top of page

Why One to One Meetings are an Essential Tool for managers

Writer's picture: Emma JordaanEmma Jordaan

As a manager or team leader, one of your most important responsibilities is to help your employees perform at their best. This involves setting objectives, providing feedback, and ensuring that everyone is working together effectively. One of the best ways to achieve this is through regular one-to-one meetings with each employee. During one-to-one meetings, managers should encourage your employees to share their successes, challenges, and any concerns they may have. Use this time to ask questions, provide support, and offer guidance based on their individual needs and goals. By creating a regular time and space for this type of conversation, you help to prevent small issues from turning into bigger problems, and ensure that everyone is working together towards a common goal. Let us consider some of the factors in more detail that require attention when conducting one-to-one meetings with our employees: Open Dialogue The common misconception is that in a one-to-one meeting, the manager should do all the talking. In fact, one-to-one meetings are a two-way conversation, and it's crucial to build trust and rapport with your employees. By creating a supportive and collaborative environment, you can help your employees feel heard, valued, and motivated to achieve their goals. A two-way conversation in one-to-one meetings involves both the manager and employee actively engaging in communication. It means that both parties have an opportunity to share their thoughts, ask questions, and provide feedback. During these meetings, managers should encourage employees to express their ideas, opinions, and concerns. This can help managers gain a better understanding of the employee's perspective, which may lead to improved decision-making and problem-solving. Moreover, a two-way conversation can also help employees feel more engaged and empowered. When they are given a chance to contribute to the conversation, they may feel more invested in their work and motivated to achieve their goals. To facilitate a two-way conversation in one-to-one meetings, managers should actively listen to their employees, ask open-ended questions, and provide constructive feedback. They should avoid dominating the conversation and ensure that the employee has ample opportunity to speak. Setting Objectives Another key benefit of one-to-one meetings is that they provide an opportunity to set objectives and goals with your employees. These meetings offer a unique opportunity for managers to align their team's objectives and ensure that everyone is working towards the same priorities. During these meetings, managers can discuss specific projects and responsibilities with their employees. This allows managers to set targets for performance and outcomes, which helps employees stay focused and motivated. Setting performance objectives provides clarity and direction to the employee and ensures that everyone is working towards the same goals. It helps the employee understand what is expected of them and what they need to do to be successful in their role. This feedback helps the employee to understand where they stand in relation to their goals and identify any areas for improvement. By setting measurable goals, managers can measure their employees' progress over time and provide constructive feedback and support. Setting these objectives during one-to-one meetings, managers can work collaboratively with employees to set performance objectives that are challenging but achievable. This process provides an opportunity to discuss any barriers or challenges that may be preventing the employee from achieving their objectives and identify any additional support or training needed to overcome them. Setting objectives for employees during one-to-one meetings is not only essential for effective performance management but also contributes to employee engagement and job satisfaction. When employees have a clear understanding of what is expected of them and feel supported in achieving their goals, they are more likely to feel motivated, committed, and valued. Providing Feedback Feedback is an essential part of managing performance, and one-to-one meetings provide a dedicated space for you to provide feedback to your employees. Whether it's positive feedback to acknowledge good work, or constructive feedback to help them improve, regular check-ins allow you to provide actionable feedback and encourage improvement. By providing regular feedback, you can help your employees develop their skills, address any performance issues, and ensure that they are meeting the standards and expectations of the team. A common mistake observed in managerial practice is the tendency to defer negative feedback until one-on-one meetings with employees. Effective feedback delivery entails addressing issues as they arise rather than saving them for scheduled one-to-one meetings. The one-to-one review should, therefore, not serve as the first point of negative feedback delivery. Instead, discussions during these meetings should focus on revisiting and reviewing feedback already communicated to the employee in the moment, during the course of the month. Making the Most of One-to-One Meetings To make the most of your one-to-one meetings, there are a few things you can do: 1. Schedule them regularly. Whether it's weekly, biweekly or monthly, having a regular schedule for one-to-one meetings will ensure that they don't get pushed aside when things get busy. The regularity of one-to-one meetings is important because it provides a consistent forum for communication and relationship building between two individuals. Regular meetings allow for ongoing feedback, problem-solving, and goal-setting, which can improve productivity, job satisfaction, and overall collaboration. It also helps to prevent misunderstandings and promotes transparency in the workplace 2. Prepare an agenda. To ensure that you cover all the important topics and get the most out of the meeting, prepare an agenda in advance and share it with your employee. An alternative approach would be to develop a personalised one-to-one template comprising a set of open-ended questions to facilitate candid conversation between you and the employee. Consider using prompts such as "What successes have you experienced this month?" "What challenges have you encountered?" and "What improvements would you suggest?" employing the "well, tricky, different" framework. 3. Listen actively. During the meeting, be sure to actively listen to what your employee is saying, and ask follow-up questions to clarify and understand their perspective. Active listening is crucial in a one-to-one meeting because it helps to build trust and rapport between the participants. By actively listening, you demonstrate that you are fully engaged in the conversation and interested in what the other person is saying. Active listening also allows you to better understand the other person's perspective and needs, which can lead to more productive and successful outcomes. Additionally, active listening helps to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications that can arise when people are not fully engaged in the conversation. Overall, active listening is a fundamental skill that can enhance the effectiveness of one-to-one meetings and improve the overall quality of communication and collaboration between individuals. 4. Don’t Multitask. Giving your employee undivided attention in a one-to-one meeting means focusing solely on the conversation at hand and not multitasking. This requires putting down your mobile phone, locking your computer, and eliminating any other potential distractions to ensure that you are fully present and engaged in the discussion. It is commonly believed that multitasking is possible, however, this is a myth. The human brain is incapable of performing two tasks that require high-level brain function simultaneously. Tasks such as breathing and pumping blood, which are low-level functions, are not included in multitasking. Only tasks that require active cognitive processing are considered. 5. Take notes. Taking notes is essential for managers to keep track of important points and decisions made during the meeting. Notes can help managers to identify areas of improvement, monitor progress, and provide timely feedback to the employee. In addition, notes can serve as a reference point for future meetings, ensuring that topics discussed in previous sessions are not forgotten or overlooked. It can also help to create a record of any agreements or commitments made during the meeting, reducing the likelihood of misunderstandings or disagreements in the future. By taking notes, managers demonstrate their commitment to actively listening and engaging with their employees, which can help to build trust and strengthen the manager-employee relationship. In conclusion, regular one-to-one meetings between managers and employees are crucial for creating a supportive and collaborative environment that promotes active listening, open communication, setting objectives, providing feedback, and ensuring that everyone is working together towards a common goal. Two-way conversations between managers and employees can help managers gain a better understanding of the employee's perspective, which can lead to improved decision-making and problem-solving. Regular meetings help employees feel invested in their work and motivated to achieve their goals. To make the most of these meetings, it's important to schedule them regularly, prepare an agenda, and listen actively to what the employee is saying.



1 view0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

コメント


bottom of page