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This unique document allows new hires to share their first impressions and fresh ideas, providing companies with valuable insights to improve their processes, their position and their work environment. This promotes employee integration and helps identify staff expectations.
Whether you are a business owner, a member of senior management or a manager, you use every tool available to make sure your employees are satisfied with their work experience.
You have no doubt set up tools to listen to your employees, gather their expectations and concerns, and thereby improve workforce management within your company.
But you may have overlooked a simple yet very useful practice: the surprise report, an essential tool for evaluating new employees.
It lets you take advantage of the arrival of new hires, during an interview, to improve the employee experience using a structured document.
The surprise report (“rapport d’étonnement” in French) is an innovative HR tool that originated in Japan, designed to record and understand new employees’ first impressions and feedback shortly after they join the company. It serves as a guide and a template for managers and HR teams.
This report gives new hires the opportunity to freely express their observations and suggestions about everything that makes up their job, their setting and the work atmosphere: onboarding process, working conditions, organization, employee engagement, workplace well-being, and so on. This helps improve employees’ place within the company.
The approach allows managers and HR teams not only to pinpoint any weak spots in the onboarding process, but also to benefit from a fresh look at how the company is organized and at its potential shortcomings. This strengthens internal management.
The surprise report also fosters new hires’ sense of belonging by actively involving them in improving the organization of their new company.
It is also worth noting that some companies ask new hires to write this report from their very first day, to capture their impressions while they are still fresh. Although uncommon, this method captures important details that can be forgotten over time.
Used well, the surprise report is a goldmine of data and a valuable tool that it would be particularly costly not to exploit.
The insights drawn from a surprise report, which go beyond company onboarding practices alone, can help strengthen key aspects of the environment in which employees either thrive or, on the contrary, grow bitter. They provide valuable information for adjusting internal policies.
Since you are giving a voice to people who are still being onboarded and are still in their probationary period, nothing could be more natural than asking them about their experience of this onboarding phase: first-day welcome, receiving the welcome handbook, discovering their workstation, meetings with the new hire… All these steps, including training, are crucial to how the team functions and to employee satisfaction.
Are all the key stages of a new employee’s onboarding experienced positively? The employer has everything to gain from improving how this period is organized; it is often formative for the new hire and, to some extent, determines their level of involvement, offering many benefits..
The feedback gathered through the surprise report provides valuable data for refining the company’s recruitment strategy. By better understanding the expectations and experiences of your new talent during interviews, the HR department or external recruiters can adjust their selection criteria, messaging and communication channels, which improves human resources management.
By better understanding the expectations and experiences of your new talent, the HR department or external recruiters can adjust their selection criteria, messaging and communication channels.
For optimal implementation, it is advisable to provide a standard surprise report template as soon as the employee arrives. You can download this template so the employee can immediately note their first impressions and have a structured framework for expressing their observations. This template helps produce a clear, useful document.
Listening to the observations of a newcomer, often shaped by their studies, can only make them feel valued by showing that their opinion counts. This early recognition can create a sense of belonging and lead to excellent commitment to the company, strengthening employees’ place in the team and offering them more benefits.
Feeling heard and considered fosters the sense of being in the right place and therefore generates strong motivation. It will also boost their self-confidence and help them integrate well into the team they are joining.
Thanks to the feedback obtained through the surprise report, companies have the opportunity to discover or better understand chronic or one-off problems that are not very visible yet disruptive. This makes it possible to initiate changes and improvements in the work environment.
Whether it concerns the quality of collaboration tools, the offices or team dynamics, the insights gathered can lead to change. All these elements help strengthen the employer brand.
The surprise report also acts as a catalyst for improving internal communication.
By identifying any gaps or misunderstandings in how information is passed on, it allows communication channels to be adjusted and ensures that key messages about the company’s culture, strategy and goals are properly shared and understood. This optimizes internal communication and helps the team function better.
A newcomer, not yet steeped in the company’s knowledge or its past, can propose good ideas that have never been voiced internally to resolve certain issues. The fresh perspective of someone with different experiences is sometimes highly relevant and can bring significant benefits to the project.
The fresh perspective of someone with different experiences is sometimes highly relevant.
Finally, the surprise report can play a key role in strengthening and spreading company culture.
By asking new hires for their impressions of the organization’s values, norms and practices, the company makes sure that their immersion in a new culture is not only well received but also experienced positively day to day.
This helps maintain consistent values and fosters a positive, inspiring work environment
The surprise report should be systematically requested from every newly hired employee, including work-study students. Such an approach ensures fairness among all new members of the company and guarantees a comprehensive collection of everyone’s impressions and feedback, which helps improve human resources management.
Such an approach ensures fairness among all new members of the company and guarantees a comprehensive collection of everyone’s impressions and feedback.
Making this practice the norm gives the HR department regularly updated data, in sufficient volume to be used in defining internal policies and identifying areas in need of improvement.
So as not to overwhelm the employee with tasks and assignments in their first days, the ideal time to ask for a surprise report seems to be between 15 days and one month after their arrival. This allows for gradual onboarding and thorough observation over a meaningful period, whether on site or remotely.
During the first weeks, they have too much to discover to already share their questions and findings.
Later on, they risk already being absorbed by company life and losing their “naivety”.
It is also practical to request this report at the end of the probationary period, ensuring thorough observation over a meaningful period and decision-making based on their feedback.
The report should cover the first three months after the new employee joins the company. This period is long enough for the new hire to immerse themselves in the work environment, observe practices, understand the company culture and interact with colleagues and managers, while still staying close to their first impressions.
This period is long enough for the new hire to immerse themselves in the work environment, observe practices, understand the company culture and interact with colleagues and managers, while still staying close to their first impressions.
Rather than imposing the report, it is advisable to present it as an opportunity for the new employee to actively take part in the company’s continuous improvement. After a few days of onboarding, their direct manager or their manager’s manager makes the request during an interview that is part of the onboarding procedure.
It is helpful to make the newcomer’s task easier by giving them useful tips for writing their report. Without imposing an overly rigid format, you can provide a few structuring elements.
A well-structured surprise report makes feedback easier to understand and analyze. That said, it should not become an overly lengthy document: that would eat into the working time of the employee and of whoever analyzes the comments.
Three to five pages are generally enough. It should begin with a brief introduction of the new employee, including their position and start date, followed by their general first impressions of the company. The body of the report can be organized around several predefined themes, making the document easier to write and analyze.
What is mainly expected of a surprise report is observations, criticisms and suggestions about: the recruitment process, including requirements such as the baccalauréat (French high school diploma), the welcome given to new employees, the onboarding procedure, company culture, working conditions, collaboration tools, well-being and quality of work life, internal communication, relationships with colleagues and managers…
The employee is also invited to mention any dysfunctions they have noticed, as well as the things that won them over.
A surprise report is neither a lampoon nor a hagiography. It is essential that it remains constructive.
Criticism is acceptable, even desirable, as long as it is expressed respectfully and aims to help improve the company. It is wise to pair any criticism with concrete suggestions, allowing managers to consider appropriate solutions and improve human resources management.
It is wise to pair any criticism with concrete suggestions, allowing managers to consider appropriate solutions.
There are at least three mistakes the newcomer should not make:
Not writing their surprise report. Under various pretexts, some employees do not want to take part in this exercise. This is frowned upon and seen as a bad start.
Some companies ask the new hire to present their observations at a team meeting.
It is a good exercise, but be careful that it does not turn into a committee defending the company against any criticism!
The surprise report is generally analyzed by HR in collaboration with the new employee’s direct managers. This critical step requires careful reading to identify recurring themes, points of satisfaction and areas that need particular attention.
The analysis should be followed by discussion meetings to assess the feedback and consider appropriate corrective measures. The insights gathered through analyzing the surprise report can be built into the company’s strategic plan and serve as a basis for structural reforms or reorganizations if necessary, thereby improving how the company operates and is managed.
The insights gathered through analyzing the surprise report can be built into the company’s strategic plan and serve as a basis for structural reforms or reorganizations if necessary.
The surprise report is generally analyzed by HR in collaboration with the new employee’s direct managers. This critical step requires careful reading to identify recurring themes, points of satisfaction and areas that need particular attention.
The analysis should be followed by discussion meetings to assess the feedback and consider appropriate corrective measures. The insights gathered through analyzing the surprise report can be built into the company’s strategic plan and serve as a basis for structural reforms or reorganizations if necessary, thereby improving how the company operates and is managed.
The insights gathered through analyzing the surprise report can be built into the company’s strategic plan and serve as a basis for structural reforms or reorganizations if necessary.
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