One-to-one meetings are one of the team development tools. At these meetings, you gradually, systematically build relationships with the employee. Transparent, clear relations in which it becomes possible for an employee to develop. As a result, these meetings work for the adaptation of employees, for their motivation and retention.
At the meeting, it is important to discuss not only tasks. Here is an example of a one-to-one meeting.
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Start with general questions
Assess the current psychological state of the employee. This will already set the context for further communication and help identify possible problems in work and personal life.
Try to ask open-ended questions. Give space for an answer. If you ask and wait for a yes/no answer, important details can be lost. Let the employee speak.
What can you ask:
How was the last week/month?
What have you been thinking about this week?
When we last talked, you were worried about the question X. How are you doing with this topic now?
What’s the plan for next week?
2.Questions about company loyalty
The more loyal the employee, the more dedication he will work and stay in the state for longer. Again, closed questions are not the best solution here. Anyone who is not going to quit tomorrow will prove his loyalty in every possible way. We need to look deeper into what’s in a person’s head.
Alternatively, ask him:
Do you think the company is moving in the right direction? Perhaps you would like to suggest some changes?
Do you like the latest changes in the company (if any)?
How do you think the goals and values of the company coincide with yours?
3.Questions about work
Let’s move on to the more substantive part of the 1:1 interview. Ask the interlocutor how he works. Do his current work tasks align with his personal goals and desires?
Ask the following questions or come up with your own:
What interesting thing happened to you at work during (time period)?
What seemed the most difficult for (time period)?
What did you like and dislike in (time period)?
How do you think you/your team are moving towards your goals?
4.Questions about relationships in the team
Bad relationships in the team ruined more than one company. By talking one-on-one with employees, you can assess the current state of the team and identify the main negatives.
Employees can suggest who in the team has changed behavior. Not everyone can just come to you and lay out their problems. If you know in advance about the possible difficulties in the life of an employee, you can structure the questions in such a way as to work through this problem together.
The basic questions for clarifying the atmosphere in the team are as follows:
What are your relationships in the team? Are there any difficulties?
What relationship would you like to discuss?
Perhaps you yourself want to tell something?
5. Questions about career goals
We added this block for the sake of completeness. It should be used no more than once a year, but you need to know how to deal with such cases. Why discuss this at all? We all tend to want to earn more, recognition in the field, career advancement.
If an employee does not strive for anything, most likely, he simply lost the desire to work. Because of which? No goal? There is no understanding why he needs new knowledge? He does not see where he can apply them in your company? In such cases, employees should have a development plan with understandable motivation, but perhaps something went wrong?
To understand and evaluate an employee’s career aspirations, you can try the following questions:
What new skills would you like to learn?
We have already discussed your goals before, how did you manage to get closer to them?
Are there any authorities for you in your profession? Who would like to learn from?
Have your goals changed in the last year?
How to end an interview 1:1
At the end of the conversation, it is worth summing up a certain conclusion. Draw some conclusion from everything discussed. End up with your doors always open to the employee and their opinions/problems/doubts. Outline some immediate development plan, until the next meeting in this format.
Here we will write as an example not questions, but what to ask in terms of meaning and content. It’s better for you to think about the wording yourself:
What can you do for the employee based on the conversation?
Is there anything you both need to discuss next time?
What does the employee plan to do at work, and if there are problems, how to solve them?
A high-quality 1:1 interview will allow you to constantly monitor the situation in the team and the company as a whole. Yes, it will take a lot of time. Yes. This is hard. But maintaining a healthy environment is worth it.