129 Good One-on-One Meeting Questions (by a Psychologist)

What is the difference between a one-to-one conversation between you and your life partner, and a regular one-to-one meeting with employees in a work context (either a regular one-on-one or appraisal interview)?

In a work context, every one-on-one conversation should have a specific goal and not just drift along with small talk. Don’t get me wrong - an absolutely valid and important goal of employee or one-on-one conversations is, of course, to build and maintain the relationship with the employee. 

In my experience, however, many managers make it too easy for themselves.

The majority of employee or one-to-one meetings are poorly planned conversations in which the mood of the colleague is tapped unsystematically and a follow-up goal is very rarely recorded.

Christian Heidemeyer, psychologist & co-founder Echometer

The employee review is conducted to check off a checklist: “Yes, I have invested time in my employees. Now no one can say anything. I’m a good manager - many don’t even have these conversations.”

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Good One-on-One Staff Meeting Questions to ask

One-on-One Staff Meeting Questions for any occasion

Since you are primarily here to find good one-on-one meeting questions for employees, here are a few examples of good one-on-one staff meeting questions that you can ask in most 1-to-1 staff meeting formats in a (remote) work context:

Below you will find many more one-on-one meeting questions to ask. But before we get to that, I’d like to give you some more background knowledge.

You can make it too easy for yourself and convince yourself that the one-on-one staff meeting belongs to your employee and that you don’t need to prepare anything. Instead, I recommend having a concrete system that allows you to always have the right questions to ask and really develop your employees in 1-on-1s. This system is the key ingredient for spicy, productive 1-on-1 meetings with employees.

Don’t worry: The priority is still, of course, that the 1-on-1 conversation remains a casual, relaxed conversation so that the employee feels comfortable - logical. But does that contradict a system? No!

By the way, if you prefer a short version of this post - with my 7 favorite questions for employee One-on-One meetings - feel free to watch my video.

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One-to-one or performance reviews can focus on operational issues, such as clarifying questions about the employee’s current role. Or they can focus on personal development: what hard skills and soft skills can, would like to or should the person learn?

Over the last few months, I have conducted around 100 expert interviews with managers on the subject of “one-on-one meetings with employees”. A pattern that was recognizable:

Most team leads would like to see a greater focus on “personal development” in one-to-one meetings rather than on operational issues - and quite rightly so. However, many managers do not know how to do this.

Christian Heidemeyer, psychologist & co-founder Echometer

This is where the aforementioned system for 1-on-1 meetings with employees comes into play again.

If you are looking for such a system, I can recommend software tools that cover these points: See our comparison of the three best one-on-one software programs . In particular, the one-to-one tool Echometer should obviously be mentioned here. It fulfills all of these criteria while also providing an integrated retro tool. This promotes team development at both an individual and team-system level. By the way, this blog post offers a good introduction to our retro tool: 54 Fun retrospective methods .

In this text, we will now focus on one part of this system: the appraisal interview or one-on-one staff meeting questions for employees. But why ask questions at all? Why don’t you just give the feedback you want to give? 

The great advantage of questions is that as a manager you usually only see one part of reality at a time. Your employee sees a different part of reality. If you lead 1-to-1 staff meetings with questions, you can check whether you are talking about the same topic and whether you have the same understanding of what “good work” looks like, for example, before an assessment is given.

Hopefully we now agree that clever questions enrich every appraisal interview or one-on-one staff meeting. But what actually makes good 1-to-1 questions for employees?

What makes good one-on-one staff meeting questions

• Firstly, good performance review or one-to-one questions for employees can be asked naturally and authentically without feeling artificial. For example, you can start by describing one of your observations (as non-judgmental as possible, of course) and then lead into the question.
• Secondly, depending on the subject area, good appraisal or 1-to-1 questions for employees are asked in such a way that they provide an answer path without being too prescriptive. In most cases, this means that they are open-ended and not closed.
• Thirdly, good employee appraisal or one-on-one questions for employees should also encourage self-reflection. This requires that the solution path is left open.
• Fourthly: Sometimes it makes sense to introduce the questions in advance - as in my example below.

I’ll give you an example: You could start the 1:1 meeting with your employee like this:

🌧 Direct feedback 🌧	☀️ Feedback through questions ☀️
👎 “You need to present your tasks better in daily meetings, your updates are not at all understandable for the team.”	👍 “I have the feeling that we are not communicating our tasks well in dailies. Could you say, for example, what Sarah or Mark are currently working on? …” Later in the conversation: “How important is it from your point of view that we understand each other’s tasks? What advantages does that actually bring us?” Finally, focus on the employee: “Okay, now let’s focus on you again, for example yesterday: How do you rate your own communication in the daily?”
💬 Comment on this approach: This method might be valid for a few employees with whom you have a close relationship of trust. In most cases, however, it is likely to be too direct and would be more likely to offend.	💬 Comment on this approach: Here, the feedback is embedded in a larger context, in the system. Most problems are not just “individual”, but systemic. Often others in the team are also involved. We have implied this through our questions. So now you can take two follow-ups with you:
⏩ Follow-up: Negative emotion is linked to a possible measure, which slows down the motivation to implement it.	⏩ Follow-Up: Here, as an employee, I have the feeling that I am not the only problem and that I have been taken seriously. I had ample opportunity to share my point of view.* Follow-up 1: “Okay, interesting, thanks for your open reflection. Following on from that, how would you like to improve your daily communication in the next two weeks? In the next 1:1 conversation, we can then reflect together on how that has worked out.”

• Follow-up 2: “I will talk to Sarah and Mark again in the next 1:1 about their communication. What could YOU do to help them?” |

General note: For this and the following one-to-one discussion methods, I generally assume that there is already a positive relationship of trust between the employee and the manager. 

Also, these are simplified examples - every employee is different. Of course, as I said, there are also team members who prefer more direct communication. Basically, you should ask employees how they prefer to receive feedback.

Enough rambling, let’s finally name some concrete employee appraisal or one-on-one staff meeting questions for employees that you can use to enrich your 1-to-1 meeting system.

Good One-on-One Staff Meeting Questions to ask

One-on-one questions for the bird’s eye view

If you want to take the bird’s eye view in 1-to-1 meetings with employees, for example in your quarterly or semi-annual one-on-one staff meeting, the following questions for employees offer inspiring conversation starters:

One-to-one questions for new employees: first time interview

One-to-one questions for relationship building (e.g. with new employees in a first time interview)

A general thought beforehand on the topic of relationship building, which is central to the onboarding of new employees in the first 30 or 90 days, for example: there is the law of reciprocity known from psychology. If I give you something, it’s much easier for me to get something in return. 

In other words: If you open up, make yourself vulnerable, be yourself and share something about yourself, then it will be much easier for your new employee to do the same. 

In concrete terms, this means that for these questions in particular, but also for other questions, it makes sense for you to give your personal answer before your new employee does. For example, first say what puts you in a good mood before you ask your new employee about it.

So here is a list of one-on-one staff meeting questions for new employees or for the first time in a one-on-one meeting:

By the way, if you would like more icebreaker questions for the team or group context to get your team workshops or retrospectives off to a good start, take a look at this blog post: 21 creative team workshop icebreaker questions .

Good One-on-One Staff Meeting Questions to ask

One-to-one meeting questions to get to know each other

In the spirit of onboarding, here are more questions for employees that are suitable for getting to know each other in a fun and playful way. Some of them can be used quite well with the whole team, but also obviously in one-on-one meetings with employees.

By the way, in the following video I have tried to explain my four favorite features of 1-to-1 meeting tool Echometer in a short and crisp way. You can also hear a testimonial from a Echometer customer who is extremely satisfied with Echometer. Have a look:

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Good one-on-one staff meeting questions for employees

1-to-1 Staff Meeting Questions with a focus on Soft Skills

And the race continues: It is often not easy for managers to coach employees’ soft skills. Although there are also many challenges in this area. 

Of course, one-to-one questions for employees about soft skills can help here.

Good one-on-one staff meeting questions for employees

Good 1-to-1 staff meeting Questions to evaluate your own leadership

You, too, should obtain feedback on yourself as a manager. This is also referred to as the employee

The following 1-to-1 questions for employees should help you.

Good one-on-one staff meeting questions for employees

Questions for the one-on-one conversation flow

You ask a good question and your employee gives you a good answer. And what happens next?

Follow-up questions during your one-to-one or appraisal interview are of course also important. Here are some questions for employees that are suitable for this and should give you some good ideas.

The following performance review or one-on-one staff meeting questions for employees are not actually questions, but statements or items that your team members answer on a scale of, for example, one to seven. If you ask them regularly, a trend will become visible over time as to which topics are improving.

By the way, these items come from our Echometer One-on-One software library. You are welcome to try out our software tool free of charge to get direct numerical feedback on the questions and visualize trends. You can find a comparison of the best 1-1 meeting software at this link .

The following items are intended for one-on-one meetings in which you want to reflect with your employee on their personal development.

I mentioned above that every team member must “lead” the team. This means that there is also a “leading upwards” process: As a manager, you receive feedback on how you can improve. 

The following one-to-one questions can help you get feedback from your colleagues on your work.

Questions to ask during one on one meeting with employee

1:1 questions for software developers & engineers

If you are coaching software developers or software engineers, then appropriate one-on-one questions for employees are necessary. The following questions should provide good food for thought, especially for employees in agile teams:

The following check-in health surveys, which are answered on a scale, are particularly relevant for agile Scrum teams and software developers:

You can also use our retrospective tool to reflect on all of these questions with your entire team at the same time, not just in a one-to-one staff meeting. You can find out more about our tool here: The 7 best retro tools in comparison .

All right, now you should have enough inspiration. Let’s summarize roughly what you should have learned today about one-on-one meetings and good questions for them.

In summary, it can be said that good 1:1 staff meetings go beyond simply ticking off a checklist: They require a clear structure and a system that actively supports reflection and goal setting. 

Well thought-out one-to-one questions that stimulate deeper self-reflection on the part of the employee and create space for constructive feedback are central to this. The focus should be on the further development of hard and soft skills as well as dealing with operational challenges. 

The above-mentioned set of questions for employees, which addresses topics such as personal motivation, work blocks and goal achievement, helps here. As mentioned, software tools such as Echometer can of course also be helpful here in order to implement a systematic one-to-one coaching approach and make the success of one-to-one meetings visible in the long term: See our comparison of the three best one-on-one software tools . You can start a free trial of our software tool via the template below or via our website.

I hope that no questions have been left unanswered? 😉

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FAQ - Frequently asked questions

In the context of one-to-one meeting questions, there are of course other questions you can ask yourself. That’s why I’ve put together some typical questions and answers for you here. For example, it’s about the best one-to-one meeting questions and which one-to-one meeting questions you should ask the whole team.

Wondering which one-to-one meeting questions are suitable for asking the whole team?

This is a good question because it implies the assumption that 1-to-1 meeting questions should be customized to the employee. 

Here is a selection of questions you can ask your team (see above for more suitable questions): 

• How do you rate the current mood in the team?
• What challenges do you currently see for the team?
• What do you think we could improve in order to work better together?
• Do you have any ideas on how we could make our meetings more efficient?
• Are there any resources or support that you lack in order to do your tasks better?
• How satisfied are you with the current communication in the team?
• What goals do you think we should set as a team for the coming months?
• What makes you particularly proud of our teamwork?

The best one-to-one meeting questions are those that are optimally adapted to your employee. In this respect, it is difficult to define a concrete list.

If you are asking for my personal opinion, I would give you the following answer: The best one-on-one meeting employee questions focus on different areas:

• Mood: How are you really doing at the moment, both professionally and privately?
• Development: What is currently blocking your development the most?
• Feedback: Where would you like more feedback from me or your colleagues?
• System: What do you think is currently blocking us most as a team in the company as a whole?
• Improvements: If you could change one thing about your work, what would it be?

Yes, of course there is also software that suggests one-to-one meeting questions. Here is a comparison of 3 one-to-one meeting software tools .