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Onboarding survey questions

Ask eight to twelve, three times: day 7, day 30 and day 90. Three are never cut: what was ready on the first day, whether the new starter knows what a good first three months looks like, and what surprised them. New starters are the only people in the company who can still see the things everybody else has stopped noticing.

An onboarding survey is worth running three times with identical questions, because the interesting figure is the movement between day 7 and day 90 rather than any single score. That means writing questions that survive being asked again.

The questions

Equipment and access

  1. Which check in is this for you?Single choiceRequired

    Day 7, day 30 or day 90. The same form runs three times, and this answer is what lets the three be compared.

  2. What did you have ready on your first day?Multiple choiceRequired

    Laptop, email, tool access, a desk or a plan, a written first week, somebody expecting you. Six ticks that tell you whether onboarding happened at all.

  3. What are you still waiting for?Multiple choice

    This one should be routed as a task, not filed as a report.

  4. How long did it take before you could do any real work?Single choice

  5. Did anybody walk you through the tools you use daily?Single choice

  6. Was your payroll and superannuation setup handled without chasing?Single choice

  7. Did you know where to go on your first morning?Single choice

The manager and the buddy

  1. My manager made time for me in my first weekRating gridRequired

    A five row agreement grid that repeats at every check in, which is what makes the three comparable.

  2. I know what a good first three months looks likeRating gridRequired

  3. My buddy has been easy to reachRating gridRequired

  4. I know who to ask when I am stuckRating gridRequired

  5. I have had a one to one that was not about logisticsRating gridRequired

  6. Have you met the people you need to work with?Single choice

  7. Has anybody explained how your team fits into the company?Single choice

  8. Do you know how your work will be reviewed?Single choice

The role itself

  1. How clear is your role to you now?Single choiceRequired

    1 to 5. Asked at all three check ins, this is the single number an onboarding programme is judged on.

  2. How does the job compare with how it was described when you interviewed?Single choice

    The question recruiting needs and almost nobody asks.

  3. Have you done real work yet, not just training?Single choice

  4. Do you have enough to do?Single choice

  5. Is the work at about the level you expected?Single choice

  6. How confident do you feel doing your job unsupervised?Single choice

  7. Which part of the job are you least sure about?Long text

What surprised them

  1. What surprised you, good or bad?Long textRequired

    The question that pays for the whole survey. It only works while the person is still new, which is the argument for asking at day 7.

  2. What would have made your first week easier?Long text

  3. What did we say in the interview that has not turned out to be true?Long text

  4. Knowing what you know now, would you take the job again?Single choice

  5. How likely are you to still be here in a year?Single choice

  6. Do you want somebody from the people team to follow up?Single choiceRequired

  7. Which team did you join?DropdownRequired

  8. How did you hear about the job?Dropdown

    Cheap to collect at this point and useful to recruiting, but keep it last, since it is the only question here that is about them rather than for them.

Which questions to make required

Eight are required and they are the ones that repeat at every check in: the check in marker, the first day list, the five manager and buddy rows, and role clarity. Those are what make the three waves comparable. The follow up question and the team are required too, because one decides whether anybody writes back and the other decides who reads it. The written questions stay optional.

The form built from these questions

A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.

0112

Which check in is this for you? *

The same form runs at three points, so this answer is what lets the three be compared.

↵Enter

Three ways to change this bank

For a site or hospitality role, replace the tools section with the induction: whether safety training happened before the first shift, whether the uniform and equipment fitted and arrived, and whether the first roster was given far enough ahead. Those three are the equivalent of laptop and access. For a shorter version, run five questions at each check in: the check in marker, what was ready, role clarity, what surprised you, and do you want a follow up. Five questions three times beats fifteen questions once. For a follow up wave, the day 90 round is itself the follow up, so add one question to it: what has changed since your last check in. Comparing a person against their own earlier answers is the only comparison in onboarding data that means much.

Questions people ask

When should onboarding surveys be sent?

Day 7, day 30 and day 90 is the common pattern and it works because the three answer different things. Day 7 finds the logistics failures while they still sting, day 30 finds role clarity, and day 90 finds whether the job matches the advertisement. Running only one of the three usually means running the wrong one.

Should the answers be anonymous?

No, and trying to make them anonymous defeats the purpose. A missing laptop is a task with a name on it, and a new starter who is struggling needs somebody to call them. Be honest about that on the first screen, and let them choose whether a follow up happens rather than pretending nobody will read it.

Will new starters answer honestly?

More honestly than most groups, and less so as the probation date approaches. That is another argument for day 7, when the person still feels like an observer rather than a member of staff. Route logistics answers as tasks and keep opinions away from anybody making a probation decision.

How long should each check in be?

Eight to twelve questions, repeated without change. The temptation is to make day 7 short and day 90 long, which quietly destroys the comparison the three rounds exist to produce. Keep the core identical at all three points and add at most one extra question to the final round.

What response rate should I expect?

High, usually the highest of any employee survey you run, because the audience is small, recently hired and keen to be helpful. If it drops below about two thirds, the usual cause is that the first round produced no visible action, which new starters notice faster than anybody.

Who should see the results?

The people team first, since most day 7 answers are tasks. Managers should see their own starters' role clarity answers, because that is the number they can move. Written answers about the interview belong with recruiting, and passing them on in the new starter's own words is what makes them land.

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On writing the questions themselves, read How to write survey questions. For everything the builder can do, see the form maker. Step by step: Create a conversational form with AI, then View, export and manage your responses.

Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .