As a manager, finding time for in-depth one-on-one meetings amidst your daily chaos can feel impossible. But consistently connecting with employees is key for alignment, development, and engagement. This is where using templates can help save precious time while optimizing the value of your one-on-one conversations.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover:
- The critical importance of one-on-one meetings
- Benefits of using templates to streamline management
- 7 types of meetings templates can support
- Key sections to include in effective templates
- 10 leading one-on-one meeting templates
- Best practices for managers to have great employee conversations
Let’s start with why consistent one-on-one meetings are absolutely crucial for managers.
Why Invest Time in One-on-One Meetings?
It’s no secret managers live in a constant state of overcommitment between people management, projects, meetings, emails, asks from leadership…and the list goes on.
Finding time for your own priorities is hard enough. So how do we justify carving out 30-60 minutes for weekly or bi-weekly one-on-one meetings with every direct report?
Here’s why:
One-on-ones directly fuel employee happiness, engagement, and performance.
As per Gallup, employees who have regular one-on-one conversations with managers are almost 3 times as likely to be engaged and thriving in their roles.
These meetings facilitate:
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Relationship building: Fostering interpersonal connections, care and trust outside of daily work. This directly increases employee loyalty, tenure and referrals.
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Ongoing coaching & development: Setting long-term goals while providing continuous support and check-ins helps employees gain skills and confidence to take on stretch assignments.
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Real-time feedback: Both recognition and constructive criticism shared regularly and candidly helps keep employees motivated and aligned with changing organizational needs.
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Addressing concerns: Employees surface frustrations early before issues fester so managers can take action to resolve blockers and conflicts quickly.
The time investment pays exponential dividends down the road. Highly engaged teams simply produce better work. They also drive higher customer satisfaction through enhanced service and expertise.
In fact, organizations with high employee engagement levels gain 41% higher customer loyalty while showing 21% greater profitability. Talk about ROI!
Clearly, consistent one-on-one connections are invaluable. Yet carving out the necessary time often falls by the wayside amidst fighting daily fires.
This is where leveraging thoughtfully designed templates comes in to remove friction from the process while enhancing results.
Why Templates Make One-on-Ones Achievable
Trying (and often failing) to schedule valuable one-on-one time without much structure frequently leads managers to abandon the effort.
Templates transform one-off status updates into consistent touchpoints through several mechanisms:
Easier planning: Well-designed templates have pre-built agendas covering crucial talking points from relationship building to goal setting and progress tracking. This kickstarts preparation so busy managers don’t start from a blank page each meeting.
Efficiency optimization: While meetings should conversational, templates introduce constructive guardrails so discussions stay focused on essential topics without wasting precious time.
Enforced consistency: Templates ensure managers cover key subjects without dropping the ball meeting over meeting. This leads to meaningful continuity vs. talking in circles.
Flexible customization: The best templates balance consistency with adaptability so each conversation stays targeted to the individual. Having room to tailor keeps engagements authentic.
Seamless progress tracking: Templates enable easy monitoring of goals, action steps, and key takeaways over time. This supports employee growth through ongoing coordination and accountability.
Accessibility: Cloud-based digital templates facilitate easy remote access and editing by both managers and employees. This way past discussions, notes and future commitments remain visible to all parties.
In fact, a study by Achievers found that managers who use templates to conduct one-on-ones saw 34% greater employee understanding of how their work aligns to organizational goals.
Now let’s explore the types of meetings templates can support.
7 Types of Meetings That Benefit from Templates
Effective managers use regular one-on-one meetings as a tool to connect with employees, provide coaching, gather feedback and align on priorities.
While you may have some weekly recurring sessions, other one-off meetings fill gaps like onboarding new hires, conducting performance reviews or even skipping level conversations.
Here are 7 types of one-on-one meetings that become more successful and sustainable utilizing tailored templates:
1. Weekly Check-Ins
- Foster relationships
- Review progress on tasks
- Surface roadblocks
2. Monthly Reviews
- Discuss long-term goals
- Assess development needs
- Plan growth opportunities
3. New Hire Onboarding
- Set responsibilities
- Outline resources
- Clarify processes
4. Quarterly Reviews
- Evaluate performance
- Gather feedback
- Set development goals
5. Career Progression
- Outline promotion paths
- Identify skill gaps
- Create plans to gain expertise
6. Skipping Level Meetings
- Gather uncensored feedback
- Assess manager relations
- Confirm alignment
7. Offsite Reviews
- Review achievements
- Discuss challenges
- Set effective goals for next year
Now let’s go through some key template components to facilitate great employee conversations.
What to Include in Effective Templates
One-on-one meetings should guide constructive development-focused conversations while also allowing natural rapport building between managers and employees.
Finding the right blend to enhance genuine connections and maintain continuity takes thoughtfulness.
Here are some best practice template sections to cover the basics:
Agenda Outline
Whether detailed or high-level, having an agenda acts as a conversation guide so meetings don’t get sidetracked. However, managers should remain flexible based on pressing priorities.
Progress Tracking
Every meeting should build on previous discussions, so include a review of key takeaways, action items and goal progress to reinforce continuity.
Recurring Focus Areas
Identify any topics like feedback, employee concerns, roadblocks or recognition that managers should touch on regularly to foster an open environment.
Custom Questions
Create space to add personalized questions — for everything from onboarding to project reviews — so chats stay targeted to the individual.
Action Items & Next Steps
Close each meeting by summarizing key takeaways discussed and commitments from both manager and employee for accountability until the next check-in.
Next let’s check out 10 leading templates to further optimize your one-on-one meetings starting today!
10 Handy One-on-One Meeting Templates
Below are 10 adaptable one-on-one meeting templates spanning a variety of formats and features sets to match different needs:
| Template | Main Features |
|---|---|
| Miro | Collaborative canvas, timeline, guided questions |
| Asana | Progress tracking, reminders, goal alignment |
| Todoist | Recurring cadence,Exportable notes |
| Notion | Status indicators, minimalist, searchable |
| Atlassian Confluence | Digestible format, organized content |
| Gong | Sales focused, revenue tracking, deal health |
| 15Five | Feedback central, recognition & engagement |
| GetGuru | Robust template library organized by meeting type |
| LucidMeetings | Brainstorming oriented, creative ideation |
| MeetingNotes | Feedback mechanisms, progress metrics, strategic overview |
I‘ll briefly profile the value proposition of 5 standout solutions:
Miro – Visually collaborative canvases with timelines to enhance engagement
Key Features: Guided questions, interactive elements like polls and card sorting, ability to gauge moods and emotions through emojis or over video chat.
Use When: Fostering more vibrant and transparent conversations during remote one-on-ones. Try free templates here.
Asana – Enable broader goal and dependency tracking
Key Features: Map meetings into projects tracking statuses, goals and blockers with other stakeholders. Cascade meeting outcomes across organization.
Use When: Directly connecting one-on-ones into work management flows. Get templates here.
Todoist – Streamlined consistency for recurring check-ins
Key Features: Schedule repeating meetings with exportable notes and commitments. Simple yet effective way to reinforce accountability between meetings.
Use When: Easy standarization for weekly or monthly one-on-one cadence. Available here.
15Five – Gather feedback and measure employee engagement
Key Features: Quick personalized pulse checks on employee experience coupled with recognition guidance to reenforce positives.
Use When: Taking the pulse on employee morale and strengthening interpersonal connections. Get this template here.
GetGuru – Extensive template library for any meeting type
Key Features: Robust selection of tailored templates covering new hire onboarding, quarterly reviews, regular check‐ins, you name it. Helpful training materials provided.
Use When: Comprehensive template solution needed for diverse one-on-one meetings at larger organizations. Check them out here.
Choosing which one-on-one meeting templates suit your needs depends on your objectives for these conversations. Clarify priorities around relationship building, performance alignment or development, then assess tool capabilities against these goals.
Now let’s get into helpful hints for nurturing great employee connections.
Best Practices for Impactful One-on-Ones
Even with robust templates supporting your one-on-one meetings, success comes down to facilitation.
Here are some best practices for managers:
Set clear expectations upfront – Frame the purpose, cadence and agenda format so everyone walks in prepared while allowing flexibility based on pressing topics.
Own the prep work – Resist offloading meeting prep onto employees; they likely have enough going on! The manager profiles needs in advance.
Let employees talk more – The best one-on-ones have ratio of 70/30 listening/talking. Foster an open environment for sharing through thoughtful questions.
Manage time tightly – Keep the agenda moving to avoid rabbit holes while allowing transparency. Wrap up meetings before time while sending notes, action items and commitments captured.
Prompt follow-through – Quick check-ins between meetings shows employees their priorities remain top of mind. Don’t allow action steps to drop.
Monitor consistency – Confirm one-on-ones stick to reliable cadence canceled only for emergencies. Consistency builds trust and engagement.
With focused templates and facilitation fundamentals, you’re ready to have more meaningful employee connections right away.
Over to you! Stay relentlessly dedicated to nurturing great working relationships with your team leveraging one-on-one meetings. Managing people can be challenging, but ultimately so rewarding.
What’s your best advice for having impactful one-on-one meetings as a manager or employee? Share your insights in the comments!
