the opportunity to tell you firsthand about their experience as they join your business.
Using the data and insights that you collect from these surveys, you can monitor how employees feel about specific aspects of the onboarding programme, track trends in performance and engagement levels over time, and identify and evaluate common experiences (good and bad).

Most importantly, regular surveys allow you to refine your onboarding programme as well as nip any immediate concerns in the bud before your new hire becomes a turnover statistic.

What questions should you ask?

A good survey is a short survey. There are literally hundreds of questions you could ask your new hire about their first days with you so you need to focus on your priorities.

Areas you could address include:

• Recruitment and hiring process
• Remuneration and benefits
• Payroll process
• Quality of preboarding information
• Quality of the facilitators
• Leadership
• Physical resources
• Training
• Information resources
• Performance management
• Quality of mentors and buddies
• Job readiness
• Strategy and culture
• Socialisation
• Job satisfaction
• Employment policies

When should you survey staff?

This depends on the information you are seeking. For example, it may be best to gather responses regarding the recruitment process in the first week. Whereas questions regarding culture or mentoring may be better left until the new staff member is settled in their position and comfortable with the day to day operations of the company.

Sample onboarding survey questions

Generally there are two types of questions that you can use to collect information.