How to create an employee onboarding form in Microsoft Forms

Employee onboarding typically takes anywhere from three to six months, and 90 percent of employees determine whether they plan on staying during this period of time. That’s why it’s so important for HR teams to create effective employee onboarding forms that ask the right questions, ensure a smooth process, and use a new employee’s time wisely.

For many businesses, Microsoft Forms is the go-to solution for creating these kinds of online forms. While building a Microsoft Forms employee onboarding form can be simple, it’s important to know what to expect and include in the process. Follow along for a high-level overview of how to create a Microsoft Forms employee onboarding form to set yourself up for success.

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Microsoft Forms overview

One of the industry’s leading solutions, Microsoft Forms is an online form builder available to Microsoft 365 subscribers. With this program, users can create and customize their own unique forms or generate forms using the Microsoft Forms template gallery.

Steps for creating a Microsoft Forms employee onboarding form

There’s no one way to create the perfect Microsoft Forms employee onboarding form because your form will be unique to your organization. However, there are a few key steps to keep in mind during the form creation process to ensure yours includes all the necessary details to be effective.

1. Create your form or choose a template

First thing’s first: Generate your form. In Microsoft Forms, you can do this by either creating a new form or using a template. Unfortunately, Microsoft Forms is somewhat limited in its template selection and doesn’t offer an onboarding-specific template. This means you might spend more time editing a template that’s unrelated to onboarding to meet your needs than you would by simply building a custom form from scratch.

2. Title your employee onboarding form

While this may seem like an obvious step, the title you choose for your Microsoft Forms onboarding form is important. Not only does it make it clear to recipients what your form’s purpose is, but it’s also essential for organization — especially if your forms are updated from year to year or vary depending on department.

3. Insert your form fields

In Microsoft Forms, you’ll have seven basic form field templates (i.e., question types) to choose from. These include

• Choice
• Text
• Rating
• Date
• Ranking
• Likert
• Net Promoter Score

Using these question templates, you must add fields to your form that will help you gather the exact information you need. The fields you create will likely vary based on your exact preferences, but you may consider gathering the following basic data:

• First and last name
• Contact information
• Home address
• Birthday
• Job information, including position and start date
• Emergency contact information

When selecting your form fields, make sure to ask for all the information you need for a successful onboarding. Beyond gathering basic personal information, consider your industry or the position you’re filling and include fields for information that’s crucial to that role. For example, if you’re hiring in the manufacturing industry, consider asking about what kind of machinery new employees have experience operating.

4. Customize your form

Once you’ve added the necessary fields to your form, you can focus on the finishing touches. Microsoft Forms allows you to customize your form using custom layouts, backgrounds, and even background music. While the customization features of Microsoft Forms may be few, you can still use them to add some personality to your document and give your new employees a glimpse of your brand or company culture.

5. Share with employees

To share this form with your incoming employees, click the Collect Responses button at the top of the form. Microsoft Forms allows you to share your form using a link or QR code, including it in an email, embedding it on your website, or sharing it on social media.

While creating a Microsoft Forms employee onboarding form may be straightforward, your options are limited. This solution also requires more legwork than others to create a relatively simple form. To accelerate this process and create a more personalized form, consider using a free Microsoft Forms alternative like Jotform.

Easy steps for creating an employee onboarding form with Jotform

Jotform is a powerful, free-to-use online form builder with a user-friendly interface designed to make form creation a breeze. With Jotform, creating an employee onboarding form is simple — especially since it features an extensive form template library. Quickly create your employee onboarding form in just a few clicks:

1. Choose your Jotform template and click the Use Template button to open the Form Builder.
2. Your chosen template may already fit your needs, but if not, you can drag and drop new form elements from the Form Elements menu on the left. Simply click the Add Elements button to see your options.
3. Once your form is complete, make sure the title matches your needs and then click the Publish button to choose your sharing options. You can easily share Jotform forms through email, links, QR codes, social media, and more third-party solutions, as well as by embedding it on your website.

If you’re looking for the best possible template for your business, Jotform has thousands of options to choose from, including more than 200 employee-specific templates such as

• Employee information forms
• Onboarding forms
• New employee details forms
• Employee registration forms
• Employee availability forms

Plus, creating employee forms from scratch is easy using Jotform’s drag-and-drop Form Builder. This allows you to fully customize your form with a wide range of form elements that you can adjust to fit your exact needs.

You can also fully customize both new and templated forms to match your company’s branding. Jotform Form Builder allows you to easily add your company logo and brand colors, update fonts and backgrounds, and add personal flair that will make your form unique and appealing to incoming employees. 

Jotform employee onboarding forms also have the added benefit of being connected to the full suite of Jotform products — adding an extra layer of efficiency to your onboarding process. With the help of Jotform Workflows, for example, your HR team can automate the onboarding approval process. They can even use automated workflow templates designed specifically for HR to save time.

If you decide to use Microsoft Forms to create your employee onboarding form, make sure to customize your form’s fields and branding to meet your needs. But keep in mind that solutions like Jotform may make this process smoother — saving your team time and money.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov