You’ve done the interviews, hired the talent, onboarded them into the company. But the hard work isn’t done just yet.
An employee onboarding feedback survey is a questionnaire used to assess the satisfaction of recent hires with the onboarding process. Not only is it the perfect opportunity to hear more from your new employees, it is also a great way to measure the success and efficiency of the onboarding process.
Frequent onboarding surveys made during the first quarter of employment give important insights about employees first impression, helping identify if there are any problems with miscommunication or performance shortcomings during the process.
Golden rules of collecting Onboarding feedback is making it as brief (maximum 10 questions) and as easily accessible as possible and distributing questionnaires across employment milestones, ensuring relevancy and freshness of memories. Ideal frequency is first day, 1st week, 1st month and 3 months.
Using onboarding software such as Harmonise by Peoplise can help save time and automate feedback survey distribution ensuring timely delivery and enabling further reporting and data analysis.
Ideally the last onboarding evaluation session should be made one on one with HR, and include open-ended questions that help analyse whether new hire adapted to the new role and your organization has done everything to ensure they thrive.
So how exactly do you go about asking for onboarding feedback after first three month on the job? Here are 10 essential questions you should include in your conversation:
1) Do you feel you were provided with the right amount of information about your position and the company?
This is your opportunity to figure out if anything was missing. Do new hires feel confident with the amount of information they received during onboarding? Was it too little, or perhaps too overwhelming? No better time to find out than now.
2) Are you able to confidently use the technology and systems required by your position? What additional training might you need from us?
Not everyone is great with technology right off the bat, which is why onboarding is always a great time to get new hires familiarized with the internal systems required to perform their role. But do they now feel that the information and training provided to them was enough? Let’s find out!
3) Do you feel that you have received enough support from management and HR during onboarding?
Pretty self-explanatory – could you have been more involved throughout it all? Did you leave communication channels open? Let’s find out, shall we?
4) What was your first week of onboarding like? What tasks did you perform, and how useful were these in preparing you for your role?
Chances are, by this point you are several weeks (if not months) down the line. Figuring out just how well employees remember the initial stages of their onboarding is a good opportunity to weed out its less conductive aspects from its most useful ones. If all employees are singling out a certain activity as being the most useful in preparing them for their job, this is perhaps something that needs to be highlighted going forward. Similarly, if everyone is conveniently forgetting something, dare we say it’s time to reevaluate that one?
5) How many people from your team/from the company have you met? Do you feel welcome?
A big part of onboarding is introducing new hires to their colleagues and encouraging integration into the team. Were you successful in fostering a welcoming environment? Have the new hires met a good chunk of their team, and do they already feel that they are part of the community?
6) Do you feel that your job matches the job description you decided to apply for? What, if any, are the differences?
Often times, job descriptions can leave certain aspects of a position out. After several weeks in the company, though, new employees will have a pretty good understanding of whether they are doing the job that they actually applied for. By asking them whether there are any differences between the job and its description, you can better adjust job descriptions as necessary.
7) On a scale of 1 (extremely short) to 10 (extremely long), how would you rate the onboarding duration?
Did you ask too little or too much of your new hires? Did they feel ambushed by the length of orientation, or did they feel it wasn’t enough? No better way to find out than to just ask.
8) Do you have a good understanding of performance evaluation? Do you feel comfortable with the way your performance will be evaluated?
Has the onboarding process been successful in conveying how performance evaluations will be conducted? Are there any question marks as to what adequate productivity looks like, and how going above-and-beyond will be rewarded?
9) Were you given enough time to get acquainted with your manager, and do you feel comfortable working with them?
For many new hires, meeting their managers for the first time may be a source of anxiety. Getting this step over during the onboarding process, then allowing for additional meetings to build further trust and ease, is important in making sure everything runs smoothly in the following months.
10) Do you have any additional questions that weren’t answered during onboarding?
Not only will you now get a chance to answer any remaining questions, but you’ll get a better understanding of whether there should have been more time allocated to communication!