What to Ask in Onboarding Experience Surveys (with Free Template)

Start With an Onboarding Experience Survey Template

Using a survey template gives you a solid foundation for gathering meaningful feedback from new hires. Download the template below and follow these best practices:

• Timing: Start with the 7-day check-in to capture first impressions, then use it again at 30 and 90 days with minor adjustments. At days 30 and 90, employees can better assess culture fit and ongoing support systems. 
• Customization: Adjust the questions based on your company size, industry, and specific roles. Frontline roles need extra safety and equipment questions, while office positions require more focus on software access and digital tools. Manufacturing teams might need questions about compliance training, while retail workers benefit from questions about customer service preparation.
• Length: Keep each survey under 20 questions to maintain strong response rates.
• Distribution: Use the distribution methods best suited to your workforce. For non-desk employees, SMS links work best because every smartphone can open them without downloading apps or checking email regularly. Mobile-friendly surveys achieve much higher completion rates than email-only approaches, especially for frontline teams.

→ Get the Free Onboarding Survey Template to improve first impressions from day one. Includes 7-day, 30-day, and 90-day check-ins with ready-to-use questions, follow-up steps, and SMS-ready phrasing.

What Makes a Good Onboarding Survey

A strong onboarding survey is timely, easy to complete, psychologically safe, and clearly tied to action. When you check those boxes, new hires feel comfortable sharing honest feedback, and you get insights you can actually use.

• Timing: Experiences change quickly during a new hire's first months, so spread surveys across key milestones — day 7, day 30, and day 90 — to align with the different phases of onboarding. This multi-touchpoint approach keeps feedback relevant to each stage of the onboarding journey.
• Format: By meeting people where they already communicate, you boost response rates without adding extra tech hurdles. Most frontline and non-desk employees use their phones, but they don't necessarily check their inboxes often (if they even have email). Text-based, mobile-friendly surveys are far more likely to be seen and answered than email forms.
• Anonymity: New hires might worry that critical comments will come back to haunt them, so always reassure them that responses are confidential and aggregated. Psychological safety drives candor, and candid feedback uncovers the issues you can fix. 
• Clarity: Plain language beats jargon every time. If a question can't be explained in a single sentence, it probably doesn't belong. Anything longer than 20–25 straightforward questions invites fatigue and half-finished responses, which means you lose the very insights you're after. 
• Transparency: Spell out why you're collecting feedback and what you plan to do with it, and then follow through. Sharing a brief summary of the results and the actions you'll take (even small wins, such as faster equipment setup) shows that speaking up makes a difference. When employees see real change, they're far more likely to keep sharing honest, useful feedback throughout their tenure.

By focusing on the right moments, the right format, and a clear plan for using feedback, you turn onboarding surveys into a practical tool that can make each new hire’s experience smoother, smarter, and more connected from day one.

Best Types of Survey Questions to Include by Topic

Building your survey around key themes ensures you capture the insights that matter most for retention and performance. Each of these categories addresses an important factor in new hire success, from initial impressions to long-term integration.

Overall Satisfaction

Start with a pulse survey on how the whole experience feels to a new hire. A quick rating question: "On a scale of 1–10, how satisfied are you with your onboarding so far?" gives you a benchmark you can track cohort after cohort. Pair that question with a couple of follow-ups:

• "Would you recommend our onboarding program to a friend starting here?"
• "What one word best describes your first week?"

These snapshots flag early wins and reveal pain points. If scores dip below your internal target, drill deeper with open-ended interviews or a targeted follow-up survey.

Role Clarity

New hires decide quickly whether they can succeed in the job you hired them to do. Clarity around duties is one of the strongest predictors of early productivity. Ask questions like:

• "Do you understand what success looks like in your role?"
• "How confident are you in explaining how your work supports the team's goals?"
• "Which part of your job description still feels vague?"

Watch for answers that mention confusion about priorities, overlapping responsibilities, or unclear metrics. Those themes tell you it's time to tighten training resources or reinforce manager checkpoints.

Training Effectiveness

Training shapes the speed at which a new colleague reaches full contribution. If you want to shrink time-to-productivity, measure both content and delivery:

• "Was the training material easy to follow and relevant to your tasks?"
• "Do you feel prepared to perform your core responsibilities after the training sessions?"
• "Which topics need more depth or hands-on practice?"

High marks signal that course material aligns with day-to-day work. Low scores or frequent requests for extra practice suggest you should add job-shadowing, microlearning, or clearer reference guides.

Equipment & Resources

Nothing kills momentum faster than waiting for a laptop or system access. Ask directly:

• "Did you have all the tools and logins you needed by the end of your first day?"
• "Have any technical or physical resources slowed you down this week?"
• "Rate the ease of accessing information (policies, org charts, how-to guides)."

When several hires flag the same missing item, such as a software license or a missing PPE kit on the warehouse floor, you've identified a process gap that can be addressed before the next start date.

Team Integration

Feeling like part of the crew increases belonging and, by extension, retention. First-month integration questions should include:

• "Have you met everyone you'll work with regularly?"
• "Do you know whom to contact for quick help?"
• "How comfortable do you feel contributing ideas in team settings?"

If newcomers feel isolated, consider assigning an onboarding buddy or scheduling informal coffees. Track integration scores by department; large, distributed teams often need extra structure.

Manager Support

The manager relationship is the single best predictor of whether someone stays or bolts. Regular communication between managers and employees is important for early success. To keep a close eye on that bond, add:

• "How often does your manager check in on your progress?"
• "Are expectations and priorities communicated clearly?"
• "When questions arise, is your manager available and receptive?"

Consistently low scores here call for coaching managers on feedback cadence and expectation setting. You can also compare responses with broader engagement data to spot systemic leadership gaps.

Additional Question Categories to Consider

Once the essentials are covered, you can round out the survey with targeted prompts that surface nuanced insights. 

• Pre-boarding experience questions: "How clear was the communication before your first day?"  
• Culture and values questions: "Do you see a connection between our stated values and daily behavior?"
• Feedback channels questions: "Do you know where to raise concerns anonymously?"
• Open-ended improvement questions: "What's one thing we should add or remove from onboarding?" 
• eNPS questions: "On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work?" 

These extras help you refine touchpoints beyond the basics, ensuring your onboarding evolves with each cohort's lived reality.

How to Analyze the Feedback and Take Action

Treat every survey response as a data point that reveals why new hires stay, struggle, or thrive. Start by scanning for patterns. When several 30-day surveys flag "unclear training materials," you have a trend worth addressing. Most survey distribution platforms let you tag comments and track frequency, making it easier to spot recurring issues.

Break Feedback Into Cohorts

Segment your data by department, location, or manager. You might discover that warehouse hires rate equipment availability high while office hires struggle with software access. This precision prevents you from rolling out expensive, company-wide fixes that solve the wrong problem, like replacing all computer equipment rather than PPE. 

Prioritize Changes By Their Impact

When you're ready to act, use a simple effort-impact grid. Quick wins, such as updating a welcome checklist, go in the "high impact, low effort" box. Bigger projects, like rebuilding a training program, belong on a longer timeline. Share that roadmap with new hires so they see their feedback creating change. Failing to close the loop erodes trust and drags down future response rates.

Set Clear Ownership and Deadlines

If IT has two weeks to provision laptops for the next cohort, write it down and track it. If facilities need to prep lockers, uniforms, or safety gear for warehouse hires, make that timeline just as visible. 

Automation helps here by scheduling reminder surveys and letting managers track participation through dashboards. With Yourco, you can also send automated alerts and flag overdue tasks, which is a feature that isn’t always standard in other tools.

Continue to Iterate

View each survey cycle as a test. Adjust questions that didn't produce actionable insight, drop those nobody answered, and add new ones to explore emerging themes. This continuous improvement turns raw survey feedback into a stronger, faster experience for future hires.

Give Your Team A Voice and Turn Feedback Into Action

When you run thoughtful surveys, you unlock insights that help new hires settle in faster, stay longer, and perform better. Clear feedback shows you what's working, reveals hidden roadblocks, and fuels continuous improvement. 

The value of feedback depends on what you do next.

Yourco can help you with survey distribution. By sending mobile-friendly surveys over SMS, you substantially increase your ability to reach nearly every new hire — deskless or office-based — without requiring apps, logins, or training. Automated scheduling means each person receives the right questions on day 7, day 30, or day 90, and you see a clear dashboard of results ready for action. 

Try Yourco for free today or schedule a demo and see the difference the right workplace communication solution can make in your company.

FAQs

How often should I send onboarding surveys?

A three-touch timeline around days 7, 30, and 90 captures first impressions, early integration, and longer-term fit.

Will responses stay anonymous?

Yes, if you choose. Yourco’s survey and polls tools let you collect feedback anonymously or publicly, depending on what fits your goals. Anonymous responses often lead to more honest insights, especially around sensitive topics like safety or engagement.

What if my employees don't have a company email address or a smartphone?

SMS reaches any mobile phone, so workers can answer surveys quickly without logging into an app or checking email.