New employees can give you valuable intelligence about the candidate and onboarding experiences you’re organization is providing.

You just need to ask the right questions at the right times. New employees’ insights can help you to improve the candidate and onboarding experiences, with positive impacts including:
• Reduced time to hire
• Reduced cost per hire
• Improved retention
• Increased talent pool size
• Increased employee productivity
• Increased employee engagement
• Strengthened company culture

Survey your new employees when their candidate and onboarding experiences are fresh in their minds. Our Connect the Dots Consulting experts suggest the following timing: after new hires’ first week, and after 30, 60 and 90 days on the job. Each occasion of the survey enables you to identify adjustments you should make to your hiring and onboarding processes—both at the organizational level and for individual employees. Subsequent surveys enable you to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of those adjustments, and to discover and correct any new problems that arise.

Below are 10 questions that our consultants recommend, as they produce valuable employee feedback.

The 10-Question Survey
1. Please describe the recruitment and selection process that you experienced.

2. What made you decide to join our organization?

3. Tell me about your role here. Is it different from what you expected? If so, how?

4. Please describe your first week on the job. How did you spend your time, and what were your experiences?

5. What role did your manager play in your first 90 days?

6. What role did HR play during your first 90 days?

7. What challenges did you face during your first 90 days?

8. How did you go about understanding how to navigate the culture? How long did that take?

9. Whom or what did you rely on to help you in your first 90 days?

10. What do you think our organization should do to help new leaders or associates successfully make the transition into the organization or community?

Pinpointing Problems and Identifying Solutions
When you have a reasonable sample, look for commonalities and patterns in the answers. These will help you pinpoint problems with your candidate and onboarding experiences and identify possible solutions.

For example, if many employees reported that your interviewing process was too time-consuming, consider ways to streamline it. If they noted that it took them a long time to feel like productive employees, perhaps try instituting short-term goals for new hires to achieve. Or if they said their managers weren’t involved much during their first 90 days on the job, communicate this to managers, and offer specific ways that managers can be more supportive of and involved in onboarding activities.

Keep Performing the Survey
Once you start performing the survey, don’t stop.

Surveying employees after their first 100 days will continue to improve and measure your hiring and onboarding processes. Plus there’s another important benefit: when you ask new employees for their feedback, it shows that your organization values them and their input.

So, if you haven’t done so already, now’s the time to get cracking on surveying employees after their first 100 days.