Finding the right employee feedback survey examples can transform how you understand and improve your workplace culture.
Employee surveys are essential tools for understanding workplace dynamics. With the right survey templates for employees, you gain clarity on engagement, retention, and team performance.
This guide breaks down actionable survey examples—with question sets and AI-powered follow-up prompts—so you can launch the right survey for any scenario.
Onboarding surveys: capturing first impressions that matter
Early experiences set the tone for an employee’s journey. Onboarding surveys don’t just measure first-week logistics—they surface make-or-break moments that influence whether new hires stay and thrive. Onboarding feedback is crucial for retention and early engagement. Employees with a positive work experience are 68% less likely to consider leaving their jobs compared to their peers, making first impressions vital for long-term success. [2]
What surprised you—either positively or negatively—about your first week here?
How clear are you about what’s expected in your role?
Did you have access to the right tools and resources from day one?
How would you describe your team’s support during your first week?
Specific’s AI takes each answer and digs deeper, naturally. If someone notes “confusing role expectations,” AI can follow up with: “Can you share more about which responsibilities felt unclear?”
Clarity of role matters. Only 47% of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work, revealing how many onboarding programs leave people in the dark. [3] Asking about expectation clarity closes that gap.
Support system effectiveness is just as vital. It’s not enough to ask, “Were you welcomed?” AI follow-ups can probe: “Was there anyone you felt comfortable asking for help?”
Create an onboarding survey for new employees joining our tech company. Focus on their first week experience, clarity of expectations, and initial support received. Include questions about tools access and team integration.
This conversational format lowers the guard of new hires, making them more comfortable sharing honest, specific examples—even sensitive feedback they’d hesitate to say aloud.
30-60-90 day surveys: tracking employee journey milestones
30-60-90 day surveys let you spot obstacles and wins at key inflection points, adapting your approach as employees grow from “new” to “part of the team.” Each check-in targets different needs.
30-day: How would you rate your adjustment to our company’s working style so far?
60-day: What projects have you contributed to most, and what support helped or hindered?
90-day: How confident are you in taking initiative or suggesting improvements?
As an employee settles in, Specific’s AI follow-ups evolve: at 30 days, it might ask, “What’s helped you adjust—or what’s still confusing?”; at 90 days, “Which ideas for improvement would you prioritize if given the chance?”
30-day focus: Assess adaptation, basic needs, finding their place. Are they still acclimating? Asking about work style adjustment reveals sticking points early.
60-day focus: Gauge progress on first deliverables and team integration. At this stage, questions uncover roadblocks in workflows and mentorship gaps.
90-day focus: Shift to ownership and future growth. Can employees spot inefficiencies? Do they see themselves as contributors (not just observers)?
Milestone | 30 days | 60 days | 90 days |
|---|---|---|---|
Key focus | Adjustment and clarity | Contributions and support | Initiative and improvement |
AI follow-up | “What’s easy or hard?” | “What’s helped you perform?” | “Which changes would you suggest here?” |
Because employee needs shift, AI follow-up logic in these milestone surveys adapts automatically—especially when using the AI survey editor to tweak questions as you learn what matters most to each tenure group.
Engagement surveys: moving beyond annual check-ins
The classic annual engagement survey is outdated. Respondents forget context, issues fester, and teams miss the chance to act early. In 2024, U.S. employee engagement sank to just 31%, matching a 10-year low—a clear sign the traditional approach is broken. [1]
Here’s how real-time, conversational surveys fix that:
What are your top priorities right now, and how well supported do you feel?
How easy is it to disconnect from work outside office hours?
What’s preventing you from growing or taking on new challenges?
How would you describe your team’s communication and decision-making?
Instead of just clicking a number, respondents might get, “Can you give an example of when work-life balance was tough?” or “What would make this better for you?”
Work-life balance is a non-negotiable. Over 80% of global workers rank work-life flexibility and manageable workloads as extremely important—ask open-endedly and follow up, since struggles here directly predict burnout. [4]
Growth opportunities deserve specific questions. AI can inquire, “Which skills do you wish you could build here?”
Team dynamics drive daily engagement. Prompt for a story—“Tell us about a great (or challenging) collaboration.” Then, AI can probe what made the difference.
Design an employee engagement survey focusing on remote work satisfaction, collaboration effectiveness, and career development opportunities. Make it conversational and include probing questions about what would improve their daily experience.
Specific’s AI follow-ups reveal why someone rates engagement low, unearthing issues missed by static forms. If you’re not running regular pulse checks, you’re missing early warning signs of disengagement and costly attrition. Try our AI survey generator to build a conversational engagement pulse survey in minutes.
Exit surveys: learning from departing employees
Exit interviews are fraught with awkwardness and generic answers. But honest exit feedback is a gold mine—departing voices often reveal truths no current employee will risk sharing. The problem? Traditional exit interviews rarely collect nuanced insights. Tactful, conversational surveys change that.
What influenced your decision to leave?
What could have encouraged you to stay?
How did management support or hinder your growth?
Is there anything we should change for future employees?
Specific’s AI handles sensitive follow-up naturally: “Was there a single moment or pattern that made your decision clear?” or “Which actions from leadership would have mattered most?” With anonymous survey options, response quality jumps dramatically.
Reasons for leaving can be complex—often a web of workload, culture, or management issues. Asking “If you could change just one thing, what would it be?” gives structure without pressure.
Management feedback is tricky to collect honestly, especially face-to-face. Conversational, anonymous follow-ups (“How did your manager handle challenges you faced?”) build trust.
Traditional exit interview | Conversational exit survey |
|---|---|
Canned questions | Tactful, context-aware prompts |
Prone to social desirability bias | Feels anonymous, encourages honesty |
One-and-done, no follow-up | AI probes sensitively for detail |
Automated follow-ups in Sensitive topics are handled with care using Specific’s AI follow-up feature, helping you learn what would truly move the needle for retention. Because it’s chat-based, the format feels less confrontational than typical exit interviews.
Change management surveys: navigating organizational transitions
Organizational change—whether a reorg, policy update, or tech rollout—can unsettle everyone, especially when communication breaks down. The only cure: continuous, actionable feedback at every stage of the transition.
How prepared do you feel for this change?
What information do you need to feel supported?
How clear are the new processes or roles?
What are your main worries or questions?
AI adjusts follow-ups in real time: if employees cite confusion, it asks, “Is there a particular process or policy we should clarify?”
Readiness assessment: These questions reveal the level of buy-in and lingering confusion. Continuous measurement helps leaders correct messaging before resistance hardens.
Impact measurement: Gauge how people feel once changes roll out, focusing on pain points before they escalate. If feedback highlights tools adoption problems, follow-ups dig into, “Was training effective? Where did you get stuck?”
Create a change readiness survey for employees about to undergo a department restructuring. Focus on their concerns, information needs, and suggestions for smooth transition.
Build a post-implementation survey for new software rollout. Assess adoption challenges, training effectiveness, and productivity impact.
With well-timed, conversational follow-ups, employees open up about their concerns—letting leadership create a real two-way dialogue about change.
From template to launch: making employee surveys work
Having great questions is just the start—delivering them in a way that gets meaningful responses is the challenge most teams miss. That’s where Specific steps in as a topical authority.
Our survey template library gives you a proven starting point for every scenario discussed here. When you want full control, the AI survey generator turns your prompt into a robust survey, saving you hours of manual work.
Customization without complexity. Use the AI survey editor to tweak, fine-tune, or extend your survey simply by describing what you want changed. No forms, no friction—just chat and the AI instantly updates your content.
Multi-language support means everyone gets the survey in their preferred language without extra setup, making feedback accessible across diverse teams. This isn’t just cosmetic—multiple language options increase completion rates, especially in global organizations.
Conversational AI drives engagement, giving you nuanced answers and a higher completion rate compared to traditional forms. These survey templates for employees work hardest when customized to reflect your specific culture and goals.
Turning employee feedback into actionable insights
Even the best survey process falls flat if insights remain tangled in walls of text or endless spreadsheets. The challenge: analyzing open, qualitative employee feedback at scale.
Specific’s AI survey response analysis pipelines open text into actionable summaries—distilling patterns, themes, and root causes for targeted action. It’s like having a research analyst on tap for every scenario.
You can instantly explore:
“What are the recurring motivators or frustrations among new hires?”
“How do engagement scores and pain points differ by department?”
“Which exit drivers are most common this quarter?”
With advanced analytics features from AI survey response analysis, simply ask the AI your follow-up questions, like:
What are the top three reasons employees give for considering leaving the company?
Compare feedback between remote and office employees about collaboration challenges
Identify common themes in manager feedback across different departments
Create multiple analysis threads for executives, team leads, or HR—no need to export or recode data each time. Insights arrive in minutes, not weeks, and answer the questions you actually care about.