What Is a One-on-One Meeting? Tips, Templates & Best Practices 2025
Let your employees share what they want to talk about, not just what’s on your pre-planned agenda. Prioritize giving guidance, not advice. Try to enable their development through growth opportunities. An agenda lends structure to the conversation and signals that this is an intentional meeting, not just a chitchat. Share the agenda ahead of time so you both have an opportunity to add discussion topics.
Core Objectives of a 1:1 Agenda
Corral all of your one-on-one meeting agendas in one central and accessible place that you both can access at any time. Decide on a time and cadence that works best. If this is your first one-on-one with an employee, decide what time works best for both you and your direct report to meet and a cadence you can reliably commit to. Overall, effective one-on-ones contribute to higher engagement, continuous performance management, and a more positive, supportive workplace culture. A one-on-one meeting is a regular, scheduled conversation between a manager and an individual team member, normally on a weekly or biweekly basis.
Make space for relationship-building
For employees, avoid using the entire meeting to update your manager on what you’ve done. That might have some value to them, but it has little value for you. Encourage team members to ask questions about the format. By being transparent upfront, you remove any uncertainty and get buy-in from employees. Planning, setting expectations, and consistent scheduling are key to setting off on the right foot. One of the earliest ATM models was the IBM 3624, which used the IBM method to generate what is termed a natural PIN.
How to run one-on-one meetings in 2025
Is it safe to respond to a direct text message from an employer? This text message I received is odd and they didn’t even address me by name. I’m not sure if I should respond, could this be spam? It does say they recently viewed my application on indeed but I’ve just never had an employer reach out like this. Over time, they become the ongoing check of how someone is doing, more than the sporadic catch-up they often devolve into.
- By being transparent upfront, you remove any uncertainty and get buy-in from employees.
- Prepare thoughtful questions that encourage honest dialogue and reflection.
- Below are categorized agenda prompts you can adapt based on the purpose of the meeting.
- Collecting inputs in advance avoids last-minute scrambling and allows for a focused discussion.
Skip-level questions (if you’re their manager’s manager)
Worse, it becomes easy to forget what was discussed from one meeting to the next. Managers should review what the employee has done, what objectives were set last time, and draft an agenda with points they want to cover. They should be ready to give constructive feedback and genuinely listen. From paper to digital, free tools to enterprise platforms—there’s no one-size-fits-all. But with the right setup, your one on one meetings will feel less like a task and more like a valuable conversation that moves things forward. Frequent one-on-one meetings enhance engagement, retention, and client satisfaction by providing a dedicated space for open communication.
Utilizing one-on-one meeting software can streamline this process. Last week I applied for a remote job via a post on indeed. The employer listed was a real company that I researched before applying. I received a text yesterday saying they would like to proceed with an online interview to further screen applicants. They linked me to jotform where I answered 25 typical interview questions like “Do you consider yourself a team player? How do you manage relationships with difficult team members?
So here I am, feeling discouraged to apply to jobs again. This builds trust, sets a positive tone, and signals that the meeting is about more than just tasks. Tools like Clockwise can help protect prep and focus time to ensure both parties come ready for these meaningful conversations.
- This guide covers key strategies like assigning a facilitator, setting clear agendas, encouraging participation, and using scheduling tools.
- Alternating questions keeps meetings productive and fresh.
- Setting a goal focuses the conversation and ensures time is used effectively.
- Clarifying the goal ensures both manager and employee know what to expect and can prepare accordingly.
For employees, they offer reliable time to raise questions, request feedback, align on expectations, talk career goals, and be seen. Less about the day-to-day and more about the big picture, career development one-on-ones explore long-term goals, skills gaps, and learning opportunities. This is your chance to talk about where you want to go—and how your manager can support you in getting there. Depending on the goal and frequency, there are several types of 1 on 1 meetings—each serving a unique purpose in the manager-employee relationship. Knowing the difference helps you show up prepared and get the most value from every conversation. In short, a well-structured 1 on 1 meeting creates trust, boosts engagement, and helps teams stay on track in a fast-moving work environment.
First, they support employee development by creating time for coaching, skill-building, and long-term goal setting. Second, they drive manager alignment, ensuring both sides understand expectations, priorities, and roadblocks. Finally, they contribute to culture building—consistent one-on-one meetings send a strong message that people matter, and their voices are heard.
When meetings lack focus, employees often leave unclear about priorities, and managers miss valuable insights that could improve team performance and engagement. This disconnect highlights the need for more intentional agendas. Without a clear structure, one-on-ones can easily drift into status updates or vague conversations, losing the opportunity to build trust and drive results. As the meeting starts, it helps to begin with a personal check—how someone’s doing beyond work—and then move into performance, goals, challenges, and development. All steps become easy with Plaud’s custom templates for speaker-labeled transcription and AutoFlow summaries. With these features, managers, clients, and employees can turn each one-on-one meeting into a consistent, actionable, and effective one.
Every one-on-one should have a purpose or goal decided in advance. The manager and employee should collaboratively define what they want to get out of the meeting. One-on-one meetings are among the most powerful tools for engaging and developing employees. In the https://p1nup.in/ context of a financial transaction, usually both a private “PIN code” and public user identifier are required to authenticate a user to the system. Upon receiving the user ID and PIN, the system looks up the PIN based upon the user ID and compares the looked-up PIN with the received PIN.
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Begin each one-on-one by breaking the ice with a bit of personal conversation. While it might feel trivial, starting with a personal check-in helps improve rapport and creates a sense of psychological safety. Sometimes you need a quick tactical sync, and other times you’ll want a deeper coaching conversation. Below are categorized agenda prompts you can adapt based on the purpose of the meeting. Use them as a base, then personalize to fit your team’s style.
Set a regular rhythm and stick to it.
Use video calls for personal connection, share agendas in advance, and consider collaborative documents to track discussion points and follow-ups. This ensures meetings remain focused and productive even when not in the same location. Both the manager and the direct report should add 2–4 talking points before the meeting.