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Want to have more effective one-on-one meetings with your employees?
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Picture this - you call a one-on-one meeting with an employee, but you don’t have a meeting agenda and didn't prepare properly. So, the meeting ends up as a generic conversation interspersed with awkward silences.
It can be better!
A one-on-one meeting is helpful in keeping up with employees and boosting team productivity. It’s also a great place to set expectations around performance and build connnections in the team. So, it’s always important to make the best of it.
This article will explore how to make the best out of these meetings with a compelling one-on-one meeting checklist.
The first step to conducting a one-on-one meeting is setting the date on your calendar. Ensure that it's a convenient time for you to avoid constant cancellations. Frequent cancellations and reschedules often send the wrong message - that the meetings are not that important.
Once you have it in your calendar, the next thing is to have a plan. One-on-one meetings shouldn’t be freestyle sessions where you go in and hope for the best. To get the best of them, ensure to go in with a clear plan.
In fact, your employee should know what you expect from them ahead of time so that they can come prepared. Preparation is the key ingredient to a conducting successful one-on-one meeting.
One-on-one meetings should be used to connect with employees. To know how they are doing in their roles, teams, and personal life. First, it’s essential to keep your questions open-ended. If all your questions only require yes or no answers, you'll not have the quality of conversation you ought to have.
The general direction of one-on-one meeting questions is typically easy to navigate. But what do you discuss exactly? What kind of conversations do you have?
Here are 10 topics to get you started:
Going into a meeting with a checklist is especially helpful when scheduling your one-on-one meetings because it forces you to think through your meeting agenda. It also helps you focus on necessary topics, ensuring that all items on the agenda are discussed. Keeping the meeting efficient and effective. It’s key for meetings to have a positive impact on employees, so having a structure is important.
Having a one-on-one meeting template to work with keeps unproductive meetings at bay.
A one-on-one meeting agenda highlights things to do before, during, and after a meeting.
Want to have more effective and useful one-on-one meetings with your employees? Check out these 15 checklist points for making sure each meeting count:
You'll have different one-on-one meetings with employees, and their objectives will be different. It’s essential to make a list of the things you want to discuss before each meeting. Having a list helps you organize your thoughts and clearly share how the meeting should go.
You know what you want to talk about, but you also need to consider that employees often have things to discuss too. If they’re able to tell you before the meeting, you can add it to your agenda. In doing so, you're showing that you care enough to consider their concerns.
Having an agenda will set the structure and tone of the meeting. And if things are going off track during the meeting, you can always refer to the agenda. Then set your questions based on the outcome you'll expect.
Need help with setting an agenda and your one-on-one questions? Get started with Assembly.
Set the tone of the meeting by checking in. Find out how employees are doing and where their heads are. You can connect with them by sharing how you spend your time outside the office. This will help them relax and set the tone for a successful meeting.
You might have great mental recall power, but information could often fall between the cracks.
Take notes throughout the meeting to properly document the important details and create follow-up questions. Having a note also ensures you don't go off track during the meeting because you can always go back to your questions.
With Assembly’s note-taking templates, you never have to lose track of meeting notes again. Book a Demo to get started.
One-on-one meetings with employees are a time to listen to them and receive feedback. Ensure that the questions you set for the meeting allow them to talk about their work and welfare in the company as well.
A great way to keep employees happy without spending a fortune is by recognizing their efforts. So talk about their wins in recent times, ask them how it made them feel and whether they enjoyed working on the project.
Take it a step further by asking about the current project they enjoy and why. Conversations like this will make them feel good and feel appreciated by the company. Even if some complaints follow this, they'll be motivated to do better.
No matter how great the work conditions are, there's usually a hindering factor somewhere. From one-on-one meetings with employers, you'll know what their hindering factors are.
Ask what challenges they face while executing their tasks and share how the company can help them. Even when you don’t have a solution, it’s important that they know you'll revert with practical solutions.
Professional death starts from doing things that don't align with one's professional goals. It is also to the company's detriment to have the wrong people doing certain projects.
Use the one-on-one meeting to learn about their professional goals and ensure that employees are placed in teams that allow them to do their best work. You might need to ask this question during every one-on-one meeting with employees because goals change.
Are they working on a project? Is there an approaching deadline? Ask them about it. You must reemphasize how important it is to keep to deadlines. Don't let this take a chunk of your meeting time, however. You'll probably hear it again during the next standup.
Even great employees have areas they could improve at. The best way to give feedback is to keep it simple, honest, and kind. A harsh criticism could be met with defensiveness and that defeats the purpose of this meeting. Let them know what areas they need to work on in a kind, empathetic and firm way.
You have come to the end of the meeting by now. Create an action plan for both of you based on the meeting. You can use these action points to hold them accountable and find ways the company can help them improve.
Ensure to follow up with employees about things you discussed and the action plans you made in the previous meeting. This shows that the meetings are in fact, useful tools for employee and company growth.
14. Planning against the next meeting
As you go through meetings, priorities change as new situations to tackle come up. So, prioritize the topic of discussion for the next meeting. Remember that it's an ongoing process, so don't attempt to solve several issues simultaneously.
15. Tie-in with the company's objectives
After the meeting, you should have learned more about the employee goals and vision and its alignment with the company. If it aligns, how can the company help them to be better? If it doesn't, what steps can the company take to change that.
How one-on-one meetings are conducted often comes down to the personality of the team member or manager. What works for one team won't necessarily work for another.
That's why we recommend you create a personalized checklist online based on what has and hasn't worked so far.
Another recommendation is a one-on-one meeting template. It is an effective way to take the dread out of the one-on-one meeting process, giving you a clear idea of what needs to be done and how it could be done.
Assembly’s one on one workflow allows you organize successful meetings without hassle. Check out the video below to get started.
Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.
Explore Guide
Yes, at Assembly, security is a top priority. Each quarter, we have ongoing security work that is everyone’s responsibility. While we maintain a strong security posture, it was important for us to prove to our customers that we do everything we claim to do. This led us to pursue a SOC 2 Type II report that would provide evidence of our compliance with industry gold-standard security practice.
There is study after study showing that employee recognition leads to increased engagement. This in return creates an environment where employees are happier and more motivated which increase productivity and reduces voluntary turnover significantly. In order to filled critical roles, companies tend to spend nearly twice the value of an annual salary. Assembly is an investment in your employees that supports your bottom line.
Yes, we will offer contracts for companies with longer-term agreements to help larger customers have more certainty around future costs.
The minimum agreement term is a 12-month subscription.
We do and for FREE! Any new customer needing further support to get started with Assembly to ensure you're set up for success can request custom onboarding support. Improving your employee experience is about much more than just using our amazing software; it’s about transforming your business to create a workplace that people love. That’s much easier to do with the personal support and advice from our passionate people experts.
Yes. We offer a completely free plan for up to 50 team members. This plan is intended for teams or organizations that are looking to get started with an employee engagement tool. Keep in mind, this plan is limited in features.
All customers can open an Assembly account for free and get started without a credit card. Then you can change plans as necessary.
At the time of redemption (when your employees exchange their points for a paid reward) you'll pay face value. If a reward is a $10 Amazon gift card, your cost will be $10. All paid rewards are billed for on a monthly basis.
The good news is that you don't have to pay for rewards upfront because we only charge you when points are redeemed, not when they're earned.
We offer discounts or educational or charitable organizations. In order to secure a discount, you'll first need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
For all other organizations, we are willing to consider longer-term agreements in exchange for discounts. To set up annual plans or longer, you will need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a month to month plan, you can go here and cancel anytime. If you're having concerns or need help setting up your account for success, you can always book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a longer-term custom plan, you'll need to reach out to your customer support specialist to cancel your account or email us at support@joinassembly.com.
Great question! You can customize your core values to match your organization's to boost and track alignment. You can change your currency from the 🏆 emoji (our default) to any emoji of your choice. You can swap our logo for your own. You can also set up company culture rewards such as, "Lunch with the CEO," "Buy a book on us," and so much more!
While we recommend a peer to peer set up where anyone in your organization can give or receive recognition, you can set up Assembly however you want. If you need to limit the people who can give or receive recognition, that's perfectly fine and can be done from your Admin, here.
Assembly connects to the tools your employees use every day to offer an easy, seamless experience with minimal change management.
Assembly has integrations with HCM/HRIS systems like ADP, Google, Office 365, and Slack. We also integrate with communication tools like Slack and Teams so you and your employees can access Assembly wherever they work now.
That depends on the company's permissions set up. That said, over 90% of the employees on Assembly's platform are recognized on a monthly basis. That means nearly every employee across all of our customers are receiving regular recognition from their peers, managers, or leadership. We're extremely proud of this.
They are not required. You can use Assembly without having rewards set up. However, we don't recommend it if you intend to have a high adoption and usage rate. You can always keep the costs down by offering internal culture rewards that are fulfilled by you internally.
No, you can remove allowances from anyone or everyone. It's up to you but we do recommend using points whether they're worth a real dollar value or not. Companies that use points have a much higher engagement rate even if those points don't exchange for real dollars.
Please schedule time with an expert and we will help you to get all your questions answered
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