Bookmark This! A Guide for Conducting Effective 1:1 Meetings
Organizations care about performance. Employee performance is what helps the organization achieve its goals. Regardless of your organization’s philosophy about the annual performance review, one-on-one meetings are a valuable tool for managers to coach employees about their performance.
Please note: I didn’t mention the word discipline. Performance coaching conversations should not immediately conjure up images of disciplinary action. Performance coaching is about telling employees what they do well as much as it is about helping employees move past a performance deficiency. And there are plenty of times when employees need to know about an area of their performance that needs improvement which doesn’t involve disciplinary action.
Okay, I’m off my soapbox about coaching and discipline. Thanks for listening. Here are four articles I wrote on the Saba Software blog about one-on-one meetings and their value in creating high performance.
A Manager’s Guide to Successful 1:1 Meetings With Employees The perfect one-on-one meeting is casual and conversational. It’s also consistent, and that consistency brings trust and preparedness. To help managers prepare for their next one-on-one meeting, bookmark this page and share it around your office. Also, download the employee feedback and coaching templates to use as a conversation guide.
An Employee’s Guide to Successful 1:1 Meetings With Your Manager Many organizations already train and coach managers on how to conduct a one-on-one meeting. Organizations should make the investment and do the same for employees. After all, they’re one-half of the 1:1 meeting and need to take responsibility for their side of the conversation. Employee performance will improve when they’re able to properly prepare and participate in the meeting.
Use 1:1 Meetings for Learning and Watch Your Business Thrive One-on-one meetings allow the organization to make learning a part of their culture, rather than an event that only happens in the classroom. Bringing a learning component into 1:1 meetings benefits everyone. Managers can discuss performance with employees on a regular basis. Employees become more engaged because the organization cares about their success.
How to Conduct a Learning Session During a 1:1 Meeting Learning conversations do not have to involve platform skills and a bunch of fancy props. Rather, they simply require teaching managers how to structure and deliver effective 1:1 meetings. This 5-step method is an ideal activity to include in the company’s management development or manager onboarding program.
Effective 1:1 conversations can be a powerful way to increase employee engagement, accelerate employee achievement, and improve overall organizational performance. To create effective one-on-one meetings, organizations need to provide managers and employees training and tools to properly prepare and communicate. I hope you’ll find these tools useful for your teams.
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