One on One Meeting Questions

Contents

The Balance Framework

The balance framework is a method for approaching one-on-one discussions that involves talking about four topics in your meetings equally:

  • đŸŒ± Growth and Development
  • 👏 Motivation
  • đŸ’Œ Work
  • ☎ Communication

Ideally, each topic should take up approximately 25% of your conversations. Though it will vary from meeting to meeting, over the previous 30 days you’ll want to aim to spend close to equal time on each topic area.

Questions managers can ask employees

đŸŒ± Growth and development

These are career conversations, what managers can do to help their employees excel in the business and outside of it. This is where managers can offer advice, coaching and help grow the skill sets of their individual team members.

  • What has been the work highlight/lowlight from the past week?
  • Who’s someone in the company that you’d like to learn more from?
  • What projects would you like to work on or be more involved in?
  • What professional goals would you like to accomplish in the next 6 to 12 months, and what makes you say that?
  • What’s something you’re itching to try that you haven’t had the time or resources to do?
  • Is your job what you expected when you accepted it? If not, where has it differed?
  • What other roles at [your company] do you find interesting? What skills do those roles require that you would like to work on?
  • What else can I be doing to help progress your career?
  • What are your work and non-work highlights of the past month?
  • What’s one thing you’d like to do more of, outside of work this coming month?

☎ Communication

Breakdowns and silos in communication torpedo productivity and collaboration. You can address those head-on in conversations by identifying where there might be communication issues.

  • What’s one thing we can do to improve the performance of the team?
  • Are you happy with our level of communication? How would you change it?
  • What’s top of mind right now that we haven’t talked about yet?
  • If you were managing the team, what would you do differently?
  • Who is doing a great job on the team? What have they done?
  • Am I acting like the best manager you could wish for? What could I be doing better?
  • When’s the best time to give feedback on your work?
  • Where has our communication faltered? Can you give me an example?
  • Is there anything that would be productive for me to re-explain to our team?
  • Am I providing enough clarity on our direction?
  • Where would you like me involved more in your day to day? Where would you like me involved less?
  • What needs to change around our team meetings?
  • What do you like about our one-on-one meetings? What can be improved?
  • Are there any roles on the team that you feel unclear on?
  • What are your top priorities this week?
  • What’s a problem we have on our team that I might not know about?
  • What can I hold you accountable for next time we talk?
  • How could we improve cross-functional collaboration at [your company]?

👏 Employee motivation

One of the most difficult things all employees face at one point or another in their career is staying motivated at work. In fact, after surveying 500 employees, we discovered that 34% of direct reports struggled most with staying motivated at work.

Managers should take the opportunity in one-on-ones to spur conversations around motivation, which can help gauge and improve employee motivation. What makes them excited to work? What projects reinvigorate and which ones demotivate?

  • If you were the CEO, what’s the first thing you’d change?
  • What’s one thing we could change about work for you that would improve your personal life?
  • What’s something you’re proud of that happened this week? This month?
  • What are you passionate about, personally or professionally?
  • Who on our team deserves a shoutout for their work and why?
  • What do you wish I did less of? More of?
  • What’s something past managers have done that’s inspired and motivated you?
  • What’s something past managers have done that’s really frustrated you?
  • What does an ideal, productive workday look like to you? Walk me through it.
  • What makes you excited and motivated to work on a project?
  • Are you happy in your role? What could make it better for you?
  • On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you at work?
  • What’s your least favorite part of your day-to-day at work?
  • What’s one thing you would recommend to improve our workplace culture?
  • Do you find your physical work environment productive? Is there anything preventing you from being productive?
  • Are you proud of the work you do here?
  • How do you feel about the balance between your individual work vs. managing?
  • How do you feel your work/life balance is? What would you want to change, if anything?
  • Are there any goals we have on a company, team or individual level that you feel are entirely unattainable? If so, why?
  • What’s the best thing about working here?
  • How are you feeling about your goals?
  • Which one best describes you during the past month? 😀 🙂 😐 đŸ€” 😒 😳 😰 đŸ˜€

🚧 Challenges, roadblocks and concerns

Discuss the projects, the progress and the day-to-day details. This often consumes one-on-ones and ends up turning, what should be a great time to build trust, into a time for “status updates.” So, it’s important to only allocate 25% of your time to discuss work-related topics. If conversations start veering towards work too much, set aside a separate time to discuss project-related work.

  • What’s one thing I can do right now to make work better for you?
  • Where do you need help?
  • Do you have any questions about what other team members are working on?
  • What do you need? What could make your day-to-day easier?
  • If you were a hiring manager for our team, what role would be your next hire?
  • What’s something you’d like to share but is a little stressful to bring up in person?
  • What’s your outlook on next week?
  • Do you have any questions that, if answered, would help you in your day-to-day?
  • What are you least clear about, in terms of our company-wide strategy and goals?
  • Do I have anything outstanding for you that I haven’t done yet?
  • What, if anything, is stressing you out?
  • What, if anything, feels harder than it should be in your day to day work?

đŸ‘‚đŸ» Getting feedback from your direct report

  • What do you like about my management style? What do you dislike?
  • On a scale of 1-10, how has my level of support/presence been over the past month?
  • Where do you need support right now?
  • Where do you think I should be focusing more of my attention?
  • What is one thing I could experiment with doing differently this month?
  • Am I giving you enough feedback on your work?
  • What is everyone around me neglecting to share with me?
  • If I could improve one skill between this meeting and the next, which would you choose?
  • What’s everyone around me NOT telling me?
  • What “soft skills” do you think I excel at most? What can I work on?

Questions employees can ask managers

đŸŒ± Career growth and personal development

  • What steps can I take right now to progress my career with the company?
  • If I could improve one skill between this meeting and next, which would you choose?
  • Where do you see my role evolving in the next 6 months and 1 year?
  • What mentorship opportunities are there available for me?
  • How can I improve my skills? What can I be reading? Where can I be taking classes?
  • What learning and development opportunities are there within and outside of the company?
  • What’s a skill you think I can learn that will help me do a better job?
  • What skills do you think our team is lacking?
  • How can I help train and support others in the team and company?
  • Who in the company do you think I can learn the most from?
  • Who are your mentors? Who inspires you?

đŸ’Œ Priorities, productivity and strategy

  • What can I do to help improve the performance of the team?
  • Who on the team needs help? How can I support them better?
  • How are we progressing on our goals as a team?
  • What’s the next role you’re thinking of hiring for our team?
  • How can we improve the way our team works together?
  • Where do you think I should be focusing more of my attention?
  • What do you wish I took more ownership over?
  • What big changes are coming down the pipe in the next 6 months?
  • If there were unlimited budget and resources, what’s the first thing you’d change for our team?
  • What’s something you wish we did better as a team?
  • What’s something we do well as a team?
  • What are we doing to make ourselves stand out from our competitors?
  • What’s worrying senior leadership right now?

☎ Communication and feedback

  • What’s something you feel unclear about on my work?
  • Is my work quality above or below average?
  • How am I doing with [this specific thing]?
  • When’s the best time to get feedback on my work?
  • What do you wish I did less of? More of?
  • Do you feel like I’m a team player?
  • How do you define a successful one-on-one, a successful team meeting?
  • Do you think I contribute enough in team meetings?
  • What “soft skills” do you think I excel at most? What can I work on?
  • What’s an example of a situation I’ve handled well internally, a situation I’ve handled poorly?
  • Where do you think my communication can be improved?
  • What is everyone around me neglecting to share with me?
  • Am I giving enough feedback to my peers?

👏 Company culture and motivation

  • How can I get more involved in workplace culture?
  • What qualities are most important when you’re hiring for our team?
  • Are there any aspects of our culture you wish you could change?
  • What do you do to avoid burnout?
  • After a failure, what do you do to pick yourself up again?

đŸ€”đŸ» Supporting your manager and managing up

  • How can I better support you?
  • What’s worrying you most?
  • What are your biggest challenges leading the team?
  • What are you most excited about in your day-to-day?
  • What’s your biggest challenge as a people leader?
  • Is there anything I can do more or less of that would help you?

🧊 Icebreakers and “getting to know you” questions

  • How are you?
  • What’s something you’re really jazzed about outside of work?
  • How was your weekend?
  • What’s something, outside of work, that you’re looking forward to this week?
  • What’s one cuisine you could live without?
  • What’s your favorite restaurant in our city?
  • What’s the most random job you’ve ever had?

Resources

This framework and questions was lifted from Hypercontext.