When a new employee joins your organization, you want to make sure they’re properly trained and welcomed. Onboarding surveys may measure employee onboarding success. They provide vital input from new hires about their onboarding process. These surveys can help you identify areas where your onboarding process needs improvement and where you aren’t giving enough training and assistance to new hires.
It is imperative that any new employee can get up the learning curve and become as productive as possible as soon as possible. It can take up to months for new employees to understand the workplace, how work gets done, what they need to do every day, and start performing optimally.
In this blog, we’ll learn about onboarding surveys, why they’re as crucial on day 365 as on day one, what questions to ask in these surveys, and some best practices.
What are onboarding surveys?
Employee onboarding surveys are designed to collect feedback and insights from new hires on their onboarding experience within an organization.
These surveys are frequently conducted during or immediately after the onboarding process and are designed to measure the effectiveness of the onboarding program, identify areas for improvement, and measure employee satisfaction and engagement.
Employee onboarding survey questions usually cover a wide range of topics, like:
- Employees’ onboarding satisfaction.
- Effectiveness of onboarding training and orientation.
- The understanding of job description and performance objectives.
- The clarity and effectiveness of communication channels during the onboarding process.
- Support and necessary resources to perform their job effectively.
- The feel about the workplace culture and teams.
- Feedback and suggestions for improving the onboarding experience.
Why are onboarding surveys crucial on day 365 as on day 1?
A successful onboarding process is extremely crucial. It can not only make or break the productivity of an employee but also potentially the success of that employee over time. If you get off on the wrong foot, for anything you’re doing, at the least, you’re going to be suboptimal and, at the worst, a disaster.
Employers, therefore, should really think about the onboarding phase – whichever way that’s defined in the organization – as the most important opportunity to get the employees off on the right foot. This process is the best way to give employees the best impressions of what their experience at the workplace will be. You never get a chance to make a first impression twice.
Key Considerations and Questions for Evaluating and Improving the Onboarding Process
As with any operating system in the workplace, we need to pay attention to its effectiveness. So if you define the onboarding process as part of your operating system, how do you know it’s actually achieving what you need to succeed?
You have some goals and objectives regarding what the employee is supposed to have accomplished during that onboarding process. Let’s look at some of these:
- Are the set objectives being met? How do you know?
- What are you doing to analyze opportunities to improve the program?
- What is employee feedback? Is it long, too long, or too short?
- Does it need to be all at once? Can it be over time?
- Is the format the best option? Should they be in a room watching PowerPoint slides, or should they be watching videos? Should they be talking with people or all of the above?
- Is there self-study that they should be doing? Should they have some homework? And if they have any of those things, are they effective?
Most importantly, at the end of the process, however it’s defined in your organization, does the employee feel like:
- Are they in the best position to be successful in their jobs now that you’ve hired them?
- Do they really feel that way, or to what extent do they feel that way?
- At the end of this process, whether it’s 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or all of the above, how is their overall experience in the organization unfolding?
- Are they as likely to promote your organization as a great place to work on day one as they are on day 90?
That’s an important thing for you to measure. How do you collect data about everything? How do you respond? The answer is simple: run an onboarding survey on day 1, day 7, day 90, and so on. Most importantly, do one on day 365.
How did the person spend their first year? Are we exactly where we need to be? Collect data on this from all of your employees as they start and go through the process.
Gathering that data and monitoring those trends will give you the signals you need to adjust the program. Change it accordingly, continue to invest in it, and make sure that it is as effective as it needs to be.
What are the benefits of effective onboarding surveys?
The survey in the employee onboarding process has a strong connection to several benefits, such as:
Improves the onboarding experience
A successful onboarding survey can help identify areas where the onboarding process can be improved. This lets organizations make decisions based on data to improve the experience for new hires. This can cause an employee’s first job day easier and more pleasant.
Increases employee engagement and satisfaction
Organizations can boost employee engagement and satisfaction by listening to employee feedback through surveys and making appropriate changes to the onboarding process. This can result in higher employee engagement and a more effective team.
Improves communication
Onboarding surveys can reveal how well communication is performing during the onboarding process. This can assist companies in identifying communication gaps and implementing changes to improve clarity and effectiveness.
Helps to make data-driven decisions
Onboarding employee surveys provide organizations with data and insights that may be used to inform onboarding decisions. Organizations can make adjustments that are more likely to be effective and improve the entire onboarding experience by utilizing data to drive decisions.
Alignment with expectations
Onboarding surveys help organizations determine if new hires understand their positions, responsibilities, company culture, and performance expectations during the recruitment process. This ensures that employees are aligned with organizational goals and have the understanding needed to succeed in their respective fields.
Retention and productivity
A positive onboarding experience greatly influences employee retention and productivity. Organizations may establish an environment where new recruits feel supported, integrated, and able to execute their positions effectively by resolving any challenges or concerns expressed in employee surveys. This, in turn, increases employee retention and overall productivity.
Conclusion
Onboarding surveys are essential not only on the first day of an employee’s journey but also on days 365 and beyond. Organizations can analyze the long-term effects of their onboarding initiatives, measure employee engagement, and pinpoint areas for improvement by conducting surveys at this point.
QuestionPro Workforce lets you build, distribute, and collect responses on onboarding surveys with many options. Book a demo or Sign up to conduct your first survey, which will take a couple of minutes.
