Raise your hand if you have ever said “I talk to my employees all the time” or if one of your team members has said it.
Now, keep your hand raised if “all the time” is more than once per month. So far? Good – fair number of hands.
Keep your hand up if these are scheduled and planned discussions. Hmm, a few hands went down.
What about scheduled, planned discussions with actions discussed and notes taken? There are still a few hands in the air, good for you!
Now for the big question… would your employee consider these discussions “one-on-one” time?
It is easy to say that we talk to our employees all the time. Many of us do in fact. There have been people on my teams that I spoke with every single day. I made a point of saying “good morning” every morning, checked in at mid-day, or stopped by at random intervals to see how things were going. I had senior managers that I chatted with over the computer every day – and more days than not had some minor issue we ended up discussing. Are these scenarios “one-on-ones”? Both yes and no, even if we happened to be the only two people in the room, these conversations were not always a “one-on-one.”
What Counts as a One-on-One?
Why do I not call these interactions “one-on-ones” and how do I qualify something as a one-on-one employee session? Well, the questions noted above go a long way toward these qualifications. Below are my general criteria:
- The meeting is pre-scheduled, dedicated time where the employee knows this is their time where the conversation is going to be focused on things impacting them.
- The session is only between the manager and employee (hence one-on-one) and is a bi-directional discussion in an open environment.
- The meeting has a planned agenda, or at minimum a standard rotation of topics for review. Both the employee and the manager should contribute to the agenda, and this is an opportunity for both parties to talk about the things on their minds.
- There is a business objective involved. This may be a coaching, mentoring, status review, team updates, or even a check in on personal stress levels and coping with current business conditions.
As an aside on that last item – you should make a point to have periodic check-ins on your team member’s personal state. Have sessions where you talk about their career plans. Or sessions talking about mentoring, growth & development. Having a forum for connection, not just always focusing on the current business fire-drill is important, but that’s another post.
And Keep Notes!
For every one-on-one session, I always keep notes. My notetaking during standard business meetings may come and go depending on many factors (the topic, duration, how frequently the meeting occurs, my personal contributions or takeaways, and even how focused I am that day), but I never waver in taking notes during one-on-one meetings. I instruct all leaders under me to take notes during their sessions with their team members as well. The content and format of these notes may vary, but I typically have the following structure for myself & my teams:
- Agenda: Topics for discussion from either my team member or myself.
- Add in any notes around statements, thoughts, discussion, etc. What did we talk about? I log nearly everything in the event I need to remember the discussion (or even date/times of recurring discussions) in the future.
- Actions / Commitments: What actions are needed following the meeting? Do I have other teams I need to engage? Are there things I am offering to my team? What actions do I need my team member to take? Are there commitments I have of them?
- Follow-up: Post meeting actions / observations, etc. When did I followed through on any actions or commitments? Did I observe my team doing certain things? Did they follow through on their commitments?
I have created a template that you can use to help you get started with your documentation needs.
These notes help you keep track of your many discussions. They can also be invaluable when writing performance reviews, or if you ever need to take a corrective measure with the employee. These can easily be packaged and supplied to HR departments or others if required. Adopt a mantra frequently used by one of my former leaders: “If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.”
My One-on-Ones
Am I always good about following all these things in my one-on-ones with my employees? Nope! I struggle with agendas and pre-defined discussion topics. I am not a perfect manager… and I don’t aim for perfect. I will say that I am structured about certain things.
- My team members all have, at minimum, bi-weekly meetings scheduled in my calendar. Some are weekly if I feel extra support is warranted, or if they request more frequent meetings. If I must move it, I apologize and let them know that I still want to meet. On the rare occasion when I have no choice but to cancel, I ask them if they want me to schedule at an alternate time – even if it is outside of my normal working hours. After all, this is their dedicated time with me.
- They are always documented. Sometimes level of detail comes or goes if it’s a light-hearted discussion instead of a serious one, but I always have a record. Depending on the state of other discussions, I may be following up from prior weeks, doing a pure status check-in, or something much more personal.
- Be flexible to your employee needs. There have been times when I have had a pre-planned discussion that I have completely thrown out the window because the first words from my staff member were “Boss, it’s really been a hard day.”
So no, I am not super-regimented. I have areas to improve if I want to reach towards my ideal of the leadership topics you will read about in other posts. And that is my “little bit better,” my striving for growth and development, my personal fight against perfectionism while I want to be better. But you can read about that in another post.
