Understanding the Onboarding Survey: A Comprehensive Guide

Creating a good employee onboarding experience is not something you can quickly put together and hope for the best. It must be purposeful and always changing to meet your employees' needs. The crucial part of successful onboarding is crafting the right questions in your onboarding survey. Knowing what to ask, when to ask, and what to do with the answers is essential for your program to succeed.

According to a survey by Brandon Hall, organizations that have a strong onboarding process see an impressive 82% improvement in keeping and retaining employees. This article uncovers why this number is so high and explores how onboarding surveys can make a big difference.

What Are Onboarding Surveys?

Onboarding surveys, or new hire surveys, are tools that human resources and people teams often use to find out how happy employees are with the way they start working at a company. These surveys collect data and written feedback from employees. Human resources teams then use this information to make hiring and welcoming new employees better.

Even if you think your company is great at getting new employees ready for successful careers, onboarding surveys can still be helpful. Employee feedback helps make your program better and ensures every new hire has a good experience. Because new hires see your onboarding for the first time, they may spot things you missed. Their new ideas and experiences from past onboarding processes give useful information to make the new employee’s experience even better in your company.

Why Is an Onboarding Survey Important?

The onboarding survey is important for both employers and new hires at the beginning of a job. It helps set the foundation for the newcomer to do well in the organization. A good onboarding survey helps employees get used to their new work surroundings and perform well in their new tasks.

Incorporating relevant and engaging questions into the onboarding survey yields valuable insights into the recruitment process strategy. This makes new employees feel heard and valued for their opinions about the workplace.

Onboarding has its challenges; if not crafted and implemented well, it can make new hires feel unwanted. According to reports, 20% of new employees quit in the first 45 days, and 33% leave in the first 6 months. Reasons for leaving early could be unmet expectations, not-so-great management, unclear job roles, not much chance to grow personally, or other things making work unsatisfying or uncomfortable.

In a nutshell, the onboarding survey is a helpful tool to find and address these issues early on, creating a good and lasting bond between the new employee and the organization.

Benefits of Employee Onboarding Surveys

Gathering onboarding surveys from employees provides useful information. It shows what is going well and where improvement is needed. These surveys provide comprehensive data, sometimes pointing out surprising things that affect how engaged people are. A strong onboarding survey positively impacts important metrics like employee morale and engagement.

• Boosting Retention

A good onboarding experience helps keep employees around. When new hires feel supported and welcomed, they are likely to stick with the company for a long time, making your retention rate better.

• Speeding up Time to Productivity

A good onboarding process affects how fast new employees start doing useful things for the company. When the onboarding program is well-organized, it makes it easier for new hires to learn and start doing important work sooner.

• Increasing Employee Referral Rate

Positive onboarding experiences lead to higher employee satisfaction, making them more likely to recommend your organization as an exceptional workplace. This, in turn, can result in more referrals of top-tier talent, enriching your talent pool.

• Improving Onboarding

By collecting feedback through onboarding surveys, you gain insights into what works and what does not. This knowledge allows you to make targeted improvements, creating a smoother and more impactful onboarding experience.

• Gauging Employee Engagement from the Start

Clever survey questions help check the level of new hires involvement in onboarding, how excited they are about their job, and if they feel important in the organization. This early check sets the stage for more growth and being on the same page.

• Strengthening First Impressions

Comments from new hires point out things that make a good first impression, like clear communication, a friendly atmosphere, and good training. With this information, you make sure new employees feel important, helped, and happy about their time with your company.

Key Features of the Onboarding Process Survey

A great onboarding survey is important for making employees more involved, helping the team work better, and making the whole company grow by using the strengths of new hires. The feedback from the survey is important for a few reasons, such as:

• Understanding New Employees' Perspectives. Learn what new employees think about how they start working and what they feel about the workplace overall.
• Assessing Job Understanding. Evaluate whether new employees comprehend their job responsibilities and are adequately prepared to fulfill their tasks.
• Clarifying Expectations. Determine the up-to-date expectations of new employees as they embark on their roles within the company.
• Identifying Training Needs. Use the survey to identify any additional training or information required to ensure that employees can perform effectively in their roles.
• Addressing Issues. Allow employees to use the onboarding survey as a platform to troubleshoot and communicate any challenges they may be facing in the workplace.
• Feedback for Program Improvement. The onboarding survey serves as a critical tool for gathering feedback on the onboarding program, helping to identify and address any gaps that may exist.

Best Practices for Your Onboarding Survey Questionnaire

• Evolve Over Time

Your onboarding survey should be dynamic and adapt to changes in your business. Regularly review and update it to ensure it continues to meet the evolving needs of your employees and organization.

• Consider Timing

Choose strategic times to send your surveys. This can include immediately after onboarding, after 30 days in a new role, or following a training session. Timing plays a crucial role in capturing relevant feedback.

• Identify Patterns in Responses

Analyze survey responses to identify patterns, especially among those who have stayed with the company and those who have left within a year. This analysis can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your onboarding process.

• Ensure Ease and Convenience

Make sure your surveys are easy and quick to complete. Try to get a lot of people to respond by making it easy for them. To get dependable results, gather feedback from as many people as you can. This helps prevent results from being one-sided when only happy or unhappy people share their feedback.

Conclusion

Incorporating an onboarding survey into your company's new employee orientation process can make a significant difference. It not only makes the onboarding experience better but also helps keep employees engaged and sticking around for the long run. When you ask new hires good questions and really listen to what they say, you can learn a lot about how well your onboarding program is working and what the environment is like in your workplace.

The survey is a useful tool to improve. It shows you what your organization’s strengths are and where it may need a bit of tweaking. Plus, it lets new employees know that their thoughts matter, making them feel more connected and committed right from the start.