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What is the difference between a one-on-one conversation between you and your life partner, and a regular one-on-one conversation in a work context (also known as a performance review)?
In the work context, every one-on-one conversation should have a concrete goal and not just be small talk. Don't get me wrong – an absolutely valid and important goal of employee or one-on-one conversations is of course to develop and maintain the relationship with your direct report. Any one-on-one topic that helps with that is valid.
In my experience, however, many managers aka. bosses make it too easy for themselves.
"The majority of one-on-one meetings are poorly planned conversations in which the colleague's mood is tapped unsystematically and a follow-up goal is very rarely recorded."
The performance review is held to tick off a checklist: "Yes, I have invested time in my direct report. Nobody can do anything to me now. I'm a good boss – Many people don't even have conversations and performance reviews."
Unfortunately, it's not that simple.
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
1-1 Meeting Questions for Every Occasion
Since you are primarily here to find good employee performance appraisal questions, here are a few examples of good one-to-one meeting questions and topics that you can ask in most 1-1 meeting formats in a (remote) work context:
✅ General 1-1 meeting questions
- How are you (really) doing right now?
- On a scale of one (very bad) to ten (very good), how are you feeling right now?
- How focused are you at the moment on a scale of 1 to 10? And why?
- What's going through your head right now?
- What is slowing you down in your work at the moment?
- What's going well for you right now?
- What's not going so well at the moment?
🧑🎨 Creative 1-1 meeting questions
- If you had to characterize your mood as a weather forecast with regard to the project, your job in general and your tasks, what would it look like?
- How often do you feel overwhelmed or stressed at work? In which situations?
- What does a good break look like for you (fresh air, screens...)?
- What are you doing right now that isn't actually getting you anywhere?
- You get a magic wand and have one wish related to work: What would you wish for (excluding a higher salary)?
- What do you currently need to improve?
- What was your biggest challenge yesterday (or last week etc.)?
Below you will find many more one-on-one meeting questions for employees. 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 direct report and that you don't need to prepare anything. Instead, I recommend having a concrete system that allows you to always ask the right questions and really develop your direct reports in 1-on-1s. This system is the key ingredient for spicy, productive 1-on-1 conversations & performance reviews.
Don't worry: the priority is still, of course, that the 1-to-1 conversation remains a casual, relaxed conversation so that the employee feels comfortable – obviously. But does that contradict a system? No!
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
What should 1-on-1 or Employee Performance Reviews focus on?
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 and bosses on the subject of "one-to-one staff conversations". A pattern that was recognizable:
"Most managers would like to have a stronger focus of one-to-one meetings on "personal development" rather than operational issues - and quite rightly so. But many managers don't know how to do this."
This is where the aforementioned system for 1-on-1 conversations & performance reviews comes into play again.
Components of good 1-1 meeting systems
- A concrete one-to-one question set that builds on and interlocks with each other
- Transparent recording and regular review of tasks and follow-ups from the 1-to-1 or employee performance review
- Making trends visible to create a regular sense of achievement
- Recognizing patterns to additionally stimulate self-reflection
If you are looking for such a system, I can recommend software tools that cover these points: See our comparison of the 3 best one-on-one Software Tools. 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 provides 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 performance appraisal or one-to-one staff meeting questions & topics. 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 aka boss you usually only see one part of reality at a time. Your direct report sees a different part of reality. If you lead 1-1 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.
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
Really good one-to-one meeting questions & Topics
Hopefully we now agree that clever questions enrich every performance appraisal or one-to-one staff meeting. But what actually makes good 1-to-1 questions?
What makes good 1-1 meeting questions
- Firstly, good performance review or one-to-one questions 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 performance review or 1-to-1 questions 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 performance review or one-to-one questions 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 conversation or performance review like this:
 Direct feedback |
 Feedback through questions |
|---|---|
| 👎 "You need to present your tasks better in daily meetings, your updates are not at all clear to the team." | 👍 "I have the feeling that we don't communicate our tasks well in Dailys. For example, could you say what Sarah or Mark are working on right now? ..."
In the further course of the conversation: "How important do you think it is 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 direct reports 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 employee review 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: As an employee, I felt that I was not the only problem and that I was taken seriously. I had ample opportunity to share my point of view.
|
General note: For this and the following one-to-one staff discussion methods, I generally assume that there is already a positive relationship of trust between the employee and the manager aka boss.
Furthermore, these are simplified examples – every employee is different. Of course, as already mentioned, there are also team members who prefer more direct communication. Basically, you should ask direct reports how they prefer to receive feedback.
Enough rambling, let's finally name some concrete employee review or one-to-one meeting questions for employees that you can use to enrich your 1-to-1 meeting system.
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
One-on-one Questions & Topics for the bird's eye view
If you want to take the bird's eye view in 1-to-1 conversations, for example in your quarterly or semi-annual one-to-one performance review, the following employee review questions provide inspiring conversation starters:
🧘♀️ 1-1 Questions with a focus on positives
- If you could add one responsibility or decision-making power to your role, what would it be?
- Which skill would have the greatest impact on your personal performance if you mastered it?
- What new things have you learned recently (privately or professionally)?
- When was the last time you helped another team member to develop?
- What are the 3 best things you wish for yourself professionally in the next 1-2 years?
- When was the last time you experienced a state of flow at work? How easy is it for you to get into flow?
- What would you call the informal role you play in the team and why? (e.g. "Head of Happiness")
- What is currently inspiring you? What currently gives you energy?
🦋 1-1 Employee Review Questions & Topics about improvements
- If you were the CEO of this organization, what would you do differently?
- What are things that drain your energy?
- What are you currently missing in your job?
- If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
- When did you find it difficult to change the context between tasks?
- When was the last time you contributed to a process improvement in our team?
- If you could delegate one of your responsibilities to someone else, what would it be?
- What things slow you down or regularly block your work?
- What question would you ask yourself if you were your coach?
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
One-to-one Questions for Relationship Building (e.g. Onboarding)
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 employee to do the same.
In concrete terms, this means that for these employee review questions in particular, but also for other questions, it makes sense for you to give your personal answer before your colleague does. For example, first say what puts you in a good mood before you ask your colleague about it.
🧘♀️ One-on-one questions about private matters & relationship building
- What did you do at the weekend? (works well with the whole team after the weekend)
- How is your family?
- What is the highlight of your weekend? (also works well as a team icebreaker after the weekend)
- What puts you in a good mood?
- What things in your daily life make you happy?
- What should I know about you?
- Do you have an idea of where you want to be professionally in a few years' time? If so, where?
- Operational question: How would you like to organize communication between us?
- Operational question: What routines would you like to have between the two of us?
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.
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
One-to-one Review Questions to Get to Know Each Other
In the spirit of onboarding, here are more employee review questions & topics 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-to-one conversations or performance review.
💭 Quick 1 to 1 employee review questions (getting to know each other)
- Do you prefer an early or late start to the day?
- What does your perfect Saturday look like?
- What was the worst job you've ever had?
- What is your favorite travel destination and why are you drawn there?
- Were/are you in a sports club?
- Which book would you most like to read again for the first time?
- What is your favorite thing to watch on YouTube?
- What was the last movie you saw and what did you think of it?
- What's your favorite drink at happy hour?
- Would you rather be cooped up in a room full of kittens or puppies?
- Which activity do you enjoy so much that you forget the time when you're doing it?
- If you had an extra hour a day, what would you do?
- If you had one hour less a day, what would you leave out?
💭 1 to 1 Employee Review Questions to think about (getting to know each other)
- If you could choose one talent or skill that you would master perfectly straight away, what would it be?
- What three words would your friends use to describe you?
- Which animal best describes your way of working and why?
- If your life were a movie, what genre would it be?
- If you had the chance to have lunch with a famous person, who would you choose and why?
- What would you do if you won 1 million euros?
- What's the craziest thing on your bucket list?
- If you were the host of a talk show, which one would you host?
- Is there an event in your past that had a strong influence on you and changed your perspective?
- Would you rather live the life of a famous person for a day or be the main character of your favorite book/movie?
1 to 1 Questions - One-on-One Performance Review
1-1 Meeting Questions & Topics with a Focus on Soft Skills
And the race continues: It is often not easy for managers aka bosses to coach direct report's soft skills. Although there are also many challenges in this area.
Of course, one-to-one employee review questions about soft skills can help here.
🫣 1 to 1 Employee Review Questions & Topics on Soft Skills
- What would you do differently if you had 100% confidence in yourself?
- How would your life change if you had 20% more self-confidence?
- What advice would you give your younger self?
- What is the most important tip you have learned for "good communication" in your life?
- What have you learned recently? How do your current skills compare to the skills you had 6 or 12 months ago?
- Which skills would currently help you the most in your personal development journey?
- When was the last time you had the feeling that you had made a mistake with something? What would be a constructive way of looking at this "mistake"?
- How can we improve the feedback loops between you and your stakeholders? (e.g. share progress more proactively, request feedback earlier, document feedback better)
- When did you think about asking a question in our team (meeting) but didn't do it? What stopped you from doing so?
- When was the last time you needed help at work? When did you actually ask colleagues for help? How did you ask and how did they respond?
- What efforts can you make in the near future to improve your relationships with colleagues? What improvements would have the most positive impact on your working life?
- What topics are you able to coach others on? Who could benefit from your feedback?
- Reflect: What are good reasons to say "no" when someone asks you to do something?
- Where do you see your team: How are contributions distributed? Where do you see yourself? What role do you play, depending on the meeting?
- In which situations do you find it easy to speak up and address conflicts or problems in the team?
- Which person in the team would you like to know better?
1 to 1 Performance Review Questions - Performance Appraisal
1-1 Meeting Questions for Evaluating your Own Leadership
You should also seek feedback on yourself as a manager aka boss. This is also referred to as the employee "managing upwards" (in the hierarchy).
The following 1-to-1 employee review questions should help you.
👑 1 to 1 questions & topics about your leadership behavior
- What am I doing that stands in the way of your best possible performance?
- What was the most useful thing I could help you with recently?
- What positive feedback have you received in recent weeks?
- What expectations do you have of me as your manager?
- What makes a good manager for you?
- What aspects of a good manager am I already doing well?
- What is one thing I could improve to become a better leader for you?
- If you were in my shoes, what would you change about the team?
- Which team activity would you like to try?
1 to 1 Performance Review Questions - Performance Appraisal
Follow Up Questions to Use Within the 1-1 Conversation
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 performance review are of course also important. Here are some questions & topics that are suitable for this and should give you some good ideas.
💬 1 to 1 employee review questions for the course of the performance review
- Thank you for sharing this with me. Let me think about it and get back to you, okay?
- Do I have permission to help you with this?
- How willing are you to do what is necessary to change this situation?
- How much control do you have over this situation?
- How do you know that the problem you think you have is actually a problem – how does it show?
- What would you say to a friend who has similar challenges to yours?
- What would be an alternative way of looking at things?
- What would you do if you didn't reach your goal?
- Do you want to solve your problem now? Right now or this month?
- What advice would the wisest person you know give you in your current situation?
- What have you already tried to solve the challenge?
- This is my biggest takeaway from today's session: [...]. What is yours?
1 to 1 Performance Review Questions - Performance Appraisal
One-on-One employees Health Check Surveys
The following performance review or one-on-one staff meeting questions 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.
🪞Employee 1-1 Survey: Self-reflection
- Over the last few weeks, I have often been able to use my # strengths at work.
- I see an attractive career path in the company ahead of me. #Growth
- I receive constructive # feedback on both my work and my personal development.
- I feel very comfortable taking risks in our team. #PsychologicalSafety
- Most days I feel like I've achieved something at work. #JobSatisfaction
- The results of my work are of great importance for our overarching #Team_Goals.
Note: This one-on-one staff meeting template asks for agreement to the Health Check items (questionnaire) on a 1-7 scale.
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 staff meetings in which you want to reflect on your team with your employee.
🪞Employee 1-1 Survey: Team reflection
- In our team, you can have different opinions and still work together successfully. #PsychologicalSafety
- I receive recognition or praise for good work. #Feedback
- We celebrate joint successes in our team. #JobSatisfaction
- Everyone in our team abides by the rules to which we have committed ourselves. #TeamPlay
- When my team members say they're going to do something, they follow through. #TeamPlay
Note: This one-on-one staff meeting template asks for agreement to the Health Check items (questionnaire) on a 1-7 scale.
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 1-1 questions for employees can help you to get feedback from your colleagues on your work.
🪞Employee 1-1 Survey: "Managing Upwards"
- I am really happy with my team leader. #JobSatisfaction
- My team leader sets an example of what he expects from us as a team. #Leadership
- My team leader questions things in a constructive way. #Feedback #Leadership
Note: This one-on-one staff meeting template asks for agreement to the Health Check items (questionnaire) on a 1-7 scale.
1 to 1 Review Questions - Personal conversation
1:1 Questions for Software Developers & Engineers
If you are coaching software developers or software engineers, then good one-on-one staff meeting questions are appropriate. The following questions & topics should provide good food for thought, especially for employees in agile teams:
🎯 1 to 1 questions for software developers & Engineers: Focus
- What interrupts your concentration at work?
- When was the last time you experienced a state of flow at work? How easy is it for you to get into flow?
- When and how have you realized that you have exceeded your personal "Work In Progress Limit"? What could we change to help you achieve an appropriate WIP in the future?
- How are the speeches in your team distributed? How do you reflect on your role in it?
- Who are our customers as a company and how does your work specifically contribute to meeting their needs?
- What are the things you want to learn when you think about your colleagues in the company and beyond?
🏦 1 to 1 questions for software developers & Engineers: Business mindset
- What is preventing us from meeting our customers' needs?
- What do you think of our business objective: is it easy to understand, comprehensible and motivating?
- How could we strengthen the link between your daily work and our business goals? How can we better enable you to contribute to our business goals?
- Let's look at and reflect on the "days since last" metrics: "Days since last" (useful both in one-to-one meetings, but also in your team retrospective).
- Eight areas of improvement – see below.
As already mentioned, the Echometer One-on-One software contains many templates that help you to develop direct reports in performance reviews. There are also templates for agile teams in particular, some of which are interactive and visual. You can find a simple example of this here – and take a look at our tool using the button below.
1-1 Call template Echometer Software
- Take a look at the areas listed here. Where do you think both you and your team have the greatest potential for improvement? Source: Echometer 1:1 Meeting Software
The following check-in health surveys, which are answered on a scale, are particularly relevant for agile Scrum teams and software developers or engineers:
🪞Employee 1-1 Survey: For software developers
- I scrutinize our work based on my understanding of our # team goals and the needs of our # customers.
- I proactively contribute to the continuous improvement of our team. #TeamPlay
- I know the challenges and problems of our # customers.
- My work tasks usually progress very quickly, even if external # feedback is necessary.
Note: This one-on-one staff meeting template asks for agreement to the Health Check items (questionnaire) on a 1-7 scale.
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 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 roughly summarize what you should have learned today about one-on-one meetings and good questions for them.
1 to 1 Review Questions - Personal conversation
Conclusion - Best one-to-one Meeting or Employee Performance Review Questions
In summary, it can be said that good 1:1 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 1-1 questions & topics 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, 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? 😉
Most Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters run in circles...
...fixing superficial symptoms. Time to use psychology to foster sustainable mindset change.
