Manager Best Practices: One-on-One Meetings

A key management best practice is holding regular, scheduled one-on-one meetings with each employee. While managers and their employees regularly meet and discuss work on an as needed basis, one-on-ones are a regular check in that allow stepping back from the immediate demands of daily work.

Benefits of One-on-Ones

Leaders are only as successful as their team and these meetings are a key part of intentional leadership. One-on-ones provide an opportunity to surface issues that might otherwise be missed, ensures two-way information flow, provides an opportunity for feedback, gives employees a chance to raise concerns and ask questions, helps build trust, and creates time to track goals and have career discussions.

All of this leads to higher rates of employee engagement. Research from Gallup found that employees who have regular one-on-one meetings with their manager are almost three times as likely to be engaged as those who don’t.

One-on-One Basics

The structure of one-on-ones is relatively simple:

1. A regularly scheduled meeting between the manager and employee. In most cases this is a 30-minute meeting held once a week. In some cases, especially if the employee has a complex role or manages others themselves, it might make sense to expand the meeting to 45 or even 60 minutes.
2. The meeting is employee driven. The employee prepares the agenda (leaving time for topics the manager needs to share or discuss) and sends it to the manager in advance. Having the employee set the agenda ensures you are covering the topics and information most important to them. The agenda could be as simple as emailed bullet points or it could be a standard template updated weekly. You can use this sample template.
3. The meeting should be structured. “Structured” doesn’t necessarily mean scheduled to the minute, but both the employee and manager should have time to talk and be prepared for the meeting.
4. The manager takes notes to document what was discussed, what actions were committed to, decisions made, etc. for future reference.

Tips for Success

1. Stick to the schedule. Put the meeting on the calendar as a recurring event and don’t cancel unless sick or there’s an emergency. If you can’t make the meeting at the scheduled time, notify the employee as soon as possible and suggest a time to reschedule.
2. Minimize status updates. There may be times when status updates are part of specific questions or bigger discussions, but it’s important to not waste meeting time on updates that could simply be emailed.
3. Ask questions and listen. Rather than leading the meeting and doing the bulk of the talking, one-on-ones are an opportunity for you to step back, talk less, and listen more.
4. Come prepared. Spend time prior to the meeting reviewing the agenda sent by the employee, notes from previous one-on-ones, and any other relevant information to identify what you need to share, discuss, or ask about during the meeting.
5. Experiment as needed. This should be one of your most valuable meetings. If you or your direct report are not getting what you need from the one-on-ones, experiment with format, agenda, scheduling, etc. until you find what works best.

For sample questions and additional tips, please visit the One-on-One Resources page.