Working with your employees using one-on-one meetings can be extremely beneficial. Your employees get face time with their manager. You get face time with your employees and hear their concerns.
But what happens if you want to hold one-on-one meetings but you have no idea what to do? You have no idea what the agenda should be?
Fear not! I’m bringing you a very effective agenda for one-on-one meetings. One that will serve you well. One that will help you bring out the best in your team.
A Simple Agenda For Your One-on-One Meetings
One-on-one meetings don’t have to be complicated. You can follow the simple agenda for these meetings below.
What’s up:
Starting your one-on-one meetings shouldn’t be about business. The beginning of your meetings should be for connection and learning about your employee.
At the start of every one-on-one meeting, ask the question: What’s up? Let your employee share about their week, family life, and more.
You’ll be amazed at what they’ll share.
Wins and progress:
Now, you’re moving into the business side of your one-on-one meetings. The second part can be about your employee’s wins and progress.
Your employee will share updates on the projects they’re working on. They may even bring up possible new projects they see as beneficial for the organization.
Most importantly, allow your employee the chance to share their wins. This is the time they will share how they’ve been a rockstar in the organization. You may hear stories of how they helped retain a customer who wanted to find a new vendor, going above and beyond by providing a service not normally offered but they saw the need, or finding new ways to get their work done through an AI agent.
Wins and progress allow you to understand what your employee has accomplished and where their projects stand.
Blockers/risks:
What are blockers and risks? These are issues your employee has noticed that are causing them to pause or stop their work.
Some blockers or risks may be:
- Waiting on approvals or resources
- Unclear priorities
- Shifting requirements
- Burnout
- Lack of communication
- Role confusion
- Skill gaps
If you truly take the time to listen, you can learn so much about the challenges your employee is facing. More importantly, you can hear what needs to be done to resolve the issue.
Listen to the blockers and risks your employees share. Then address those issues. The more you address, the more your employee can accomplish.
Future priorities:
Your one-on-one meetings can be a great place to share what you see as possible priorities. I recommend looking 1-2 weeks ahead when discussing future priorities.
These might be tasks the employee needs to accomplish, learning they need to do, or some other task.
Giving your employee insight into what you see as a priority is critical to their success. They understand what you are looking for and can move in that direction.
Skill development:
It’s always fun to close out your one-on-ones with a challenge to develop their skills further. Because you’ve been holding successful one-on-one meetings with your employees, you’ve begun to learn about their skills, struggles, and desires.
Offer up a challenge to work on developing one new skill between now and your next one-on-one. During the next one-on-one, you can discuss how they’ve developed their new skill.
Some skills to think about challenging them to develop are:
- Learning AI Agents
- Improving their Excel spreadsheet knowledge
- Clarifying priorities
- Holding tough conversations
When you begin to work through a proper agenda for your one-on-one meetings, everyone gains something. You gain a better employee. Your employee gains the information they need to improve.
What would you add to the agenda list?
