Onboarding Survey
Bringing people into the organization seamlessly is incredibly important to setting them up for success. While we want to learn how we can be better for future hires, we also want to catch any issues before they become reasons for people to leave. Our onboarding survey is designed specifically for use in the first 1-3 months, when people are learning about the organization, structure, people, systems, and leadership.
Customizing Your Survey
We’ve made sure the survey has enough content to cover all bases while providing the new hire an opportunity to share any concerns and ideas they might have. In their first three months, people are very aware of what’s going on around them and are usually quite engaged. It’s important to capture their desire to offer ideas for improvement before they get fully inducted to ‘how things are done around here’.
Food For Thought
- While a quantitative survey helps to establish patterns over time or specific issues with new hires, it’s always a great idea to complement the survey with ongoing and regular catch-ups with your new starter to make sure they are doing well.
- Employees are in their honeymoon period for the first 3 months, so don’t be surprised if you get super engaged responses. Don’t stop at the surface level though, once you have a few to compare and contrast you’ll start to see patterns emerge.
- Capturing on-boarding data using a survey is a great initiative for both the new employee and future hires. You can potentially correct any misperceptions that a new employee has while proactively providing a better onboarding experience for future hires.
- Our onboarding survey has been designed to link to key elements of engagement to ensure it is actionable. If you’re wanting to add more questions, consider running an in-person onboarding interview to gain some qualitative insights. Plus, your employees are going to be super impressed that you wanted to check-in to see how they’re doing.
Results
Firstly, make sure you take the time to review the results and take corrective action. If the onboarding survey is viewed as a compliance activity, the credibility of the exercise will be considerably diminished. The data you collect from these surveys is a powerful source of insight to feed into your Employee Value Proposition, recruitment strategy, induction program, and leadership development initiatives. Ensure you socialize the findings with senior leadership and managers as their influence is critical in welcoming new employees.