New hire onboarding
A questionnaire for the first thirty days: how adaptation went, a rating for the mentor, what was missing. It asks while the person can still be kept.
Who it is for and when to run it
Send this to a new hire about 30 days after they start, and optionally again at 90. It is for HR or a manager who brings in more than two or three people a year and wants to know whether the onboarding process works, not just whether one buddy was nice.
Send the link by direct message in your workplace chat or add it as a task on the onboarding checklist. People answer while the first weeks are still fresh.
It works for office and remote teams alike: the questions are about process, not the coffee machine or the badge.
What the template is made of
Every block in the order it sits in the builder. Branching decides which of them a given person actually sees.
- Welcome aboard! Text block
The «Welcome aboard!» screen sets the tone: this is not a test of the new hire, it is a request for their impressions.
- Start date Date
Start date lets you group answers by tenure later. An answer after three weeks reads differently from one after two months.
- Rate your onboarding on these aspects Matrix
A 1–5 matrix across five aspects: how organised the process was, role clarity, manager support, documentation, meeting the team. The weakest row shows what to fix.
- Rate your mentor Star rating
Stars for the mentor, asked separately because a good process can be let down by one person, and the other way round.
- What was missing from your onboarding? Multiple choice
«What was missing from your onboarding?» with five ready options. The options give words to people who would not have phrased it themselves.
- What would you improve about onboarding? Long answer
The open question on improvements picks up ideas that are not in the list.
How to adapt the template
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Swap the matrix rows for the steps of your own onboarding: «My laptop was ready on day one», «I got access in time», «My probation plan is clear».
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No mentors? Delete the star question or rephrase it as «Rate the support from your manager».
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Add options specific to your work to the «missing» list, such as «Training on our CRM» or «Walkthroughs of typical customer cases».
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Make a separate copy for day 90 and add a question about goals and growth. By then the person can judge more than onboarding.
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With a steady flow of hires, connect a webhook and store answers in your HR system. Other team survey setups are on the employee survey page.
How to read the results
Read answers over six months rather than one by one. One unhappy starter can be chance; «Availability of documentation» scoring low for five people in a row is a process problem.
Compare the mentor rating with the matrix. High stars next to a low «How organised the process was» means the mentor is carrying what the process should do.
Counts of each «missing» option give you a ready task list. Fix the most common one before the next person starts.
Common mistakes
- Sending the survey on day one. The person cannot judge anything yet and will give top marks out of politeness.
- Forwarding answers straight to the mentor. A new hire who suspects this will not be candid about someone they sit next to every day.
- Ignoring what comes in the open field. New people see process problems more clearly than anyone, and silence teaches them to stop saying so.
Questions about the «New hire onboarding» template
When should you send an onboarding survey?
About 30 days after the start date, when the person has been through the main steps and still remembers the details. Many companies repeat it at 90 days, around the end of probation. In the first few days it is too early and answers will be polite and empty.
What questions should you ask new hires about onboarding?
This template asks for the start date, ratings of five onboarding aspects from organisation to meeting the team, a mentor rating, what was missing and what to improve. That is enough to find the weak point in the process, and it takes two to three minutes.
Can an onboarding survey be anonymous?
Yes, there is no name field. But if one person joins per month, the start date identifies them. For real anonymity remove the date question and look at answers in quarterly batches.
Similar templates
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Team pulse survey
A weekly read on mood and workload.
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eNPS: employee loyalty
NPS among employees, plus reasons and an improvements block.
Do not start from an empty canvas
Open the catalog, take the closest template and rewrite the questions for your job. Five minutes instead of an hour.