Onboarding Insights: Crafting Best New Hire Survey Questions

Embarking on a journey with a new team member is a significant milestone for both employees and employers alike. To ensure a seamless onboarding process and continuously refine the experience, organizations turn to the invaluable insights gleaned from “New Hire Survey Questions”.

New Hire Surveys also known as Employee Onboarding Surveys. These targeted surveys play a pivotal role in understanding the perspectives of fresh talents, paving the way for a more productive and satisfying work environment.

Many things will pop up when you’re planning to hire new employees. You probably already gathered vital information like their favorite sports teams created flashcards or prepared desks for them. Then, you’ve arranged the most efficient area for orientation and training.

Unfortunately, one crucial thing may be missing in your plan, a new hire survey. This means you’ve to draft unique and detailed new hire survey questions. It’s the best way to gather data about employees and visualize it to help you answer every question in your survey questionnaire.

This article will help you understand what a new hire survey entails, the type of template to use, how to visualize your survey questions and the right tools to use. In this blog you will learn:

Table of Contents:

1. What are New Hire Survey Questions?
2. New Hire Survey Questions Examples
3. How to Glean Employee Onboarding Survey Question Responses?
4. How to Execute Employee Onboarding Survey?
5. Interactive Analysis of Data from New Hire Survey Questions
6. Benefits of a Good New Hire Survey
7. Wrap Up

What are New Hire Survey Questions?

Definition: “New Hire Survey Questions” refer to a set of inquiries designed to gather feedback and insights from recently hired employees about their onboarding and initial experiences with a company.

The purpose of these survey questions is to assess the effectiveness of the onboarding process, understand the new hires’ perspectives, and identify areas for improvement in the organization’s orientation and integration procedures.

A new hire survey, also widely known as an employee onboarding survey, is an important type of questionnaire used in the business world. Many businesses use the questionnaire to gather vital insights into workers’ experiences during their initial few months on the job.

There is a lot to know about new employees, and your survey will provide a systemized strategy to check in with them.

You won’t go wrong by conducting a new hire survey. The survey ideas allow you to do the following with much ease and confidence:

1. Understand which aspects of your employee onboarding process are or aren’t effective. The details you gather will help polish your onboarding process and make it more practical.
2. Easily identify things that affect workers’ productivity. If you notice your employees have been struggling, the survey will help identify issues that disconnect them from their expectations.
3. It helps reinforce workers’ morale within the shortest time possible. You don’t want to make new hires feel unsettled. So, you need to boost their morale by ensuring the onboarding procedure is perfect for pushing your company’s growth.
4. Identify and cater to new employees’ needs. Your survey will help assess individuals’ experience, especially in the first month of employment, and address any negative issues affecting their productivity. This personalized attention will help boost workers’ morale and retain the top talents.

New Hire Survey Questions Examples

When onboarding new employees, you’ve to get every step right. It is important for your new hires to understand everything that they need to get started on the right foot. This means you’ve to point them in the right direction.

One incredible way to create an appealing first impression is to use a new hire survey template. The template you choose should help develop an effective onboarding process that points the new hires in the right direction.

A reliable Employee Onboarding survey template will provide an initial snapshot of what goes on during the first weeks of the whole onboarding process. Use your template to assess what parts of your procedure are working or where to improve.

The onboarding survey questions you come up with are integral to the success of your procedure. Your survey can follow a template that makes it easy to create questions at the end of the first, third, and sixth months of new hires’ employment duration.

So, what your new hire survey examples or templates should look like or entail? Here you need to look at the questions to incorporate in your new hire questionnaire. Check out the following sample onboarding survey questions:

Week One: The Recruitment Experience and Initial Hire Impressions

1. Why did you want to be a part of this company?
2. Did you get every detail about the company during the recruitment process?
3. Were the goals and objectives of the onboarding clear?
4. Do you understand what is expected of you as a new employee and for the new position?
5. Were the company mission, values, and culture communicated to you properly?
6. Was the information provided on employee benefits clear enough?
7. Did you tour the company or any of its facilities?
8. Did the orientation involve chats with coworkers?
9. Were the managers or supervisors present during your first day of work?
10. How well were the supervisors prepared for the new employees’ arrival?

First Month: Duties and Management Impressions

1. Are your job duties what you expected?
2. Can you meet what is expected from you with your current skills or abilities?
3. Has the training been effective in meeting day-to-day job requirements?
4. Are you receiving valuable and timely feedback on your work?
5. Do you feel welcome by your coworkers?
6. Are you comfortable and satisfied reaching out to other workers?
7. Has your manager made you feel accepted in the company?
8. Have the supervisors helped make you excel in your new position?
9. Are you comfortable expressing any work-related concerns to team leaders or supervisors?

Month Two: Personal and Professional Growth

1. Do you feel accepted and happy working with your coworkers?
2. Is communication effective among your teammates?
3. Do you feel comfortable depending on your teammates?
4. Does the manager care about your professional and personal development?
5. Have your experiences so far matched your expectations?
6. Have your experiences given you an edge over coworkers?

Month Three: Work Performance

1. Do you feel the company goals are clear to everyone on your team?
2. Do your duties motivate you?
3. Do you understand how the company measures performance?
4. Do you feel valued in your current position?
5. Are you able to utterly utilize your strengths?
6. Do you understand the company’s future success plan and feel you are part of its plans?

Month Six: Continued Work Engagement

1. Are you happy and proud to work for this company?
2. Would you recommend that this company has a great workplace for friends or family members?
3. Have you considered looking for another job?
4. Where do you see yourself in two or five years to come?
5. Has your experience so far matched your ambitions and company expectations?
6. Is there something to be done and improve the onboarding process?
7. Is the company recruitment process effective?
8. What could one key thing be done exclusively to improve the onboarding experience?

How to Glean Employee Onboarding Survey Question Responses?

It is important to ask the right types of questions in your employee onboarding survey questionnaire. Here are strategies to utilize and rest assured of actionable responses:

• Keep It Short

Many employees may find more than 10 onboarding survey questions overwhelming, especially if they are in their first week of work. Therefore, keep the questions as simple and brief as possible.

• Mix It Up

The questions you ask in your survey are imperative. Try and opt for Open-Ended Questionnaires as well that allow employees to express themselves.

• Watch Your Wording

Avoid wording that can push new hires to skip open-ended questions. Instead, go direct on questions you find relevant for the onboarding process.

• Spur Honesty

New hires may fret about saying something wrong because they haven’t developed trust with their employer. Many fear giving negative feedback that may derail their chances of getting employed. Therefore, encourage them to be as honest as they can.

The good thing is that tools like Microsoft Forms and Google Forms provide a better way to collect and hire new questionnaire responses. However, you must know how to best use these forms to gather valuable data.

How to Execute Employee Onboarding Survey?

Steps to follow:

• Create a survey in Google Forms.
• Click on Send and Copy your form link to send it to target individuals.
• A specific scale will be provided for every response. For instance, it can include the following:
  • Strongly Dissatisfied
  • Dissatisfied
  • Neutral
  • Satisfied
  • Strongly Satisfied

• On the form, click on the plus icon to add the data to Google Sheets.

• You can go on and download the files in different formats if you wish to or share them with partners.

• Here you have all responses in Excel exported from Google Forms. Some hypothetical data has been added to populate the sheet.

Interactive Analysis of Data from New Hire Survey Questions

Excel is a spreadsheet application you can use to organize, store, and visualize data using charts and graphs.

You’re unlikely to find visualizations designed purposely to visualize new hire survey data. We’re not advocating you leave it. Install a particular third-party add-in in your spreadsheet tool to access survey graphs, such as the Likert Scale Chart.

The application is called ChartExpo.

What is ChartExpo?

ChartExpo is an add-in you can easily install in your Microsoft Excel to access charts for visualizing new hire survey questions.

ChartExpo is inexpensive. You’ll spend $10 every month only. Besides, you’re free to cancel your subscription anytime.

Also, you don’t need coding skills to generate insightful and ready-made new-hire survey charts for your stories.

How to Install ChartExpo in Excel?

1. Open your Excel application.
2. Open the worksheet and click on the “Insert” menu.
3. You’ll see the “My Apps”.
4. In the office Add-ins window, click on “Store” and search for ChartExpo on my Apps Store.
5. Click on the “Add” button to install ChartExpo in your Excel.

ChartExpo charts are available both in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Please use the following CTA’s to install the tool of your choice and create beautiful visualizations in a few clicks in your favorite tool.

Example

Discover the power of examining your new hire survey questions. Follow these easy steps to get started:

• To get started with ChartExpo, install ChartExpo in Excel.
• Now Click on My Apps from the INSERT menu.

• Choose ChartExpo from My Apps, then click Insert.

• Once ChartExpo is loaded. Click on “Likert Scale Chart” from the list of charts.

• Click the “Create Chart From Selection” button after selecting the data from the sheet, as shown.

• Use this Likert Scale and assign numbers to the responses.

• • 1 = Extremely dissatisfied
  • 2 = Dissatisfied
  • 3 = Neutral
  • 4 = Satisfied
  • 5 = Extremely satisfied

• The Likert Scale Chart will look as follows.

• If you want to have the title of the chart, click on Edit Chart, as shown in the above image.
• To change the title of the chart, click on the pencil icon that is available next to the Chart Header.
• It will open the properties dialog. Under the Text section, you can add a heading in Line 1, enable Show Give the appropriate title of your chart, and click on the Apply button.
• For saving changes click on Save Changes. This will persist the changes.

• The final chart will look as follows.

Insights

• 69% of employees indicated that they were satisfied with the overall onboarding experience and 22% of employees indicated that they were dissatisfied with the overall onboarding experience.
• 67% of employees indicated that the onboarding process met their expectations and 23% indicated that the onboarding process didn’t meet their expectations.
• 60% of respondents indicated that they were satisfied with the quality of training during onboarding and 22% indicated they were dissatisfied with the quality of training during onboarding.
• 64% of respondents indicated that they are satisfied with company culture and 28% indicated they are dissatisfied with company culture.
• Overall view, 65% of respondents have good onboarding experience. 30% of respondents have a really good onboarding experience. 25% had a bad onboarding experience. The Grey area represents neutral which means they had neither good nor bad, which is 11%.

Benefits of a Good New Hire Survey

The most imperative thing about a good onboarding survey is that it helps find out what’s working and where you are failing. Then, with a clear overview of what to do, you’ll go on and make the necessary improvements. More benefits of conducting a new hire survey to influence your decisions include:

• The survey helps ensure the new workers get off to a good start and have positive experiences.
• Employers get a chance to assess recruits during the first month of work and determine necessary changes to make in the whole assessment process.
• It increases employee retention rates as the odds are high that a company will get the best talents.
• Get a chance to face new employees and help them join your able team.
• Increases the likelihood of new employees recommending your company to future talents.
• It helps get more honest answers about your company, what it offers, and future expectations.

FAQs:

What is a New Hire Questionnaire?

This is a type of employee survey questionnaire that helps get to know much about a new worker by asking different questions. Common questions for your survey can be about work goals, preferences, and experience in onboarding.

What Onboarding Survey Questions To Ask New Hires?

Here are great questions to ask:

• How satisfied are you with the overall onboarding experience?
• How satisfied are you with the company culture you have experienced so far?
• How satisfied are you with the quality of training you received during onboarding?

Wrap Up

It is important to conduct a new hire survey and make a good first impression. The survey you conduct will help gain more insight into your new workers’ experience during their first few months on the job.

It’s the best way to help your new workers feel valued, included in the company plans, and set up for success. The questions you settle should stand out and make your questionnaire effective. You want to point your new hires in the right direction, so ensure the questions stand out.

Most importantly, figure out how to get the right responses. Early feedback provides timely insight into any obstacles in your onboarding procedures that may derail its success.

Do your homework, and feel free to rely on a tool like ChartExpo to visualize and analyze your survey data. If stuck, it is wise to seek help from onboarding process experts or learn from other employers on how they undertake their onboarding survey.