How to run an employee onboarding survey

TL;DR: A good onboarding journey is critical for employee success and retention, and onboarding surveys can help you optimize these processes. A well-thought-out employee onboarding survey will allow you to continuously gauge your new hires’ satisfaction with your onboarding process and pinpoint areas for improvement.

Why should you conduct employee onboarding surveys?

As remote work calls for particularly transparent processes, documentation, and communication, companies are now finally looking closely at their onboarding programs. 

But onboarding always mattered. It is the foundation for conveying to your new hire that what you said about your company culture during the hiring process is genuine, establishing trust. 

New hires rely on structured onboarding to thrive in their new roles, especially considering remote circumstances. Sadly, only 12% of employees surveyed by Gallup strongly agree that their companies have a great onboarding process. Those same people are 2.6 times more likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace than those who aren’t as happy with their onboarding experience. What’s more, only 29% of new hires feel fully supported and set up for success in their role. 

So if you care about increasing retention and creating high-performing teams, you should work to improve onboarding at your company. But where to start? 

First, follow the steps outlined in our playbook on onboarding remote employees; these practices will help you even if you’re not a remote-first company. 

Second, invest in onboarding surveys to continuously gain insights into upgrading your onboarding program and aligning it with your company culture — and the promises you make to the people you hire. Lastly, consider implementing employee onboarding software to structure and automate the onboarding process.

Implementing employee onboarding surveys is easier than you might think. Keep reading this playbook, and we’ll tell you all you need to know.

Remember, keeping your remote employees engaged doesn’t stop after the onboarding. Continuously check in with your team by asking them questions tailored toward remote work during engagement surveys.


Orange checkmark icon.

Wann Sie dieses Playbook verwenden sollten

When to use this playbook

This playbook should be an ongoing initiative within your onboarding journey (whether remote or not). If you’re invested in a people-first company culture and want to improve employee retention, send out these surveys to all company joiners each month.

Keep digging into the data to access more insights into how you can make your organization’s onboarding experience even better.

Orange checkmark icon.

Was Sie für dieses Playbook benötigen

What you’ll need for this playbook

A system for running surveys 

Surveys should be a fundamental part of your onboarding process, so consider investing in employee onboarding software to run your company’s surveys smoothly and gain actionable insights.

Although you can use paper, PDFs, or decentralized tools, an employee survey platform like Leapsome can help you with analytics, multiplying the benefits of running surveys.

Hints & tips

Hinweise & Tipps
  • Surveys should be anonymous, and your employees must know that their privacy is protected (so ensure that happens). Otherwise, you would risk insincere responses — or no responses at all.
  • Although your survey should be anonymous, you might want to know which departments or seniority levels are most responsive. This can help you understand how to get everyone involved and pick up on potential issues.
  • Your surveys might uncover uncomfortable truths. Be open and willing to listen. Don’t forget that the goal is to better your company and provide current and future employees with an improved experience (which will likely increase retention).
  • If you only have one person joining in a month, you might be able to guess their comments. But be respectful and don’t expose them.

    And you may also consider waiting another month to send out the survey, so more people might respond at the same time.
  • If this is your first survey, ask colleagues to help you test it. This way, you can assess if something is confusing and improve the wording.
Illustration of two people carrying a box over stairs, another two stacking blocks mid-air, and another two working on a board with boxes and scales, transparent background

Frequently asked questions

Are onboarding surveys anonymous?

Yes. But until you have a bigger pool of respondents, be extra careful with sharing information with managers and other employees — especially qualitative data.

Be mindful that, until several people have filled out onboarding surveys, it might be possible to guess the origin of responses. Don’t try to identify respondents, and don’t jeopardize anonymity (and the trust your people have in the process).

Take Leapsome for a spin

Learn how Leapsome can automate, connect, and simplify your HR processes.

Image of a woman in a circleBook your demoImage of a man in a circleImage of a woman in a circle

Explore other playbooks

Erkunden Sie weitere Playbooks

Run smooth operations with our easy-to-follow how-tos and best practices for all things People Ops

Mit unseren leicht verständlichen Anleitungen und Best Practices für People Ops sorgen Sie für reibungslose Abläufe.

No items found.