one-to-one

---
name: one-to-one
description: Turns ten minutes with one person into a prepared set of questions, one agreed action with an owner and a date, and a three line written record sent to them the same day. Use when you have been meaning to have a proper conversation with someone for weeks and keep not having it.
---

# Ten minutes that actually changes something

You give me who you are meeting, what they do, how long they have been with you, and anything you already know is on their mind. You get back the question you send them the day before, an ordered set of questions to ask in the ten minutes, the thing you owe them from last time, one agreed action with a name and a date against it, and a three line record you send them the same day. It is built to run in the gap between lunch and evening service, on a Tuesday, without a meeting room.

## What it does

1. **Put it in the diary as a repeating slot and protect it like a booking.** Same person, same time, same interval. Fortnightly is right for most hospitality teams; monthly is the minimum below which it stops being a conversation and becomes an appraisal. The interval matters less than the fact that it repeats, because the value is cumulative: the second one is where somebody tells you the thing they did not say in the first. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development describes the shift the whole industry has made, "Less focus on annual appraisals, or even scrapping them; greater focus on regular performance reviews", and puts the principle as "Performance management should be a continuous cycle, not an isolated event." Cancelling once is unavoidable in this business. Cancelling twice in a row tells the person exactly where they sit, and you will not get the honest answer again for months.

2. **Send one question the day before, and only one.** Something like: what is one thing that made your job harder in the last two weeks. Sending it ahead does two things. It gives the person who does not think out loud a chance to think, which is most people, and it moves the first two minutes of the meeting from warming up to the actual subject. Do not send an agenda, do not send four questions, and do not send it on the day. One question, the day before, by whatever route that person actually reads.

3. **Open with the thing you owe them from last time, before anything else.** The first words should be the action from the previous one to one and what happened to it: done, not done, or still open with a new date. If it did not happen, say so plainly and say why, and do not let it quietly drop off. This is the single behaviour that separates a one to one that changes something from a chat, because a person whose last three requests went nowhere will use the ten minutes to be pleasant, and pleasant is worthless to you. If there is no previous action because this is the first one, say that out loud and say what you intend the meeting to be for.

4. **Ask about the work before you ask about the person.** The Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards name the six things that actually cause pressure at work and they make an excellent question set because they are about conditions rather than character: demands, meaning "issues such as workload, work patterns and the work environment"; control, "how much say the person has in the way they do their work"; support, "the encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organisation, line management and colleagues"; relationships, "promoting positive working to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour"; role, whether people understand their role and are not given conflicting ones; and change, "how organisational change (large or small) is managed and communicated". You will not cover six in ten minutes. Pick one per meeting and rotate, so that across a quarter you have asked about all six. "Is there anything in the way you are asked to work that you would change if it were up to you" is a control question, and it gets better answers than "how are things".

5. **Ask the question you are avoiding, and then stop talking.** There is usually one: why they were short with the new starter, whether they are looking elsewhere, why the section has slipped, whether the shift pattern is working with their childcare. Ask it once, plainly, without a preamble that softens it into unanswerability, and then say nothing. Count to seven. Managers fill silence and it is the most expensive habit in the room, because the useful answer lives on the other side of the pause. If you genuinely cannot think what to ask, the public list of one to one questions maintained at `VGraupera/1on1-questions` has several hundred, and the best of them are the ones aimed back at yourself, for example "As your manager, what would you like me to stop, start, or continue doing?".

6. **Keep discipline out of it, and know what to do when performance is the real subject.** A one to one where someone is told their work is not good enough, without warning and without it being framed as what it is, destroys the format for everybody they talk to afterwards. Acas is clear that concerns about conduct or performance are usually best dealt with informally, that many can be resolved in the course of everyday working relationships, and that addressing something early and informally can lead to a quicker resolution. That informal conversation is a legitimate thing to have, and it should be named as one at the start: say that this part is about performance, say what you have seen, and make it a two way discussion rather than a verdict. Acas adds that where improvement is required you should "make sure the employee understands what needs to be done, how their performance or conduct will be reviewed, and over what period", and that it may be useful to confirm in writing what has been decided. If the conversation is heading anywhere formal, stop it and speak to your HR adviser before the next one.

7. **Agree exactly one action, with one name and one date.** Not three. One. Written in the meeting, in front of them, and read back. The owner may be you, it may be them, it may be a third person, but it is one named person and never a department. The date is a real date, not "soon" and not "next month". A one to one that produces one small thing that actually happens is worth ten that produce a list of good intentions, and the person will judge the entire format on whether the first action landed.

8. **Set objectives sparingly, and set them properly when you do.** Not every meeting needs one. When it does, Acas's guidance is that objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. The CIPD adds that objectives "are most effective if they centre on specific outcomes and are stretching", and also corrects a popular assumption worth knowing about: "Contrary to popular opinion, it is not generally better for employees to set their own goals." Read that as a warning against the manager who asks the person to write their own objectives because it feels collaborative and is actually an abdication. Discuss it together, then take the decision yourself and own it.

9. **Write three lines and send them the same day.** What we discussed, what we agreed, who is doing it and by when. Acas puts it directly: "It's important to keep a written record of what is discussed. This should be shared with the employee afterwards." Three lines, sent by whatever route that person reads, before the end of the shift. Two reasons. It is the only thing that makes the action real, because an action nobody wrote down was a conversation. And where a situation ever becomes formal, whether that is probation, a grievance, a capability process or a reference, the file of short honest notes written at the time is worth more than any amount of recollection, in both directions: it protects the worker from a manager's revised memory just as much as the other way round.

## Then it checks

1. The meeting has a repeating slot with a named person and an interval no longer than monthly, and any cancellation is recorded with a rebooked date rather than skipped.
2. One question, and only one, was sent at least a day ahead, and the record of the meeting shows whether it was answered.
3. The first item discussed was the action from the previous meeting, with an outcome recorded as done, not done or still open with a new date, and no previous action has been left unmentioned.
4. One of the six work condition areas was asked about by name, and the rotation shows which areas have been covered in the last quarter and which are still outstanding.
5. Exactly one action was agreed, with one named person and a specific calendar date, read back in the meeting, and no action is owned by a team or a job title.
6. A written record of no more than five lines was sent to the person on the same day, saying what was discussed, what was agreed, who owns it and the date, and the person has it in a form they can read back.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never record anything in the written note that was not said in the meeting, and never soften or sharpen what the person said when writing it up. The note's only value is that it is what happened; the first time someone reads a note that does not match the conversation they had, every note after it is worthless and so is the meeting.
- Never let a one to one become a formal disciplinary or capability meeting without saying so and stopping. Those carry procedural rights, and a person who did not know what kind of meeting they were in has been treated unfairly whatever the merits of the concern. Name it, end the informal conversation, and speak to your HR adviser before the next one.
- Never raise something for the first time in a review, a probation meeting or an appraisal that has not already been said in a one to one. Surprise is the thing that turns a fixable performance problem into a dispute.
- Never write a note about somebody's health, home circumstances, pregnancy, caring responsibilities or immigration status because it came up in conversation. Record the work adjustment that was agreed, not the reason behind it, unless the person has asked you to record the reason.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's HR adviser or solicitor to check before it is used. It is a conversation structure and a record, not a disciplinary, capability or grievance procedure, and it is not employment law advice.

## Built from
- Acas, "Performance management", https://www.acas.org.uk/archive/performance-management, last updated 23 June 2026, read 14 September 2026: "regular check-ins, sometimes known as one-to-ones", the instruction to keep a written record and share it with the employee, the SMART framing for objectives, and the guidance that conduct and performance concerns are usually best handled informally with the employee told what needs to change, how it will be reviewed and over what period. This shaped steps 6, 8 and 9.
- Health and Safety Executive, "What are the Management Standards?", https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/overview.htm, updated 14 January 2025, read 14 September 2026: the six Management Standards and their definitions, which are the rotating question set in step 4 and the reason the questions are about work conditions rather than about the person.
- Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, "Performance management", https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/performance-factsheet/, factsheet updated 29 January 2026, read 14 September 2026: the move away from annual appraisals towards regular reviews, the statement that performance management is a continuous cycle rather than an isolated event, the centrality of the line manager, and the correction that it is not generally better for employees to set their own goals, which shaped steps 1 and 8.
- Acas, "Reviews" (probation periods), https://www.acas.org.uk/probation-periods/reviews, last updated 24 July 2026, read 14 September 2026: that review meetings should be one-to-one, that employees should also have regular informal check-ins, and that records must be kept and shared after each meeting, which supports the separation in step 6 between an informal one to one and a formal review.
- `VGraupera/1on1-questions`, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/VGraupera/1on1-questions/master/README.md, read 14 September 2026: the public question bank named in step 5 as a source when you are stuck, and the specific self-directed question quoted there.

# one-to-one

## You are given
A folder for one UK hospitality business holding: a list of the people who have a one to one, with job title and start date; the records of any previous one to ones, in whatever state they exist, which may be a photo of a notebook page, a WhatsApp message or nothing; the interval the owner has chosen for each person; the rota or diary the slot has to fit around; and, for the meeting about to happen, the single question the owner has written to send the day before. Names are spelled inconsistently and previous actions are often recorded with no owner and no date.

## Produce
Write into an `output/` folder next to the inputs:

1. `meeting-schedule.csv` with these columns in this order: `person`, `job_title`, `interval_weeks`, `slot_day`, `slot_time`, `meeting_number`, `meeting_date`, `question_send_date`, `status`, `cancelled_on`, `rebooked_to`. `question_send_date` is the meeting date minus one day. `status` is exactly one of `booked`, `held`, `cancelled and rebooked`, `cancelled and not rebooked`. Any person whose interval is longer than one calendar month is listed and flagged in `gaps.md`.
2. `action-register.csv` with columns: `action_ref`, `person`, `meeting_date`, `action_text_verbatim`, `owner_name`, `due_date`, `outcome`, `outcome_date`, `carried_from_action_ref`. `action_ref` is A001 upward. `outcome` is exactly one of `done`, `not done`, `still open`, `not yet reviewed`. One action per meeting and no more. `owner_name` is a single named person, never a team, a section or a job title.
3. `rotation-tracker.csv` with columns: `person`, `standard_area`, `last_asked_date`, `meetings_since_last_asked`, `due_next`. Exactly six rows per person, and the `standard_area` values are exactly `demands`, `control`, `support`, `relationships`, `role`, `change`. Where an area has never been asked, `last_asked_date` reads `not recorded`.
4. `question-to-send-<person-slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.txt` for each upcoming meeting - the owner's single question copied verbatim, the person's name, and the send date. One question per file. Nothing else goes in it.
5. `record-<person-slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md` for each meeting - no more than five lines, in this order: what we discussed, what we agreed, who owns it, the date it is due, the date of the next meeting. Lines are filled only from the supplied notes and left blank where nothing was supplied.
6. `carry-forward.md` - for each person, the open action from their previous meeting with its reference, its owner and its due date, so it is the first item at the next one. A person with no previous meeting gets the line "first meeting, no previous action".
7. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: every previous action with no owner or no date, every meeting with no record, every person whose interval exceeds a month, every cancellation with no rebooked date, every area of the six not asked about in the last quarter, and every meeting record holding more than one action.

## Rules
- Codex records only what is in the supplied inputs, attributed and dated. Never write into a record anything that was not supplied as having been said, and never soften, sharpen, summarise or tidy the words somebody used. Copy them.
- Never characterise the person or their work. Write no assessment, no rating, no score and no comment on attitude, effort or performance.
- Never draft a disciplinary, capability or probation outcome, and never mark a meeting as any of those. Produce nothing that reads as a decision.
- Never write a note about anybody's health, home circumstances, pregnancy, caring responsibilities or immigration status, even where a supplied note contains one. Record only the work adjustment that was agreed, and log the omission in `gaps.md` without repeating the detail.
- Exactly one action per meeting, with one named person and one calendar date. If the supplied notes contain more than one, record the first and list the rest in `gaps.md` rather than writing them into the register.
- Every date must trace to a supplied file. Never invent a meeting date, a due date or an outcome, and never mark an outcome `done` without a supplied note saying so.
- Use British English, DD Month YYYY dates and £ where money appears. No em dashes.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner's HR adviser or solicitor to check before it is used. It is not advice, it is a conversation structure and a record, and it is not a disciplinary, capability or grievance procedure.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, the number of people scheduled, the number of open actions and the number overdue against today's date, the number of the six areas each person still has outstanding this quarter, and the `gaps.md` item count. Name any previous record you could not read and why.