An engaging, effective onboarding experience helps new hires integrate quicker and more smoothly into their new environment. One great way to do this is to use a new employee questionnaire to welcome them. This allows your company to get to know them, understand how they feel in their first days on the job, and make adjustments to accommodate them better if necessary.
According to BambooHR, employees who experience effective onboarding feel up to 18 times more committed to their job and company, while 89% say it helped them feel highly engaged at work. This article discusses the importance of a new employee questionnaire and what questions you can include to create a well-rounded, comprehensive questionnaire.
Contents
What is a new employee questionnaire?
Why is a new employee questionnaire important?
35 questions to include in your new employee questionnaire
New employee questionnaire questions template
Best practices for creating a new employee questionnaire
What is a new employee questionnaire?
A new employee questionnaire—also called a new hire questionnaire, new employee survey, employee onboarding survey, or onboarding questionnaire—is a tool HR uses to collect information about new hires, set expectations, and establish an effective communication channel.
This questionnaire can improve the onboarding experience by ensuring a smoother transition for new hires and identifying areas for improvement. The responses you gather can help you streamline the onboarding process, provide better resources, and ensure new employees feel cared for. This, in turn, leads to increased job satisfaction, retention rates, and productivity.
When crafting an onboarding questionnaire, you should structure questions to welcome new hires and gather important details. This means including questions about personal information, professional background, role expectations, communication preferences, and feedback on the new staff’s onboarding process.
Why is a new employee questionnaire important?
A new employee questionnaire can set a positive tone for new hires and give them a good impression of the company. Asking the right questions encourages new employees to open up, allowing their teams to get to know them better and establishing a culture of trust and transparency.
It also helps you identify their needs, so you can provide the resources or tools they need to do their jobs well. Additionally, it can help new hires avoid potential misunderstandings and navigate challenges, such as uncertainty about responsibilities and adjusting to company culture.
A new employee questionnaire also gives managers insights into new team member’s strengths and areas for improvement so they know how best to support them. The new hire questionnaire helps integrate the new employees into their respective teams. Effective support during the early days of employment can lead to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates. New employees feel valued and are more likely to stay with the company long-term.
Learn the skills you need to create the best new employee questionnaire
The ability to optimize the onboarding process using a well-rounded, effective new employee questionnaire is invaluable for an HR professional.
In AIHR’s HR Generalist Certificate Program, you will learn the skills you need to attract, develop, and retain employees by engaging with them across the seven stages of the employee lifecycle — starting with attracting and onboarding talent.
This online, self-paced Certificate Program will also teach you how to create a memorable onboarding experience, drive employee engagement, and become an effective communicator.
35 questions to include in your new employee questionnaire
If your company has a diverse workforce, you might want to tailor the questions to various groups to ensure their relevance. A good approach would be to include some consistent questions for all new hires and other questions tailored to suit their level, role cluster, or location.
Here are the different types of questions you can include in your new employee questionnaire:
Personal background questions
These questions will help you get to know a new hire personally, which can help you tailor their onboarding experience to suit them better.
- What is your preferred name?
- Which languages do you speak fluently?
- What inspired you to pursue a career in this industry?
- Have you lived in different cities or countries? If so, where?
- What are your hobbies or interests outside of work?
Questions on work preferences
These questions confirm a new hire’s understanding of their role and help you accommodate them better so they can perform well and remain engaged.
- Do you prefer receiving feedback in person, virtually, or in writing?
- What type of work environment do you find most conducive?
- How do you manage your workload and prioritize tasks?
- How do you handle stress or heavy workloads?
- How do you approach problem-solving or tackling new challenges?
“When asking about a new hire’s work preferences, it’s important to confirm the organization can accommodate them. For example, if a new employee prefers working remotely or prefers feedback in writing, communicate this to their line manager for their consideration. This exchange is critical for managing expectations and exceptions upfront.”
Logistical questions
These questions allow you to understand a new employee’s logistical needs and preferences so you can provide the necessary tools and resources to support them in carrying out their duties.
- Do you have any specific needs for your workspace (e.g., ergonomic equipment, quiet spaces, etc.)?
- Are there any specific accommodations you require to do your job more effectively?
- What is your preferred work setup (e.g., remote, hybrid, in-office)?
- How would you like to be contacted at work (e.g., by email, instant messaging, or phone)?
- Were there any technical issues or delays during your onboarding process?
Questions on professional goals
These questions help you understand a new hire’s career aspirations so that you can align them more closely with company objectives.
- What are your short-term career goals (i.e., over the next year or two)?
- Are there specific skills you’d like to develop while working here?
- How can we support your professional growth?
- Are there any specific projects or responsibilities you’d like to take on to help you grow professionally?
- What are your long-term professional goals?
Cultural fit questions
These survey questions for new hires help evaluate their understanding of the company’s culture and values and ensure they feel welcome.
- Which aspects of our company culture do you like the most?
- How do you prefer to celebrate team achievements or successes?
- What values are most important to you in a workplace?
- What company activities or events would you be interested in participating in?
- What type of recognition or reward system do you find most motivating?
Onboarding feedback questions
These new hire onboarding survey questions help ensure the new hire understands the onboarding process and feels comfortable with the upcoming steps.
- How would you rate your onboarding experience so far?
- What additional information or resources would have been helpful during your onboarding?
- Do you feel prepared and equipped to perform your role effectively after onboarding?
- Were you able to access all the necessary resources to start your role comfortably?
- How can we improve the onboarding experience for future new employees?
Fun questions
These questions help a new employee build rapport and find common ground with their new team members. Marna says, “To get new hires to share openly, it’s useful to share past responses from their team members to the same questions. This shows that the questions’ purpose is to get to know one another better.”
- If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?
- What’s your favorite book, movie, or TV show?
- If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
- If you could have lunch with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
- What’s an interesting fact about yourself you’d like to share?
Download the new employee questionnaire sample questions in a PDF format:
Best practices for creating a new employee questionnaire
Marna advises staggering questions to align them with where new employees are in their onboarding journey and to what extent they can provide input.
She says, “Starting with personal preferences is good during the initial onboarding phases, whereas questions around culture and experience are best answered later in the onboarding journey to avoid recency bias and to get accurate insights.”
Here are some other best practices to bear in mind when crafting your new employee questionnaire:
Make the questionnaire concise but comprehensive
Your questions should cover the most critical information as concisely as possible. Too many questions can be overwhelming and can lead to survey fatigue. However, if you ask too few questions, you may miss essential details.
Make sure new hires can complete the questionnaire in 10 to 15 minutes, and group related questions together to make the questionnaire more cohesive and accessible. Your questions should focus on role expectations, the onboarding experience, and cultural fit. Strike a balance among categories and ensure they cover different relevant topics.
Align questions with business goals
Apart from getting to know new employees, your questions should align with broader HR and business goals. This ensures the responses directly contribute to improving the organization. It also keeps the questionnaire focused and strategic, so you act on areas that need improvement.
Start by identifying your HR objectives, such as increasing retention and engagement or developing more training programs. Once you’ve set your goals, write your questions around them. For instance, if you want to retain top employees, asking questions about the onboarding process and job satisfaction provides insights you can use to address this area.
Mix open-ended and multiple-choice questions
Multiple-choice questions provide easy-to-analyze data, while open-ended questions give more qualitative information. Combining both questions yields comprehensive and actionable insights.
Your new hire onboarding survey should have multiple-choice questions for straightforward topics, like rating their satisfaction with the onboarding process or work environment. Add open-ended questions to capture detailed feedback about their challenges, suggestions for improvement, or initial experience.
For every five multiple-choice questions, include one to two open-ended questions to balance structured and flexible responses. For example, “How would you rate your onboarding experience?” could be followed by “What improvements would you suggest for the onboarding process?”
HR tip
Before officially rolling out your new employee survey, pilot tests the questionnaire with a small group of employees or HR staff to ensure clarity and effectiveness. The dry run can help identify confusing questions, technical issues, or gaps in the survey that might need adjusting before sending it out to new hires.
Set expectations and explain the questionnaire’s purpose
Setting clear expectations about why new employees need to answer onboarding questions builds their trust and encourages them to participate in the survey. They are also likelier to be honest in their responses, knowing you’ll act on their feedback and that it’s not just a formality.
Begin your questionnaire with a brief explanation of its importance and purpose. Elaborate on this by explaining how you’ll use the new hire’s feedback to enhance the onboarding process for future employees. This will make their participation in the survey more purposeful.
Know when and how often to administer the questionnaire
Timing is crucial when collecting vital feedback. Administering the survey too early or too late can lead to incomplete insights or outdated feedback.
Give the onboarding survey after the first week to evaluate immediate impressions. Give another questionnaire after the first month to gauge how well the new employee has settled in with his role and the organization. Follow-up surveys at 3-6 months to assess long-term integration.
HR tip
Most people spend a lot of time on their smartphones, so be sure to make your new employee questionnaire mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and responsive across different devices. This will make it more convenient for new hires to participate in the survey and as such, improve response rates.
Avoid questions that are too personal or inappropriate
Your survey questions should not be overly personal, as such questions can make new employees uncomfortable, reduce their trust in HR and the onboarding process, and give them a poor impression of the company. A good rule to follow is to avoid questions about sensitive personal information like religion, marital status, or medical history.
All questions, even informal ones, should be sufficiently professional. For instance, don’t ask, “Are you planning to start a family soon?” This kind of question is highly personal and completely irrelevant to work, culture fit, and team dynamics. It could also drive an employee to file a complaint against the asker.
Instead, stick to job—and workplace-related questions. For example, even personal background questions like “Which languages do you speak fluently?” must have some professional relevance (in this case, this detail may be necessary if the company has a global workforce or clientele).
Additionally, while ‘fun’ questions are informal and designed to get to know new hires on a more personal level, they should also avoid asking for any sensitive personal information. For instance, it’s okay to ask what superpower a new employee would like to have but not why they have or don’t have children.
Use the collected data to make meaningful changes
Make your new employee questionnaire worthwhile by acting on the data you collect from it. This data should guide the decision-making process to improve the onboarding experience for future hires and help address concerns promptly for current employees.
Analyze the data regularly to identify trends and areas for improvement. For example, if several new hires mention unclear role expectations, you can refine your job descriptions and onboarding process. Share the results with managers and leadership to improve in specific areas, such as training programs, communication strategies, and team integration.
To sum up
A well-crafted new employee questionnaire is a valuable HR tool for onboarding new hires and fostering a positive work environment. Gathering essential information on new employees allows you to create a more tailored experience for each of them. This not only improves their initial transition but also builds a strong foundation for long-term engagement, job satisfaction, and retention.
To maximize your onboarding survey’s impact, ask the right mix of questions by balancing multiple-choice and open-ended formats while aligning them with broader business objectives. Additionally, acting on the data you collect shows new hires their feedback can drive meaningful change.
This makes a well-designed new employee questionnaire instrumental in creating a more inclusive, efficient, and supportive workplace culture.
