Employee onboarding satisfaction survey: tips, questions, tools

Even the best-designed company's onboarding process may have weaknesses, especially in such a rapidly changing business reality. Post-employee onboarding surveys are a valuable tool that will help gather feedback from new employees about their onboarding experience, identify areas for improvement, and increase new hire engagement and retention rate.

Why a survey after employee onboarding is a must have in your company's onboarding process?

Because without it you don't know whether the onboarding in your company is effective. Effective, meaning one that:

• allows new hires to achieve full work efficiency
• reduces the risk of ghosting and, consequently, the costs associated with re-recruitment
• builds a positive employee onboarding experience already at the onboarding stage, and without a positive employee experience there is no effective employer branding
• addresses the needs of the employer and employee

Well-prepared employee onboarding surveys are like a signpost that shows whether you are heading in the right direction. By collecting and analyzing feedback from the new hires, you will check whether there was anything they missed in the entire process, what problems they faced and how they can be solved in the future.

Additionally, by using NPS as an element of the final survey, you will receive a clear answer whether the adaptation was a valuable experience from the newcomer's perspective or not.

Net Promoted Score , was initially used by marketers to measure customer loyalty. The study is based on one question that is asked to everyone, and it begins with the words: How likely is it that...

The second part of the question may concern the product, service or the process of recruitment. In the case of onboarding , it may be:

How likely is it that you would recommend onboarding at XYZ to your friends?

The respondent answers on a scale from 0 to 10. Depending on the answer, we divide respondents into 3 groups:

• 0-6 critics - people who are most likely not to speak positively about onboarding in your company;
• 7-8 neutral - respondents who have no major objections about the implementation, but will probably represent a passive attitude and will not be willing to share their opinion with others;
• 9-10 enthusiasts - a group that is very satisfied and will enthusiastically share their positive impressions. We care about this group the most;

Before you make the dot over the i, put in place a regular employee satisfaction survey

Onboarding is a long-term process, divided into several stages. Its effectiveness cannot be reliably examined using one survey. Assuming that the implementation lasts up to 90 days, it is difficult to expect a new hire to make a valuable assessment of the entire process after its completion.

After onboarding, the survey should culminate the entire cycle of pulse check research , carried out during onboarding. There may be several or even a dozen such surveys, and each of them should collect employee feedback after each key element of the implementation.

Start with preboarding and ask the new hire about his or her impressions of the recruitment process and communication with the company before starting work. Subsequent surveys can be scheduled after moments such as:

• settling formal issues
• providing work clothes or equipment and access to tools
• first day at work
• welcome week
• basic training
• on-the-job training - here it is worth trying the pulse check series examining specific stages of implementation of duties (e.g. after the first training with the manager, after the first month of work)

When planning an employee onboarding survey during onboarding , keep in mind the dynamics of the entire process, because it determines when subsequent surveys should be released. Regular employee onboarding surveys during implementation are also key. Don't leave the evaluation of the process to the end! Pulse check tests after implementation should conclude a whole series of surveys spread throughout the onboarding. Only then can you keep your finger on the pulse and receive constructive feedback on every element of the implementation. And when you put these pieces together, you will get a full picture of onboarding from the employee's perspective.

Employee onboarding surveys: what to test?

There is no single, universal formula for a post-implementation employee well-being survey questionnaire. Such a document should be designed to suit the individual needs of the organization, its scale and applicable processes. Startups or family businesses face different challenges than corporations, and an onboarding survey should reflect this. However, there are areas common to all companies and we should focus on them when creating surveys. The moment when we send employee onboarding survey is also very important. We will ask about one thing after the first week and another after the first month of work.

Recruitment process

Recruitment is the candidate's first contact with the organization, so examining his or her feelings from this moment will help improve this process in your company. It cannot be overwhelming, and the candidate should thoroughly learn the new role description and future tasks during the subsequent stages. A satisfaction survey summarizing this process will help you find out whether this is actually the case.

Organizational culture

Successful onboarding process should include an introduction to the company's work culture and values. If co- workers show support to a new employee and provide him or her with clear understanding of the organizational values, the new employee is likely to implement faster and function better in the company, feeling productive. Therefore, it is worth collecting information on this topic.

Onboarding experience

An onboarding program fulfills its goals only when employees seamlessly learn about their tasks and the company, gain knowledge about their position, the team and the organizations as a whole. A good employee onboarding survey should take all this into account. It's the best way to evaluate specific activities in the onboarding process and confirm whether each has met its goal

Onboarding of positions

In this area, key questions should concern whether the new employee can comfortably use formal tools and systems. Did he/she receive sufficient support from the superior while going through the implementation process and did the training fulfill its role? We try to find out to what extent the implementation program adequately prepares the employee to perform the assigned tasks.

Employee engagement

We wrote about the importance of building employee engagement in the onboarding process in a previous text. This makes it all the more worthwhile to check whether this process works optimally in your company. Tracking employee well-being is an important measure of how successful the onboarding process is and how you are doing as a company overall.

Relationship with the manager

According to Gallup research, managers and teams leaders are responsible for 70% of the discrepancies both in team engagement and between individual teams in the companies. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at the new employee's relationship with the managers and theit teams. This way we will find out whether the expectations of both sides are consistent and the new employee receives the necessary support.

There are, of course, more important topics - understanding the benefits available in the organizations, understanding what your role contributes to the existing teams, maintaining a balance between professional and private life. All of this affects overall fullfilment, so regularly examining these issues during the onboarding process can bring many benefits to the company.

It is worth emphasizing that the employee onboarding survey will evolve. As business goals, employee needs and company processes change, topics and onboarding survey questions should also change. An employee onboarding survey is not a document that can be approached as "Don't bend it, don't destroy it, keep it in a cover, it will last two years." If it is to bring measurable benefits to the company and have a positive impact on the hiring and onboarding process , it must be refreshed regularly.

Employee satisfaction survey - sample questions

If you already know what topics you want to deepen in the post-implementation survey, you need to give the employee a chance to talk about his or her impressions as precisely as possible. You can choose from many different types of new employee onboarding survey questions, such as the five-response Likert scale , 1-10 scale, and open-ended onboarding survey questions. However, to understand employee experiences better, it is worth asking open-ended questions so that employees can comment on a broader context.

Sample questions in an open survey may cover the topic of onboarding and assess the entire adaptation process, e.g.:

• Do you have a clear idea of what is expected of you in this job?
• Do you feel you have all the tools and resources to successfully perform your new responsibilities?
• Have your training programs prepared you to perform your tasks?
• What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far?
• What can we do to help you do your job even better?
• How helpful were conversations with your supervisor at work?
• What could we change or add to improve our onboarding process?
• What do you like most about our onboarding process?
• Is there anything you don't like about our onboarding process?

Closed questions will allow you to assess employee impressions on a scale, e.g.

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your onboarding experience?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your current job?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do you think you fit into the company culture?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how valued are you at work?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how welcome are you on your team?

Employee satisfaction survey: good practices and tools

If you already know what you want to find out, you can focus on the optimal form of the survey. The examination should be as short, specific and transparent as possible. All this so as not to take up too much of the user's time and not to tire him/her. 10 closed and three open questions are enough to gain adequate knowledge.

Various types of scales help in processing data. We can use, for example, a 5-point Likert scale measuring attitudes and beliefs. Its structure is simple - the scale has two opposing poles, at the end of which there are two opposing beliefs.

Sample question: Do you agree with the following statement?

At my new job, I received sufficient support from the managers during onboarding.

1. I strongly disagree
2. I tend to disagree
3. I have no opinion
4. I tend to agree
5. I definitely agree

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Also pay attention to communication. Employees completing any surveys must be aware of why they are doing it and how they can improve processes. The guarantee of anonymity will also be an important signal.

Online surveys will work well in everyday work. This form makes distribution and answering questions easier and more efficient. Results are collected faster than manually printed surveys, and we can automate them. Online surveys also encourage greater engagement due to greater accessibility.

Designing surveys, sending them to new hires, processing data - all this takes time. Technologies come to the rescue. An onboarding application equipped with a form/survey module will facilitate the process and save you a lot of time. When choosing an application, it is worth paying attention to additional, helpful functions such as the ability to generate reports and data visualization.

After implementation, the survey has been completed - what's next?

Once you have data from new hires, don't hide it in a drawer. After all, regular employee onboarding surveys are only a means to an end, and that is improving the onboarding program. It is good practice to monitor not only the results themselves, but also the degree to which the surveys are completed. If it does not exceed 75%, it is a sign that you need to work on the shape of the surveys and their communication.

When interpreting the results, let's mainly look at trends - do many employees in a specific area point to a similar problem? Does it occur in one team or throughout the company? Does it repeat itself despite the implemented corrective actions?

It is also essential to take other studies into account in the analysis. Then we can paint a full picture of the employee's life cycle and build his commitment at various stages.

Don't forget to communicate the survey results. Staff members devote their time and share their thoughts to improve company processes. If they have a sense of agency and are aware that the company cares about their opinion, their commitment will only be greater.

Do you want to conduct a survey after implementation? Check how the onboarding application can help you.

Test the Gamfi application for free!