42 Essential Onboarding Survey Questions for 2026 (Free Template)
Johannes
Co-Founder @ Formbricks
12 Minutes
February 5th, 2026
A well-designed employee onboarding survey is the difference between new hires who thrive and those who quietly disengage. Research shows that organizations with strong onboarding processes improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%. But without the right onboarding survey questions, you're flying blind.
This guide delivers exactly what you need: 42 proven onboarding survey questions organized by timing and category, plus a free template you can deploy today. Whether you're building your first new hire onboarding survey or optimizing an existing onboarding feedback survey, these questions will help you gather actionable insights at every stage of the employee journey.
What you'll learn:
- Pre-boarding and Day 1 survey questions
- Week 1 new hire survey questions
- 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day onboarding experience survey questions
- Post-onboarding survey questions for long-term tracking
- Best practices for survey implementation
- Free downloadable template
Let's dive into the questions that will transform your onboarding process.
Why Onboarding Surveys Matter: The Business Case
Before we explore the questions, let's understand why an onboarding satisfaction survey is critical for your organization:
- 30% of employees leave within their first 90 days (Jobvite)
- 69% of employees who experience great onboarding stay for 3+ years
- Companies with structured onboarding see 62% greater productivity among new hires (Harvard Business Review)
An employee onboarding questionnaire isn't just an HR checkbox—it's a strategic tool that directly impacts retention, engagement, and your bottom line.
Pre-Boarding Survey Questions (Before Day 1)
The onboarding experience starts before a new hire's first day. A pre-boarding survey helps ensure your new employee feels prepared and excited to join your team.
Questions 1-5: Pre-Boarding Experience
1. Did you receive all necessary information about your first day (start time, location, dress code, parking)?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Reduces first-day anxiety and shows organizational competence.
2. How clear was the communication you received between accepting the offer and your start date?
- Scale: 1-5 (Very unclear to Very clear)
- Why it matters: Identifies gaps in your pre-boarding communication workflow.
3. Were you provided access to required systems and accounts before your first day?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Technical readiness directly impacts time-to-productivity.
4. How excited do you feel about starting your new role?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not excited to Extremely excited)
- Why it matters: Baseline measurement for tracking engagement trajectory.
5. Is there anything that would have made your pre-boarding experience better?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Captures specific improvement opportunities you might miss.
Day 1 & First Week New Hire Survey Questions
The first week shapes lasting impressions. These new hire orientation survey questions capture feedback while experiences are fresh.
Questions 6-12: First Day Experience
6. Did you feel welcomed on your first day?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not at all to Extremely welcomed)
- Why it matters: First impressions predict long-term engagement. Companies like Zappos use this metric to evaluate their culture-first approach.
7. Was your workspace (physical or virtual) ready when you arrived?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Twitter discovered that IT setup delays were a top frustration, leading them to streamline equipment provisioning.
8. Did you meet your direct manager on your first day?
- Scale: Yes / No
- Why it matters: Manager connection on Day 1 correlates with higher 90-day retention.
9. Were you introduced to your immediate team members?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Social integration accelerates belonging and reduces early turnover.
10. How would you rate the pace of information shared during your first day?
- Scale: Too slow / Just right / Too fast
- Why it matters: Asana found that information overload was a common complaint, prompting them to drip-feed content over time.
11. Did you receive a clear schedule or agenda for your first week?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Structure reduces anxiety and sets expectations.
12. What could we have done differently to improve your first day?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Direct feedback for quick wins.
Questions 13-18: Week 1 Onboarding Experience Survey
13. How would you rate the clarity of your role expectations after your first week?
- Scale: 1-5 (Very unclear to Very clear)
- Why it matters: HubSpot tracks this relentlessly—they improved clarity scores by 40%, directly reducing ramp-up time.
14. Do you have access to all the tools, systems, and resources you need to do your job?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Spotify learned that engineers needed earlier access to dev environments—addressing this reduced idle time.
15. Have you received adequate training on the processes relevant to your role?
- Scale: 1-5 (No training to Comprehensive training)
- Why it matters: Identifies training gaps before they impact performance.
16. Do you know who to contact if you have questions about your work?
- Scale: Yes / No
- Why it matters: Shopify created clearer organizational charts after feedback revealed confusion about support channels.
17. How well do you understand how your role contributes to the company's goals?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not at all to Completely)
- Why it matters: Role alignment predicts engagement and discretionary effort.
18. What tools, resources, or information do you wish you had access to during your first week?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Slack discovered new sales hires consistently requested more competitive battle cards, leading to a specialized sales-readiness kit.
30-Day New Hire Onboarding Survey Questions
At the 30-day mark, new employees have formed meaningful impressions about their role, team, and company culture. This new employee survey captures insights when the honeymoon period is ending.
Questions 19-26: 30-Day Checkpoint
19. How well did your manager support you during the onboarding process?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not supportive to Extremely supportive)
- Why it matters: Meta uses this feedback to contribute to internal manager scorecards. Adobe found strong correlations between manager support scores and first-year retention.
20. Does your actual job match the description provided during recruitment?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not at all to Exactly)
- Why it matters: Misalignment here is a leading cause of early turnover.
21. How integrated do you feel with your team?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not integrated to Fully integrated)
- Why it matters: Social belonging is a key predictor of retention.
22. Have you had regular 1-on-1 meetings with your manager?
- Scale: Yes, weekly / Yes, bi-weekly / Rarely / Never
- Why it matters: LinkedIn uses this to identify managers who need coaching on new hire support.
23. How would you rate the quality of training you've received so far?
- Scale: 1-5 (Poor to Excellent)
- Why it matters: Training effectiveness directly impacts time-to-productivity.
24. Do you understand how your performance will be evaluated?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Clarity on metrics reduces anxiety and improves focus.
25. How proud are you to work for this company?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not proud to Extremely proud)
- Why it matters: Employee pride predicts advocacy and retention.
26. What has been your biggest challenge or frustration during onboarding?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Twitter used this feedback to discover and fix IT setup delays. Prioritize fixes based on frequency of mentions.
60-Day Employee Onboarding Survey Questions
The 60-day mark reveals how well new hires are adapting to their roles and integrating with company culture. This onboarding experience survey goes deeper into performance and alignment.
Questions 27-33: 60-Day Assessment
27. How confident do you feel about being successful in your new role?
- Scale: 1-10
- Why it matters: IBM correlates initial confidence scores with six-month performance reviews. Accenture flags low scores for personalized mentor follow-ups.
28. Which aspects of our company culture have you observed, and how do they align with your expectations?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Patagonia uses this to confirm their environmental ethos is immediately apparent. Buffer checks if radical transparency shows up in daily work.
29. Do you feel you have opportunities for growth and development here?
- Scale: 1-5 (No opportunities to Many opportunities)
- Why it matters: Lack of growth visibility is a top driver of early turnover.
30. How effective is communication within your team?
- Scale: 1-5 (Very ineffective to Very effective)
- Why it matters: Communication breakdowns create friction that compounds over time.
31. Do you feel comfortable providing feedback to your manager?
- Scale: 1-5 (Very uncomfortable to Very comfortable)
- Why it matters: Psychological safety predicts team performance and innovation.
32. How well do the company's values align with your own?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not aligned to Perfectly aligned)
- Why it matters: Value alignment predicts long-term retention and engagement.
33. What additional training or development would be most valuable for your success?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Amazon customizes technical training paths based on this feedback. Salesforce uses responses to create role-specific learning journeys.
90-Day Post-Onboarding Survey Questions
The 90-day post onboarding survey marks the traditional end of the onboarding period. These questions assess overall effectiveness and predict long-term success.
Questions 34-42: 90-Day Comprehensive Review
34. Overall, how would you rate your onboarding experience?
- Scale: 1-10
- Why it matters: Your primary benchmark metric for onboarding effectiveness.
35. Would you recommend this company as a great place to work?
- Scale: 1-10 (Employee Net Promoter Score)
- Why it matters: eNPS is a leading indicator of retention and referral hiring success.
36. Do you see yourself working here in two years?
- Scale: Yes / Unsure / No
- Why it matters: Microsoft found strong correlations between this response and actual retention rates.
37. How productive do you feel in your role?
- Scale: 1-5 (Not productive to Very productive)
- Why it matters: Self-reported productivity often aligns with manager assessments.
38. What motivated you to choose our company over competitors?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Salesforce uses this to sharpen their "Ohana" culture messaging. Google analyzes responses to align their employer brand with actual hiring drivers.
39. Have you established relationships with key stakeholders you'll work with regularly?
- Scale: Yes / Partially / No
- Why it matters: Cross-functional relationships predict collaboration effectiveness.
40. How has your perception of the company changed since you started?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Reveals gaps between employer brand and employee reality.
41. What would you change about the onboarding process for future new hires?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Crowdsource improvements from those who just experienced the process.
42. Is there anything else you'd like to share about your onboarding experience?
- Type: Open-ended
- Why it matters: Catches insights that structured questions might miss.
Onboarding Survey Questions by Category: Quick Reference
| Question Title | Implementation Complexity 🔄 | Resource Requirements ⚡ | Expected Outcomes 📊 | Ideal Use Cases 💡 | Key Advantages ⭐ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What motivated you to choose our company over competitors? | Moderate – Requires qualitative analysis & follow-ups | Medium – Time for interviews and analysis | Insights on employer branding and competitive advantages | Employer branding, recruitment strategy | Provides competitive intelligence; validates messaging |
| How would you rate the clarity of your role expectations after your first week? | Low – Rating scale based, easy to implement | Low – Simple surveys and basic data tracking | Measurable onboarding effectiveness, identifies communication gaps | Onboarding performance measurement, manager evaluation | Easy benchmarking; correlates with retention |
| What tools, resources, or information do you wish you had access to during your first week? | Moderate – Open-ended requiring qualitative review | Medium – Analysis and resource development | Identification of onboarding resource gaps | Improving onboarding resource availability | Reveals blind spots; actionable improvements |
| How well did your manager support you during the onboarding process? | Moderate – Mixed qualitative and quantitative | Medium – Surveys plus manager development resources | Measures manager performance and support quality | Manager coaching and onboarding success | Directly links to employee retention; targeted manager feedback |
| Which aspects of our company culture have you observed so far, and how do they align with your expectations? | Moderate – Qualitative with some subjective responses | Medium – Survey design and cultural analysis | Validates cultural integration and messaging consistency | Assessing culture fit and onboarding cultural alignment | Identifies cultural blind spots; predicts long-term fit |
| What has been your biggest challenge or frustration during the onboarding process? | Low to Moderate – Direct question, mostly qualitative | Low to Medium – Requires qualitative feedback review | Prioritizes pain points to improve onboarding experience | Continuous onboarding improvement | Focuses improvement on high-impact issues; drives change |
| How confident do you feel about being successful in your new role? | Low – Simple rating with possible follow-ups | Low – Quick surveys | Predicts employee success and retention | Early identification of at-risk employees | Strong predictor of performance; enables early interventions |
| What additional training or development would be most valuable for your success in this role? | Moderate – Open-ended, requires ongoing follow-up | Medium – Learning program alignment and resource allocation | Identifies personalized development needs | Customized learning and development planning | Increases engagement; aligns training with actual needs |
Best Practices for Implementing Onboarding Surveys
Collecting feedback is only valuable if you act on it. Here's how to maximize impact from your new hire feedback survey:
1. Time Your Surveys Strategically
| Timing | Focus | Response Window |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-boarding | Preparation & excitement | 1-2 days before start |
| Day 1 / Week 1 | First impressions & logistics | Within 48 hours |
| 30 days | Integration & role clarity | Day 28-32 |
| 60 days | Culture fit & development | Day 58-62 |
| 90 days | Overall effectiveness | Day 88-92 |
2. Keep Surveys Concise
Limit each survey to 5-10 questions. New hires are already overwhelmed—respect their time.
3. Guarantee Anonymity
Ensure responses are confidential, especially for manager-related questions. New hires won't provide candid feedback if they fear repercussions.
4. Close the Feedback Loop
When you identify a systemic issue, communicate the changes you're making. This builds trust and shows feedback matters.
5. Segment Your Data
Analyze responses by department, role, manager, and location. Patterns reveal where to focus improvement efforts.
6. Track Trends Over Time
Compare cohorts to measure whether process changes are working. Benchmark against industry standards.
Free Onboarding Survey Template
Ready to implement these questions? Formbricks offers a free, privacy-first onboarding survey template that you can deploy in minutes—no engineering required. For a complete VoC program that includes onboarding surveys along with other feedback methods, check out our voice of customer templates.
What's included:
- Pre-configured survey with all 42 questions
- Automated triggers for 30/60/90-day distribution
- Anonymous response collection
- Analytics dashboard for tracking trends
- Export capabilities for deeper analysis
From Questions to Action: Transform Your Onboarding
The 42 onboarding survey questions in this guide give you a complete framework for understanding and improving your new hire experience. But questions alone don't drive change—action does.
Key takeaways:
- Start collecting feedback immediately—don't wait until problems surface
- Distribute questions across the 90-day journey for comprehensive insights
- Analyze by segment to identify department or manager-specific issues
- Close the loop by communicating changes based on feedback
- Benchmark and track trends to measure continuous improvement
The companies that win at retention—Google, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce—all share one trait: they obsessively measure and optimize the employee experience from Day 1. Your employee onboarding survey is the foundation of that practice.
Ready to build a powerful feedback loop for your new hires? Formbricks offers a free, open-source survey solution perfect for creating and deploying targeted onboarding survey questions at every stage of the employee journey. Launch customizable, in-app surveys to gather insights right where your team works, and start turning feedback into action today.
Get Your Free Onboarding Survey Template →
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