New-Hire 30-Day Check-In Survey Template

There is a short window — roughly weeks three to six — when a new hire still remembers what was confusing and hasn't yet stopped noticing it. This survey is built for that window. It asks whether the laptop and accounts were ready, whether the training matched the actual work, whether the job matches what recruitment described, what is still outstanding, and one open question: what would have made your first month easier.

Use this template

Last updated 21 August 2026

Fields in this template

Your Name (optional)
Team or Department
Your Start Date
I understood what my job was for in my first weekrequired
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree · Strongly agree
The equipment and accounts I needed were ready when I arrivedrequired
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree · Strongly agree
I now have access to every system my work needsrequired
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree · Strongly agree
What Are You Still Waiting For?
Laptop, phone or other equipment · Building, door or site access · Email or account setup · A login for a specific tool or system · Payroll or benefits enrolment · Introductions to people I work with · A written description of what I'm expected to deliver · Nothing — I'm fully set up
My manager has made time for me since I startedrequired
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree · Strongly agree
I know who to ask when I get stuckrequired
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree · Strongly agree
The training I've had so far matched the work I've actually been givenrequired
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neither agree nor disagree · Agree · Strongly agree
How closely does the job match what you were told during hiring?required
Not what I expected at all · Quite different in places · Roughly as described · Close to what I expected · Exactly as described
What training or explanation is still missing?
What is blocking you right now?required
What would have made your first month easier?required
How are you feeling about the next three months?
Confident · Mostly confident · Mixed · Uneasy · Too early to say
Would you like someone to follow up with you?
Yes — my manager · Yes — HR or the People team · No thanks
Email Address (only if you want a follow-up)

Who uses this template

People and HR teams running a structured onboarding programmeManagers checking in before a probation reviewFast-growing teams hiring in monthly cohortsOperations leads who own the equipment and access checklistCompanies onboarding remote hires who never see an officeAnyone who suspects onboarding is fine and has never asked

About this template

formformform already has two instruments for asking employees how things are going, and neither of them fits a new hire. The Employee Feedback Survey asks about recognition, leadership communication, tools and whether you'd recommend the company — questions that assume enough tenure to have an opinion about leadership. The Satisfaction Pulse Poll runs on a recurring cadence and asks about workload, priorities and psychological safety across the whole team. Both are ongoing-staff instruments. Neither has a start date, an equipment question, or anything that only makes sense once.

Onboarding has a moment, and this survey is built for it. Around thirty days in, a new hire has done enough real work to know what they weren't told, and hasn't yet been there long enough to have quietly worked around it. Ask at week one and you get politeness; ask at month six and the honest answer is "I can't really remember now". So the questions are anchored to that first month specifically: was the equipment ready when you arrived, do you have every system access now, did the training match the work you were actually given, and do you know who to ask when you get stuck.

Two fields do most of the work. The "what are you still waiting for" checklist converts directly into a task list — a missing login, an unfinished payroll enrolment, an introduction that never happened — and is usually fixed within the week. And the required open question, what would have made your first month easier, is the reason to run this at all: it is the only chance to hear the answer while it is still specific. Everything identifying is optional, including name, team and start date, because a person one month into a job has less standing to complain than anyone else in the building. If your teams are small enough that a department name identifies someone, delete that field before you send it.

12 form ideas you can build with this template

Remote New-Hire Onboarding Survey

Use the equipment and access questions for hires who never visit an office, where a late laptop is the whole first week.

Onboarding Cohort Feedback Form

Group responses by the start-date field to see whether a bad month was one person's experience or the whole intake's.

First-Month Manager Check-In Form

Give managers a structured version of the conversation they meant to have, with the blockers field as the agenda.

IT Setup Follow-Up Survey

Run the outstanding-items checklist alone as a short form, closing the loop on the day-one IT request.

Retail New-Hire Check-In Form

Ask shop-floor starters about training against actual shifts and who to ask when the store is busy.

Warehouse Onboarding Feedback Form

Keep the access, training and blockers questions for a site where induction happens once and quickly.

Graduate Intake Check-In Survey

Watch the expectations question closely for a cohort hired against a job description written months earlier.

Healthcare New-Staff Onboarding Survey

Use the system-access and training-gap fields where a missing login blocks patient-facing work outright.

Onboarding Programme Evaluation Form

Aggregate the open "what would have made it easier" answers across a quarter to redesign the programme itself.

Franchise New-Employee Check-In

Compare answers between sites using the team field to find which locations onboard well and which don't.

Contractor Onboarding Check-In Form

Trim to access, blockers and expectations for a contractor whose first month is billable from day one.

Nonprofit Volunteer 30-Day Check-In

Adapt the wording for volunteers, where unclear expectations in the first month are the main reason people stop coming.

What's included

Timed to the 30-day mark, when the answers are still specific and not yet rationalised

A "what are you still waiting for" checklist that turns into a task list the same day

Separate questions for equipment readiness on day one and system access now

One question that grades recruitment rather than onboarding: does the job match what you were told

A required blockers field, because a blocker at 30 days is something to fix this week

The open "what would have made your first month easier" question, required and answerable only now

Name, team and start date all optional, so a new hire can answer honestly a month in

Five-point scales ship as five-option radios — formformform has no rating field type

How to create a new-hire 30-day check-in survey

1
Click "Use this template" to load the 30-day check-in into your free formformform account.
2
Set a recurring reminder to send it at the same point for every hire — a survey sent whenever someone remembers produces answers you can't compare.
3
Edit the "still waiting for" checklist to match your actual onboarding checklist, so each ticked box maps to a task with an owner.
4
Decide whether the team field stays. In small cohorts it identifies people, and the honest answers stop.
5
Add logic in the editor so the email field appears only after someone asks for a follow-up.
6
Publish and send the link directly to the new hire, not through their manager — the manager is one of the things being asked about.

Best practices for your new-hire 30-day check-in survey

Send it at the same point for everyone. Comparable timing is what turns a set of individual complaints into a pattern you can act on.

Read the blockers and the outstanding-items checklist first, before the scales. Those two fields are this week's work; the scales are next quarter's.

Fix something visible within a week and say what you fixed. A first-month survey that produces no observable change teaches a new hire exactly what feedback is worth here.

Keep the survey separate from the probation review. One asks how the company is doing at onboarding, the other judges the employee

mixing them guarantees polite answers to both.

Send it to the new hire directly. Routing it through the manager makes it impossible to answer the manager-support question honestly.

Watch the expectations question by team, not by person. A run of low answers in one team is a job advert problem, and no amount of onboarding will fix it.

Don't ask about compensation or benefits satisfaction here. It is the wrong month for it and it will crowd out everything else in the responses.

Delete the team field if your cohorts are small. A single answer from "Finance" in a four-person finance team is not anonymous, whatever the name field says.

Frequently asked questions

Is this new-hire survey template free?

Yes. Clone it, edit it, and collect unlimited responses at no cost, with no per-submission fees.

How is this different from the Employee Feedback Survey?

The Employee Feedback Survey asks ongoing staff about recognition, leadership communication and whether they'd recommend the company. This one is anchored to a specific moment: equipment readiness on day one, system access now, training against actual work, what's still outstanding, and what would have made the first month easier. Those questions can only be answered once, and only for a few weeks.

How is this different from the Satisfaction Pulse Poll?

The pulse poll runs on a repeating cadence across the whole team and tracks a trend line. This runs once per person, at a fixed point in their tenure, and produces a task list rather than a trend.

Should the survey be anonymous?

Name, team and start date all ship optional, which lets someone answer anonymously if they want to. If your cohorts are small, delete the team field too — in a four-person team, a department name is a name.

Why 30 days rather than 90?

Because the answer to "what was confusing" has a shelf life. By month three most people have worked around the gaps and genuinely can't recall what tripped them up. Run a 90-day check-in as well if you like, but ask different questions in it.

Why are the ratings radio buttons instead of stars?

formformform has no rating or scale field type, so every five-point scale in the template library ships as a five-option radio. They aggregate the same way, and the labelled options are usually clearer than a row of numbers.

Can I make the email field appear only when someone wants a follow-up?

Yes, after cloning. Templates are generated flat, so every field is visible by default. Add logic in the editor to reveal the email field only after a "Yes" on the follow-up question.

Can I use this as a probation review form?

Don't. This asks how the company did at bringing someone in; a probation review judges the person. Run them separately, or you'll get careful answers to both.