OnSurvey · Survey use cases
Collecting feedback is step one. The real question is whether it changed anything. These are the five Workday survey use cases that most reliably lead to outcomes, with the trigger, the metric and sample questions for each.
Buzz
Collecting feedback is step one. The real question is whether the feedback produced an outcome. Too often survey data ends up in a silo: exported to Excel, reviewed once, forgotten. The fix is to run surveys where the HR data already lives, trigger them from the moments that matter, and close the loop with an owner and an action.
The five Workday survey use cases that most often lead to measurable outcomes are engagement, onboarding feedback, exit, annual employee and inclusion (DEI) surveys, each triggered from a Workday event and analysed against worker data.
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Survey
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When Workday sends it
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Outcome it drives
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|---|---|---|
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Engagement
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Quarterly pulse or org change
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Spot disengagement before it becomes a resignation
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Onboarding feedback
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Day 30 and day 90 after hire
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Better new-hire experience, lower 90-day turnover
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Exit
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Termination business process
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Patterns and root causes of attrition
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Annual employee
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Fixed date plus pulses
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Sentiment tracked all year, not once
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Inclusion (DEI)
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Scheduled, security-restricted
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Inclusion measured, leaders accountable
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Pick a survey on the left to see its Workday trigger, what to measure and a few sample questions.
Trigger in Workday: a recurring schedule (quarterly pulse) or an organization change.
Outcome: spot disengagement before it turns into a resignation.
What to measure: engagement score by team and manager, trend since the last pulse, participation rate.
Sample questions
How to set up continuous employee feedback surveys in Workday
Trigger in Workday: the hire business process: send at day 30 and day 90 from the worker’s start date.
Outcome: improve the new-hire experience and cut 90-day turnover.
What to measure: time to productivity, equipment and access readiness on day one, manager check-in rate.
Sample questions
Trigger in Workday: the termination business process, before the last day.
Outcome: find patterns and fix the root causes of attrition.
What to measure: top leaving reasons by department, regretted vs. non-regretted exits, manager and pay themes.
Sample questions
Trigger in Workday: a fixed annual date, with short pulses in between so sentiment is tracked all year.
Outcome: track sentiment continuously instead of once a year.
What to measure: year-on-year change by location and job family, action-plan completion, pulse trend.
Sample questions
Trigger in Workday: a schedule set by the people team, with results restricted by Workday security.
Outcome: measure inclusion and hold leaders accountable for progress.
What to measure: belonging and fairness scores by group (with minimum group sizes), gap between groups, change after actions.
Sample questions
Tie each survey to a business process (hire, termination, promotion) or a date, so the right people get it at the right moment without manual lists.
Responses sit on the worker record, so you can cut results by department, location, job family, tenure or manager without a data pipeline.
Every theme gets an owner and a date, and a follow-up pulse checks whether the score actually moved.
OnSurvey is a Built-on Workday app, so surveys, responses and reports all stay inside your tenant under Workday security. See survey metrics and response analytics in OnSurvey for how results are reported.
These five use cases were the focus of our March 2026 OnSurvey webinar, aimed at HR leaders focused on retention and engagement, HRIS teams evaluating survey solutions and people analytics professionals.
Onward
Chubb Fire & Security
See how OnSurvey triggers, stores and reports surveys without leaving your tenant.
Engagement pulses, onboarding feedback, exit surveys, the annual employee survey and inclusion (DEI) surveys. Each maps to a Workday event or schedule and to a clear outcome such as lower early turnover or fewer regretted exits.
Yes. With a Built-on Workday app such as OnSurvey, survey sends can be tied to business processes like hire, termination or promotion, or to dates such as day 30 after hire.
Analyse responses against worker data, assign an owner and an action to each theme, then re-survey to check the score moved. Keeping results inside Workday reports makes that loop faster.
Restrict access through Workday security groups and only report on groups above a minimum size, so individual answers cannot be identified.
OnSurvey is available on Workday Marketplace. You can also contact Onward for a demo.
Surveys that drive outcomes
Trigger surveys from Workday events and analyse them where your HR data already lives.
OnSurvey runs engagement, onboarding, exit, annual and inclusion surveys natively in Workday. Find it on Workday Marketplace or talk to the Onward team.
With OnSurvey in Workday
