Are employee onboarding surveys actually needed?

Getting your dream job is exciting. However, the employee onboarding process is crucial. It determines if your dream job becomes a reality or stays a fantasy.

Onboarding is an investment in the company’s future. Creating an effective onboarding program helps new employees succeed and leads to a more productive and committed workforce.

A positive onboarding experience creates a sense of belonging, connection, and motivation among new hires. They feel valued, supported, and well-equipped to succeed, leading to increased engagement and a lower likelihood of turnover.

What is an onboarding survey?

Onboarding surveys are like secret HR agents, gathering info from new hires about their onboarding. This feedback is gold for HR teams. It’s a strategic compass, pointing out the shining stars in the onboarding process and the areas that could use a bit of polish.

HR can change the onboarding materials if new employees feel overwhelmed by the information they receive when they start. This change would involve giving them smaller amounts of information. Additionally, they pave the way for proactive solutions.

Advantages of onboarding surveys

Undoubtedly, the usage of onboarding surveys within the workplace is more than just a procedural checkbox – it is a strategic investment with multiple advantages.

Beyond the foundational reasons, these surveys serve as a dynamic tool for human resource teams to get invaluable insights into the onboarding experience. There are a few significant reasons why it’s crucial for human resource teams to conduct onboarding surveys:

• Allows to identify areas of improvement;
• Increases new hire’s motivation and job satisfaction – therefore, leads to a lower likelihood of turnover;
• Can be a competitive advantage in talent acquisition.

What makes a successful onboarding survey

The onboarding survey is a useful tool for getting feedback and data from new hires. It can give valuable insights into their thoughts and opinions.

To get useful information from your onboarding survey, make sure it is clear, relevant, varied, and the right length. Additionally, maintaining confidentiality and ensuring the security of respondent data is essential for building trust and encouraging participation.

Here are the key features your onboarding survey should have to be successful:

• Questions should be clear and relevant;
• Ask one question at a time;
• Question types should vary, so it’s interesting for a survey-taker;
• The survey should be of an appropriate length. [A general rule of thumb is to keep surveys to under 15 minutes in length].

Now we can move on to assembling the survey and what you need to consider before that.

How to create an onboarding survey

Coming up with the right questions to get desired insights is not an easy job, however, there are some guidelines to make the process easier.

First, write a brief reflection on what your company wants to achieve with the onboarding process before asking questions. You can have specific goals, such as making new hires comfortable, delivering information, and avoiding overload.

With the survey, your focus should be to question these goals. Instead of guessing where your onboarding process might fall short, allow survey-takers to guide you.

You can either create your survey from the blank or choose from Formaloo’s 200+ templates.

Best onboarding survey questions

Here are recommendations on what topics to explore and what would be the best questions for them.

Overall onboarding process

• On a scale of 0 to 10, how satisfied were you with the overall onboarding process?
• What was the most/least helpful aspect of the onboarding process?
• What could the onboarding process have done better to ensure a smooth transition into your new role?

Clarity of the role and expectations

• How much of a clear understanding of your job responsibilities and expectations do you have?
• Were the training and resources helpful in preparing you for your new role?
• What specific areas of your job role or responsibilities were not adequately covered during onboarding?

Integration and networking

• On a scale from 0-10, please rate your overall sense of belonging and connection to the company culture.
• What steps could the company take to improve networking opportunities for new hires?
• Describe any specific instances where you felt excluded or disconnected from the company culture or team.

Feedback and improvement

• How can the company further enhance its efforts to create a positive and supportive employee experience?
• On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company as an employer to others?
• What message would you like to share with the company leadership regarding your onboarding experience?

To conclude, Onboarding is a crucial period for new hires, setting the tone for their experience and determining their long-term success in the company. To make sure new hires have a great start at your company, HR can ask them for feedback through onboarding surveys.

Companies can improve the onboarding experience by understanding its positive and negative aspects. This improvement will lead to increased employee engagement, longer retention, and overall business success.

Great HR teams understand the value of staying in the loop with surveys to guarantee employee engagement and satisfaction. That’s why they consistently gather feedback even beyond the onboarding phase. By continuing the conversation, these teams find ways to improve and demonstrate their commitment to a caring workplace.

What makes Formaloo the best platform to use for onboarding surveys?

Choosing the right platform for conducting onboarding surveys is an important decision, and Formaloo stands out for several reasons.

One notable feature is its ability to generate instant reports, enabling HR teams to quickly transform data from onboarding surveys into actionable insights. This quickly allows HR teams to efficiently identify patterns, pinpoint areas for improvement, and implement targeted and actionable improvements to the onboarding process.

Moreover, at Formaloo we understand that collaboration is essential between team members, providing a workspace where entire HR teams can collectively engage in survey-related tasks. This not only enhances team efficiency but also enables the seamless sharing of reports with managers and stakeholders.

Another useful feature for human resources teams is staying notified as soon as the survey is submitted. Notification can be sent to the survey creator and other team members if wanted.

Sign up with Formaloo and start building better surveys today! Follow us on our YouTube channel for more useful tips and tricks.