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Unsure whether checking in with employees is needed? Discover the benefits of a weekly check-in agenda.
Weekly check-ins are necessary to establish open communication channels between team members, assess the team's pulse and connect more with employees.
While they are essential for a team's productivity, they can be time-consuming when there’s no clear plan. Sometimes, they are unproductive and fail to provide any actionable plan moving forward.
The solution? A weekly check-in agenda.
An agenda clearly defines the goal of the meeting, outlining the discussion during the check-in. This allows the check-in session to follow a sequence that consumes less time.
In this article, we'll explore how to write a weekly check-in agenda, the essential items to include and its benefits.
Let’s begin!
Weekly check-in agendas are an organized list that helps you stay on track while working toward your long-term goals.
It's designed to help employees and managers stay on track with their weekly check-ins. You can keep track of their projects, communicate accomplishments and challenges and coordinate future work efforts.
A check-in agenda typically lists all the topics to address during the meeting. It also includes time allocation.
Examples of weekly check-in agenda topics include:
A check-in agenda is usually sent out before the meeting, letting employees know what will be discussed and plan sufficiently.
Whether it's a one-on-one meeting, a team meeting, or a check-in, an agenda is the best way to ensure the success of a session.
Read: The ultimate guide to having a productive weekly check-in.
The benefits of a weekly check-in meeting agenda include the following:
Having a meeting agenda enlightens attendees about the meeting's purpose.
The topics bring participants up to speed on meeting expectations and what the meeting intends to achieve.
When participants are aware of the meeting's objective, discussions won’t go off-track.
There's a laid-down guide to follow. A check-in agenda provides a guide avoids this that maps out the meeting direction and ensures everyone focuses on what’s most important.
Since team members can come to check-ins prepared, they ask valuable questions and provide actionable and insightful inputs. And actionable insights allow for accountability and improvement.
A check-in meeting agenda not only contains a list of action items, but it also indicates the time allocation for each item.
This ensures that all topics are discussed within a specified timeframe, allowing time for implementation and other tasks.
In addition to all the above, agendas create room for employees to share topics or questions that they would like to address at the meeting. Through this, all team members are carried along in the planning process, the execution and everything in between.
Weekly check-in agendas are a great way to stay accountable and ensure that you're getting the most out of your time from the check-ins.
But, it doesn't need to be complicated or difficult to create. Before you begin, it’s important to review the past week and Identify key areas of improvement. That way you can draw the necessary insights to define the objective of the check-in.
Here are some tips on how to guide you in the creation process:
A meeting's goal serves as the backbone of its agenda. Before crafting a plan, you need to agree on what the check-in session aims to achieve. The meeting’s objective determines the topics, the time allocation and the action plans.
For instance, if it is aimed at obtaining feedback on tasks for a specific project, it may not need to last as long as a brainstorming session.
You obtain valuable insights when you ask the right questions that are in line with the meeting's objective.
Check-in questions for meetings should be clear and precise. They should be structured to encourage discussions and generate as much helpful information as possible.
If you need help curating your check-in questions, Assembly's weekly check-in template makes the process seamless. Try it today!
Allotting time slots to topics is an important part of creating an agenda. That prevents spending too much time on a particular topics.
However, it’s not enough to have a timeframe, it's more expedient if you keep it. One helpful hack is to allocate more time to items that you estimate need more attention and are of high priority. This way, essential topics are extensively covered and sufficiently addressed and the meeting still stays on schedule.
To make the best of your weekly check-in agenda, certain features are essential. They include:
Meetings that have a specific objective have more successful outcomes. They are more productive and worthwhile. Make sure you include a goal when you create a check-in agenda.
Your check-in agenda should contain the meeting talking points. Think deeply and come up with a list of issues that need to be addressed at the meeting. You can formulate questions around these concerns.
You should arrange these topics in order of priority to guide your assigning time slots.
Nobody loves to attend meetings with no end in sight. If check-ins don't have a specified time duration, employees may lose interest faster.
Always include a timeframe for each topic or talking point. When employees know there is a limited time for a particular discussion, they will participate more, allowing the team to reach resolutions quicker.
Weekly check-in agendas should go along with support documents. They include charts, pictures and links to particular web pages. These documents equip employees with adequate insights.
For instance, if the purpose of the check-in is to discuss how the company performed at a recent trade fair, coming with a chart showing how each company's product fared at the fair is best.
Never conclude a check-in without a review or next steps.
A check-in agenda should contain a review section. It is important to recap all that has been discussed, suggestions made, and the resolutions reached. You should also reiterate the action plans to ensure that the next check-in is effective.
For any action to be successful, it has to be backed up by a good plan. The absence of a plan frustrates the whole process. A plan introduces the structure and serves as a guide that dictates the entire course of action.
Weekly check-ins can't be effective if a good agenda does not guide them. Without an agenda, weekly check-ins could become an endless cycle of unproductive meetings that employees don’t look forward to.
A weekly check-in agenda is the most effective way of conducting a productive check-in. The benefits of a clearly defined meeting objective, properly outlined check-in questions, and time schedule make it an ideal antidote for unproductive check-ins.
Ensuring that your weekly check-ins are productive is Assembly's primary focus. Book a Free Demo Today.
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Explore GuideYes, 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.
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.
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