Build Your New Hire Surveys

The following recommendations are a compiled list from our People Element experts of overall best practices when designing your new hire surveys.

Read this article for standard tips we recommend for all surveys.

Survey Design

It's not uncommon for a new hire survey to have similar questions used in exit surveys. This helps to easily compare the employee experience across their lifecycle.

An important metric to track is your employees intention to stay with your organization. This question is included in the new hire survey template and asks new hires "I plan to be here at least 1 year from now". This turnover prediction metric tracks the likelihood of employees to stay with your organization. Having this data point helps pin-point potential barriers to address before new hires decide to leave.

Also included in the new hire survey template is an eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) question that measures an employees willingness to recommend your organization to others. eNPS is a simple and effective way to gauge employee satisfaction and determine if they view the organization as a desirable place to work. Adding this key metric to your overall assessment of the employee experience can provide valuable insights.

Survey Settings

Set up

Always On - this will keep your survey open forever to allow for continuous feedback as new hires enter the organization.

Assign Participants

Trigger Events - our platform can automatically assign your new hire survey to your list of participants who meet the criteria of the trigger event. For example, if you want your new hire survey to be assigned to employees on their 45-day anniversary and allow them to respond to the survey until their 90-day anniversary, use the trigger set up shown below. The example below also excludes anyone that terms so that those employees are not asked to complete the survey.

Using trigger events does not mean survey invited will automatically send to employees once assigned to the survey. Set up your survey invitations in the Email/SMS/Kiosk section.

The timing for assigning new hire surveys can vary among organizations and depends on factors such as the onboarding process, timeline, and when most turnover occurs. It is important to launch the new hire survey after employees have completed the onboarding process and have had sufficient experience with the organization to provide meaningful responses to the survey questions. If you are running onboarding surveys, make sure to leave time between the last onboarding survey and your new hire survey so that new employees do not experience survey fatigue.

Email/Text/Kiosk

Email & SMS - With always on surveys you wants to use "select day of week" to send your survey invitations via email and/or SMS. This allows the notifications to automatically send on the selected day of the week to assigned participants that have not yet completed the survey (up to 4 emails)

Kiosk - We recommend using kiosk mode to reach out to audiences who might not have access to email or SMS. Provide a kiosk weblink to your participants in onboarding and training. You could also create a QR code for participants to use to easily access their survey via a mobile device.

Phone Collection

Effectively capture feedback from your hard-to-reach population or provide your survey participants more opportunities to debrief their experiences and feel heard. Reach out to your People Element contact about incorporating phone interviews into your data collection methodology.

Complete a full survey quality check prior to launching your survey. Utilize our survey pre-launch checklist here.