--- title: "Onboarding Survey Template — Questions by Stage | Crewmojo" description: "Onboarding questions split across first week, first month and first quarter, because asking everything at day 90 gets you nothing you can fix." source: https://www.crewmojo.com/performance-management-templates/onboarding-survey published: 2022-12-01 modified: 2026-10-12 generated: 2026-11-04 --- [All templates](https://www.crewmojo.com/performance-management-templates) # Onboarding survey template Onboarding questions split across first week, first month and first quarter, because asking everything at day 90 gets you nothing you can fix. 14 questions · Surveys ## The template ### End of week one Logistics and welcome. Everything here is cheap to fix and expensive to leave, and a week is late enough to judge it but early enough to act. - I had what I needed to start work on day one 1 2 3 4 5 - I knew where to be and what was happening each day 1 2 3 4 5 - I have been introduced to the people I need to know 1 2 3 4 5 - I felt welcome 1 2 3 4 5 ### End of month one Role clarity. By now the gap between the job as advertised and the job as it is will have appeared, if it is going to. - I'm clear on what's expected of me in this role 1 2 3 4 5 - I understand how my work fits with what the team is doing 1 2 3 4 5 - I have had enough time with my manager 1 2 3 4 5 - The role is what I understood it to be when I accepted it 1 2 3 4 5 ### End of month three Whether it worked. The honest test of onboarding is not whether people enjoyed it but whether they are now contributing and intend to stay. - I am contributing at the level I expected to be by now 1 2 3 4 5 - I have had useful feedback on how I am doing 1 2 3 4 5 - I can see how I progress from here 1 2 3 4 5 - I would recommend this organisation to someone considering joining 1 2 3 4 5 ### Asked at every stage The same two questions each time. Watching how the answers change across the three runs is the most useful thing this survey produces. 1. What would have made your first few weeks easier? 2. What is still unclear? ## What this one assumes There is more than one way to run this. Here is what we assumed, so you can tell quickly whether it fits — and what to change if it does not. - It runs three times — end of week one, end of month one, end of month three — rather than once at the end - Someone outside the line manager sees the results, because some of the answers are about the manager - It measures your process, not the new starter - Each run is short enough to answer in two minutes ## Why it runs three times Most onboarding surveys run once, at ninety days, and ask about everything. By then nobody remembers whether their laptop arrived, and anything they do remember is too late to fix for them. Splitting it by stage fixes both problems. Each run asks about something that just happened, so the answers are accurate. And the week-one answers arrive while there is still time to rescue that person's experience, not just the next person's. ## What each stage is really asking **Week one is about logistics and welcome.** Did the equipment arrive, did anyone know they were starting, were they introduced to people. These are unglamorous and they set the tone more than anything else in the process. They are also the cheapest problems you will ever fix. **Month one is about role clarity.** This is where the gap between the job as advertised and the job as it exists becomes visible. The last statement — whether the role is what they understood when they accepted it — is the most important question in the whole survey. A low score here is a recruitment problem, not an onboarding one, and it will show up as a resignation around month five. **Month three is about whether it worked.** Contributing at the expected level, having had real feedback, being able to see a path. The recommendation question belongs here rather than earlier, because at three months the answer means something. **The two open questions repeat at every stage**, deliberately. "What is still unclear" answered at week one, month one and month three traces exactly where your process stops explaining things. ## How to read it Read it as a measure of your process, never of the individual. A new starter who rates everything low has usually been onboarded badly. Make sure someone other than the direct manager sees the results. Several of these statements are effectively about the manager, and routing them through that manager guarantees the polite version. Compare cohorts rather than individuals. Three people in a row saying the same thing about week one is a process fault; one person saying it may be one bad week. ## What we would change, and when If you hire in cohorts — graduate intakes, bootcamps — add a statement about whether they feel connected to the others who started with them. That cohort bond is the strongest retention factor you have in those programmes and none of the twelve statements above will catch it. For fully remote starters, add a question at week one about whether they have had any unstructured contact with the team. Remote onboarding fails at informal contact long before it fails at process, and the statements above all measure process. If you can only run one, run month one. Week one is cheap to fix but rarely fatal, and by month three the answers are history. Month one is the last point where what you learn can still change the outcome for the person answering. ## Run this one, then change it Load it into Crewmojo as a starting point and reshape the questions, the timing and who is involved around how your organisation actually works. [Book a demo](https://www.crewmojo.com/demo)