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A report conducted by Forbes has identified that nearly half of the workers have reported their productivity being affected by not maintaining effective communication.
Moreover, a report by the Workforce Institute on Trust in the Workplace has revealed that 74% of employees would prefer to work for trustworthy employers, prompting the manager to take charge and build a connection between the employees and the organization.
The cultural amalgamation that is submerged in the notion of employee experience has one element that requires work: improvement in communication.
With a study showing that 52% of employees value dependable managers who are proactive in delivering helpful feedback, managers must accomplish the set agenda and ask the right questions to the employees to get the best out of one-on-one meetings.
Conducting one-on-one meetings with employees can help managers enhance communication and team spirit among employees.
With it, the discussion might veer off course, and the meeting might be more productive. You need to prepare your one-on-one meeting questions to counteract it. They will serve as the conversation's catalyst, guide the topic, and give you enough data to assess employees’ mental, emotional, and professional status.
Therefore, we have finalized a list of 95 questions to ensure a great one-on-one meeting with your employees. But before that, let’s understand the importance of one-on-one meetings and why it’s important for you to conduct them regularly.
Importance of one-on-one meetings in industry to reduce high turnover rates
Here are some of the most pertinent benefits of one-on-one meetings with employees:
1. Boosted morale
Employee morale is a yardstick to gauge employees' happiness regarding their working conditions. It affects your business's work culture, productivity, and attrition rate. One-on-one meetings help employers discover what inspires their staff and what detracts from their morale.
These meetings facilitate a psychologically secure environment where the employees can confide in you and share their greatest hopes and anxieties.
2. Greater productivity
Frequent one-on-one meetings increase output and reduce wasted time. Remembering that employees will spend much less time having impromptu interactions with their colleagues, sending emails, and looking up important information is important.
A quick one-on-one conversation gives a high-level summary of the problems and developments. Hence, facilitating increased productivity.
3. Improved collaboration
Employers can use one-on-one meetings as a means to encourage collaboration amongst teams.
The best ideas can be generated when various goals, personality types, and skill sets are combined. Employers can use this opportunity to help employees step outside their comfort zones by encouraging conversations between employees who may not typically be in contact.
4. Effective conflict resolution
A team must resolve conflicts effectively to function as a unit and achieve a common objective. Disagreements and conflicts can result from divergent points of view, poor communication, or extreme stress while working on challenging assignments.
One-on-one meetings allow the employees to put forth their problems before the employer. Managers can use one-on-one meetings to empathize with the employees, intervene, and provide practical suggestions to resolve disputes.
5. Better communication
A one-on-one meeting allows employers to interact with their employees better. It is crucial if the employer is in charge of a large staff. It also helps them create a strong communication channel to prevent errors or miscommunications.
Knowing your employees’ talents, limitations, interests, and hobbies will help you form stronger work teams and identify who is the most qualified for each task. A study by Gallup found that improving workplace communication will improve employee engagement across the team.
6. Improved employee engagement
Even though most group meetings are organized to help employees voice their thoughts and concerns, only some meetings meet the objective. Instead, one or two employees tend to dominate such meetings, which might make everyone else feel excluded.
On the other hand, effective one-on-one meetings are structured so that the employee takes the initiative while the employer primarily listens. Employees consequently feel that their opinions genuinely matter, which in turn helps in boosting employee engagement. A study conducted by Achievers Workforce Institute has found that 79% of employees feel engaged if they feel supported, valued, and cared for.
7. Effective management
Getting input from your workforce can assist you in understanding the facets of your effective managerial style and the places where you can make changes. One-on-ones allow managers to give insightful feedback on their employees’ performances, facilitating effective employee management.
But you can maximize the impact of a one-on-one meeting once you are prepared. And that begins by choosing the right questions.
95 Top one-on-one meeting questions managers can ask their employees
Listening to the employees' feedback and understanding their progress is important. To ensure that you extract the best from your meetings, asking relevant questions is the most effective way.
Consider the following list of the top one-on-one meeting questions you should ask your employees:
One-on-one meeting questions about growth and development
- What divisions of the business are you interested in learning more about?
2. What has been the work highlight from the past week?
3. What projects do you want to work on or be more involved in?
4. What has been the work lowlight from the past week?
5. What’s something you want to try that you haven’t had the resources or time to do?
6. Is your job similar to what you expected when you accepted the offer? If not, where has it differed?
7. What other roles at our company do you find interesting? What skills do the roles require that you would like to work on?
8. Which competencies would you wish to gain right away?
9. What professional objectives do you hope to achieve in the upcoming six to twelve months, and why?
10. Do you receive an adequate evaluation of your work?
11. What else can I do to help progress your career?
12. What are your non-work and work highlights of the past month?
13. What’s one thing you’d like to do more outside of work this coming month?
14. Which employee do you want to observe and learn from? What do you hope to discover?
15. How can I improve?
One-on-one meeting questions to help improve communication
16. What’s one thing necessary to improve the performance of the team?
17. Are you happy with our communication levels? How would you change it?
18. What’s on your mind right now that we haven’t discussed yet?
19. If you were managing our team, what would you do differently?
20. Who is doing an excellent job on the team? What have they done?
21. Am I working like the best manager you could wish for? What could I do better?
22. When’s the best time to give you feedback during working hours?
23. Has our communication faltered? Can you give me an example?
24. Is there something that would be productive for me to re-explain to our team?
25. Am I providing clarity on our direction?
26. Where would you like me to be involved more in your daily operations? Where would you like me to be involved less?
27. What’s one thing that needs to change around our team meetings?
28. What do you like in our one-on-one meetings? What can be improved?
29. Are there any roles and responsibilities on the team that you feel unclear about?
30. What are your top priorities this month or week?
31. What’s a major problem we have on our team that I might not know about?
32. How could we improve cross-functional collaboration at our company?
33. What can I hold you accountable for the next time we talk?
One-on-one meeting questions about employee motivation
34. If you were the CEO, what are the things you’d change?
35. What could we change about work for you that would improve your personal life?
36. What’s the thing you’re proud of that happened this month? This week?
37. What are you passionate about, professionally or personally?
38. Who on our team deserves a shoutout for their work and why?
39. What do you wish I did more of? Less of?
40. What have your past managers done that inspired and motivated you?
41. What have your past managers done that frustrated you?
42. What does a productive, ideal workday look like to you? Walk me through it.
43. What makes you motivated and excited to work on a project?
44. Are you happy in your current role? What could make it better for you?
45. How happy are you at work? Rate it on a scale of 1-10.
46. What’s your least favorite part of your daily work operations?
47. What’s one thing you want to recommend to improve our workplace culture?
48. Do you find your work environment productive? Is there anything resisting you from being productive?
49. Are you proud of the work roles and responsibilities?
50. How do you feel about the balance between managing and your work?
51. How do you feel about your work and life balance? What would you want to change?
52. Are there any goals we have on a team, company, or individual level you feel are entirely unattainable? If so, why?
53. What’s the best thing about working in our company?
54. How do you feel about your goals?
55. Which one best describes you during the past week or month?
One-on-one meeting questions about teamwork and collaboration
56. Is the team collaborating enough and effectively? If not, what is the obstacle?
57. Is there a situation in the group that I may need to be made aware of? It is what?
58. Can you keep in touch with everyone? Can I help in any way?
59. Which staff members do you hope you got along with better?
60. Can you ask for support from others? If not, why not?
One-on-one meeting questions about roadblocks, challenges, and concerns
61. What can I do right to make work better for you?
62. Where do you need help?
63. Do you have questions about what other team members work with?
64. What could make your day-to-day life easier? What do you need?
65. If you were a hiring manager, what role would be your next hire?
66. What would you like to share but is a little stressful to bring up in person?
67. Do you have questions that would help you in your day-to-day life?
68. What are you least clear about our company-wide strategy and goals?
69. Do you need any help in completing this project?
70. Can you pinpoint the exact problems you are facing?
71. How can I help you deal with these challenges?
72. Do you need any assistance from your co-workers?
One-on-one meeting questions about employee performance
73. Give an example of a significant contribution that you made this quarter.
74. Which corporate value have you noticed successfully emulating in recent months?
75. Describe how your actions have influenced them to advance in their role.
76. What kinds of projects do you excel at?
77. How well did you fare in setting and achieving goals during the past few months?
78. What are some projects or areas of focus that might help?
79. How did you help the business achieve its current objectives of making more transactions, starting more campaigns, etc.?
80. What are some instances where you and others interact favorably?
One-on-one meeting questions for giving and receiving feedback
81. How can I help you live a simpler life?
82. Do I involve you in team decisions in an effective enough manner? Do you want to participate more?
83. Are our one-on-one sessions giving you enough? If not, why not?
84. How should I share my feedback with you?
One-on-one meeting questions about employee engagement
85. What were your week's highlights, both professionally and socially?
86. Do you currently have anything in your mind?
87. Do you believe that you can unplug after work? If not, why not?
One-on-one meeting questions to ask remote employees
88. What could make our communication better?
89. What do you feel is effective about working remotely, and what difficulties are you encountering?
90. How much do you feel like a part of your team?
91. Have you been able to learn more? If not, how can I help you achieve it?
One-on-one meeting questions about job satisfaction
92. Are your career aims aligning with that of the company?
93. Which aspect of your work do you consider most fulfilling?
94. How can your management help and coach you more effectively?
95. How would you like to be appreciated for your work?
You can use these questions to prepare yourself before your one-on-one meeting with employees, which can help you achieve better feedback and boost employees’ engagement.
Final words
The ability of the manager to conduct motivating one-on-one meetings with employees to support and guide their goals proves the mettle of any great team. Therefore, conducting successful one-on-one meetings with your employees is the need of the hour.
You can conduct productive one-on-one meetings with your employees with the help of an advanced employee engagement platform like Empuls.
With Empuls, you can create a space for open-ended and anticipated conversations between a manager and an employee or peers. Collaborate on meeting agendas, assign action items, get suggested conversation topics, and exchange feedback.
Try out the free demo version of the all-in-one employee engagement platform and improve your employees’ productivity and relationship.
