One-on-one meetings are among the most important tools a manager has. They’re a time to check in on your team members, touch base on their workload and deliverables, exchange feedback, and offer your support where they need it. When executed well, one-on-one meetings have the power to significantly boost team engagement and productivity. However, many managers often shy away from the one-on-one meetings because they don’t know how to structure them.
Research conducted by GARTNER shows that 60 percent of new managers fail within the first 24 months of their new position. And according to Steve Smith, the author of Managing for Success: Practical Advice for Managers, the main reason why most new managers fail is because they were never properly trained to manage.
In this article, we cover everything you need to do before, during, and after each of your one-on-one meetings to keep them productive and drive employee performance. Plus, we’ve included some great questions to help you focus on what to talk about and steer the performance of your team.
Take time to make time
It seems counterintuitive that spending time will free up time, but that’s exactly what one-on-ones can do. These meetings help managers avoid being overwhelmed by ensuring the team is focused on the right task. Taking time to coach employees frees up your time to focus on your own work and you can be confident that you won’t be putting out fires later.
The 3 Steps:
Before your one-on-one meeting: Continuity and Preparation are Key
During your one-on-one meeting: Be Positive, Present, and Proactive
After your one-on-one: Keep Track and Put Action to Intention
Step 1 – Before: Continuity and Preparation are Key
Have a recurring meeting.
Have a recurring meeting. When you and your employee both know you’ll be chatting every other Tuesday, it reduces your back-and-forth conversation on non-urgent subjects, making your ongoing communication more efficient. Plus, it creates checkpoints for accomplishing smaller steps required to achieve bigger goals, so employees feel equipped and supported to reach those larger objectives.
Review your previous meeting notes and action items.
One-on-ones need a sense of continuity from one to the next. You want to follow up on what was discussed in your last conversation and ensure the action items you set haven’t gotten lost since your last meeting
Have an agenda.
Use this simple framework to have the best one-on-one conversations.
One-on-One Meeting Agenda
5 minutes – Informal Check-in
- Touch base on a personal level with your employee to see how they’re doing and gauge how they’re coming into the conversation.
30 minutes – Workload & Deliverables
- What’s been accomplished and what’s coming up? Share feedback and flag any potential roadblocks or concerns.
15 minutes – Open Discussion
- This is the time where your employee can bring up whatever is on their mind that you haven’t discussed yet.
10 minutes – Wrap-up and Set Action Items
- Summarize your discussion and note 2-3 action items to tackle before your next meeting.
Next, have a good foundation of questions to use when you meet. These questions should ensure that the most important things get discussed during each meeting. They should help both you and the employee prepare in advance of your meeting.
- What is the most important thing we need to discuss today?
- What are your most significant accomplishments since we last met?
- What are the most important things you will focus on before we meet next?
- What obstacles are you encountering right now?
- What can I do better or differently as your manager to support you?
What you talk about, and the one-on-one meeting questions you ask, make all the difference in the performance of your team. Make sure to check out the other great one-on-one questions at the end of this article on other important topics, including relationship building, positive employee relations, communication and employee development.
Step 2 – During: Be Positive, Present, and Proactive
This is your employees’ time to catch you up to speed, share their victories, and ask for your help when they need it, so you want to create the right environment for open communication and honest feedback.
Set a positive tone
Approach the conversation with curiosity, focus on strengths, and think of each talking point as an opportunity. Start your meeting with something personal. Try sharing the last thing that made you laugh or smile, and ask your employee to share on their end, too. A little bit of positivity can go a long way.
Be present for your employee
Put your phone away, turn off your notifications, and make a point of being present for your employee. Be open to hear what they have to say with the intention of understanding and aim to listen 80% of the time and speak only 20% of the time. Don’t feel the need to fill every silence. Giving people time to think can help them work through things on their own.
Make feedback forward looking
When you share feedback, frame it in a way that highlights how employees can use it in their upcoming work or responsibilities. If they were too granular during a cross-team update meeting, suggest that they orient their presentation around high-level objectives next time. If they created a great system for keeping documents organized, ask them to share it with the team so everyone can benefit from it.
Turn feedback into results
The best way to learn from feedback is to put it in action. Once you’ve delivered a piece of feedback, try assigning an action item that will help your employee apply what they’ve learned.
Step 3 – After: Keep Track and Put Action to Intention
Perhaps the most important part of one-on-one meetings is what comes after. Consider how you and your employee turn your great discussion into action?
Make a space for your notes
Make a designated space specifically for note-taking in one-on-ones, so you may easily refer to your thoughts and plans.
Set next steps to follow up on
At the end of every one-on-one meeting, set clear next steps and action items for you and your employee alike. Add them as a talking point in your next agenda, so you can be sure to check in and hold each other accountable.
Beyond that, one-on-ones offer dedicated time for mentoring and coaching. Taking this opportunity to help guide your employees on their personalized path to success lets them know that they’re fully supported. This can contribute to a strong sense of belonging.
While there is no single answer for how often you should have one-on-ones; what matters most is creating the cadence and being consistent.
Focused One-on-One Questions
Relationship Builders
The one-on-one meeting is also a time to develop a personal relationship. A good manager knows what really matters to an employee outside of work.
- How are you?
- What have you been doing for fun lately?
- How is your family?
- What vacation plans do you have coming up?
Positive Work Experience
The experience an employee has each day at work has a significant impact on the quality of their performance and their desire to stay with your organization. The one-on-one is a great time to check in and ensure things are going well. And, if they aren’t, to find out and fix the issue quickly.
- How are you feeling about work?
- What about your job is most satisfying for you?
- What about work is frustrating?
- If you could change one thing about your job today, what would you change?
Communication
While this meeting is a communication tool, it should also be used to gain feedback about communication in general.
- How would you rate our communication as a team?
- How could I do a better job communicating with you?
- What kind of communication or information do you wish you had more of?
In her article, The Effects of Poor Communication in Business, Anne Kinsey states that when stress, unmet expectations, relational breakdown, low morale, dissatisfied clients, family problems, health concerns and a smaller bottom line become chronic workplace issues, poor communication could be at the root of the problem.
Learning and Growth
Employees crave challenging work and the opportunity to learn new things. It’s valuable to check in with them to understand both what they are learning and what they would like to learn in the future.
- Tell me about something new you learned since we met last.
- What opportunities have you had recently to learn something new?
- What would you like to learn about in the future?
- What kind of training or experience would be most helpful to you right now?
Training Magazine states that Employee development requires time, preparation, and energy, but, when done correctly, it yields significant dividends. Read the full article here
Career Development
An employee relies on their manager to help them achieve their career goals. Use these questions to help your employee along their career journey:
- What do you see as the next step in your career?
- What goals have you set for your career?
- How do you feel you are progressing in your career?
- What big questions do you have about your career opportunities in the future?
Your HR Solution
At First Avenue Consulting, we know the challenges managers face. It’s why we offer new manager training to help participants develop the skills and behaviors necessary to excel in the various situations they will encounter as new leaders.
We know that while developing your new managers is a top priority, doing so can sometimes get pushed aside due to day-to-day responsibilities. Want to ensure your new managers are ready to lead?
Schedule a complimentary consultation by contacting us at info@firstavehr.ca or 647-406-4476.
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This is a fantastic guide to having positive, effective coaching sessions with employees! Having been a senior leader for many years, this is an important tool to nurture growth, create accountability, praise successes, and design a productive & positive workplace.