Have you tried building trust? The tone of your comment here makes me think you haven’t. If you build trust with people, they’ll just tell you things. If you just say they can tell you things, no rational employee will believe that. And pushing people to talk about their weekend or other aspects of their personal life is downright toxic IMO. Again, if you build trust and rapport, you won’t have to ask these rote, off-the-shelf questions that can put people into a wary state of mind.