Introduction

A candidate’s onboarding process starts from the day they are offered the job, and until they are completely familiar with the organization culture, their role, and responsibilities. As it results in employee turnover, onboarding is considered to be a critical process. An informative, efficient, and structured process can eliminate the risk of employee attrition and offer the employer a successful onboarding process that benefits both the company and the employee.

The first few weeks in the organization defines what the new employee perceives of the company, and whether they will be successful in forming a strong bond. Employee engagement and employee relations will decide whether the new hire will continue to be a part of the family or whether the company is looking at employee attrition. Amid all the uncertainty, new hire orientation survey or onboarding survey questions offers a lot of answers. Experts at talenx.io believe that an onboarding survey is a vital tool that can help a company to progress into a path of employee retention.

What is an onboarding survey?

An onboarding survey or new hire survey is a tool that measures the experience of new employees in an attempt for the leaders or managers to improve the experience of the new-hire process. Onboarding experience can make or break a relationship that a new hire may have with the company, and an onboarding survey is an opportunity for the organization to improve the process.

The formal onboarding process can range from thirty days to a year and depends on how fast the employee

• familiarizes them with their role
• familiarizes them with colleagues
• gets accustomed to the work environment
• starts to contribute to the growth and development of the company

During the process, the new hire may have several unanswered questions, doubts, confusion, and such that need to be answered. The new hire survey helps the employee to understand how well they are assimilated with the company culture and where the room for improvement lies. The goal of the new hire questionnaire is to provide a positive experience to the employee during the first days in the company.

Why are onboarding surveys important?

We have established that the onboarding process is a critical stage in an employee lifecycle, which sets the foundation for how the new employee is likely to be a part of the organization. But how vital is the new hire orientation survey? Here are some reasons why a new hire survey is important.

• It offers a valuable response to the candidate’s perception of their experience during the hiring process and gives insights on how it can be improved.
• It shows how effective the onboarding program is and whether there is room for improvement.
• It shows the gap between employee responsibilities and expectations and how this gap can be filled effectively.
• It offers insights into the perception of the employee about the company, which helps you to understand the perceived benefits and how they can be used in the future hiring process.
• It offers areas of improvement to both the employer and the employee by troubleshooting any issues that they may be experiencing.
• It helps the organization to recognize and understand the trends in new hire experience.
• The compiled data as a result of new hire onboarding survey questions can be analyzed to view whether the company needs to make changes in the recruitment process, hiring, training, feedback process, or whether they need a new plan of action.

Your onboarding questions are as vital as the onboarding process. You must ensure that when you prepare the new hire questionnaire, you consider every stage of the onboarding process that a new hire would go through. Creating a good onboarding experience depends greatly on the new hire survey.

What onboarding questions should you be asking?

There are four different phases in an onboarding process, and each phase demands different new hire onboarding survey questions. The onboarding questions at different phases of the process provides vital information that can help to improve the onboarding process. Here are the onboarding questions you should be asking for your new hire!

Phase 1 – A day to a week!

It takes from a day to a week for the employees to familiarize with their role and ensure compliance. Your onboarding survey should cover recruitment experience and logistics. Also, you can try to build an understanding as to why the employee decided to join the organization. Some of the questions you can ask include the following.

• What could have made your first day/week better?
• Were you provided accurate and sufficient information about the company during the hiring process?
• How can we improve the recruitment process?
• What influenced you to join the company?
• Are you feeling welcomed here?
• What would you do to improve the onboarding process?
• Do you have all the tools to perform your responsibilities?

Phase 2 – A week to 3 months!

It takes from a week to three months to familiarize with colleagues, train the employee to perform their job, and get a sense of organizational culture. Some of the questions you can ask refer to belonging, alignment, and engagement, and include the following.

• Would you recommend the company to your friends?
• Do you see yourself working here in two years’ time?
• Do you feel proud to be a part of the company?
• Have you been provided the training on the process that is applicable to your role?
• Is the information provided to you sufficient?
• Has the experience until now matched with your expectations?
• Do you feel welcome and productive here?

Phase 3 – 3 months to 6 months!

It takes between 3 to 6 months to evaluate performance to ensure they have everything needed to perform their job ideally. Some of the questions you can ask include the following.

• What do you think would have improved the onboarding process?
• Do you understand your role completely to be an independent contributor?
• Have you been provided with all the tools and training to perform your role?
• Does your role match with the description provided to you?

Phase 4 – 6 months to a year!

It takes about a year for the new hire to develop sufficient knowledge about the company and the industry, and be assimilated with the company culture. The employee is ready for performance evaluation at this stage. Some of the questions you can ask include the following.

• How well have you excelled in the company?
• Do you have a clear understanding of your career path and promotional plan?
• What growth opportunities do you see?
• Are you satisfied with your roles and responsibilities in the company?
• How relevant has your role been?

Each and every onboarding questions that you ask are important as they help you to measure several factors that contribute to improving the onboarding process.

Conclusion

A new hire survey is a vital tool that defines how well an organization is performing in its recruitment and onboarding process. It offers answers to several vital questions that otherwise would be left unanswered. It is a tool that helps to guide an organization to improve its hiring structure and offer its employees a great onboarding experience. As an employer, you can benefit immensely from this process as it helps to measure the performance of the employee as well as the organization. Service providers such as talenx.io offer vital insights on how you can improve your onboarding survey, and in turn, improve the performance of every employee within the organization.