For employees and organization managers alike, one on one meetings represent a fantastic occasion to talk, discuss, and go through vital subjects sincerely and directly. For company leaders, on the other hand, these meetings are beneficial for auditing and monitoring a worker’s progress in the company. At the same time, they provide the employees with the ultimate opportunity to bring the manager up to date on various concerns or challenges and offer constructive feedback to their employers.
In that regard, if you’re a manager or a company owner who frequently carries out these types of meetings, creating a well-thought-out agenda for each session can assist you in getting the most out of 1:1s.
In our latest blog post, we’ll define what a 1 on 1 meeting agenda is and clarify how to develop one. We’ll elaborate on how having a one on one meeting template could significantly improve your efforts to conduct proper meetings with your employees and achieve superior employee engagement within your company.
Defining One On One Meeting Agendas
A one-on-one meeting program or agenda can be defined as a scheme or plan of the topics or critical matters you want to discuss during the session, which essentially should be a scheduled and thoughtful eye-to-eye conversation between the employee and manager. In such meetings, it’s usual to address various subject matters, including ideas, concerns, job satisfaction, and personal or career development goals or issues.
Therefore, having a well-thought-out agenda helps ensure that both the manager and the employee stick to the most critical talking points while maintaining a smooth and friendly, yet productive meeting flow and structure. In the end, since there’s a limited amount of time during the meeting to cover all subjects, planning the one-on-one meeting helps maximize the available time of both parties as well.
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Typically, the manager is the one that creates the 1 on 1 meeting agenda, but it’s also not unusual for the worker to contribute or even suggest their personal agenda for the session.
And just like all agendas for official sessions, each 1 on 1 meeting agenda must revolve around a focal theme or objective of discussion. For instance, if the superintendent desires to evaluate a recent hire’s acclimatization to the organization, their one on one meeting template for the agenda needs to be focused on questions and topics about learning opportunities and relationship building.
Other parts usually included on a one on one meeting template are:
- The employee.
- Time and date. The time and date when the event will take place should also be included in all one on one meeting templates as it is a vital reminder the manager and the employee both check prior to the actual meeting.
- The meeting’s location. The meeting’s location is commonly within the office space for more formal one-on-ones, but regular meetings can also occur externally, in public areas or the nearest coffee shop.
- Agenda items. Finally, the agenda action items are basically the subjects that need to be talked over and often come with highly specifying or detailed notes.
How To Create A Highly Effective 1 On 1 Meeting Agenda
Prepare The Doc
Each 1 on 1 meeting agenda is an actual document that all parties can see and adjust. For that reason, it’s essential to set up the doc so that the vital details and information on it are straightforward to understand and identify.
Of course, having a proper one on one meeting template will make things easier and quicker to organize the agenda, but your doc would also benefit from a general brief with the name of the employee, the time and location of the meeting, and the objective of the one-on-one. The remaining part of the doc should be devoted to the items you want to discuss with the employee.
Time, Date, And Location
The prevalence of your one-on-one meetings largely depends on your team’s requirements, their availability, the team culture in your company, and your management style. For that reason, it’s essential to factor all of this information in when looking for a dedicated time for the team meeting that works fine for both parties.
Ask the other participant for any available time slots in their schedule and tailor the location to their personality. Just remember to discuss these points with the other person instead of strictly pulling rank and deciding on a place and time yourself.
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Determine The Meeting’s Objective
In the end, the meeting’s goal is the mainframe that gives the much-needed shape or structure to the one-on-one meeting. And although these meetings are primarily informal, having a centered discussion may help the employee remember and internalize the main points that need to be addressed. The objective can be no more than a couple of main key topics or questions on which you’d like to concentrate most of the time, like doing the annual performance reviews, for example.
Set The 1 On 1 Meeting Agenda Points
These points are essentially the subjects you want to talk over with the employee. However, it’s not always necessary for all points to relate to the main subject of the meeting directly. The meetings usually begin in a casual manner with a quick call back to the former session and then slowly move on to the new main subject or subjects. To create a highly effective one-on-one agenda, consider using the following flow:
- A quick check-in. The opening check-in questions shouldn’t always relate to work. They are meant to help the worker feel as comfortable as possible when they enter the meeting. Consider asking them about their private life or other known employee development activities, such as their hobby or a recent vacation.
- The call-back. Input a note or two on the discussed main points for these questions.
- The main agenda items. These items relate to the objective or address vital facets of the employee’s recent work, progress, morale, eventual concerns, and working environment relationships.
- Achievements. Talk about various instances the worker showed their strengths or other work-related successes. For example, it’s a great idea to incorporate real examples of your employees’ achievements into the agendas, which would help strengthen their morale.
- Long-term goals and expectations. Most one-on-one meetings usually conclude with a short conversation of what you’d like the worker to achieve or do by the next meeting.
Share An Employee’s Copy Of The Agenda
Once you’ve filled out your agenda, print out a copy and pass it on to the employee. You can leave out any particulars from the copy version that you’d like to save for the one-on-one meeting itself if you want to.
Make sure to at least cover the most important header information, the call-back questions, and the primary agenda items. Providing a copy of the agenda will allow the employee to get ready for the meeting and help you conduct a more productive session.
Creating Your One On One Meeting Template
Once you start having more of these meetings, you’ll realize that using almost-ready one-on-one meeting templates will undoubtedly make your life easier and help you better prepare for the one-on-ones you wish to organize. Luckily, Focus’s objectives and key results goal-setting software comes with an integrated one-on-one meeting feature with various simple templates to help your workforce grow and develop stronger organization-wide positive relationships with people.
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As you compose your agendas according to your company’s current goals, you can easily adjust these one-on-one meeting agenda templates to suit your company’s needs. Here’s what your basic 1 on 1 meeting agenda template should look like and what it should include:
One on one meeting with: [Employee’s name and credentials]
Date: [Date of the one-on-one meeting]
Time: [Your estimated start time and end time of the meeting]
Location: [The location where the meeting is about to take place]
Objective: [The primary point or line of questioning you want to talk about]
Check-in questions: [Approximate duration]
- [Ice-breaking or introductory questions]
Call-back questions: [Approximate duration]
- [Questions that follow up on the previous one-on-one meeting]
Primary agenda items: [Approximate duration]
- [Objective-relevant question 1]
- [Objective-relevant question 2]
- [Objective-relevant question 3]
Achievements: [Approximate duration]
- [Acknowledge a particular success, skill, or achievement]
Goals and expectations: [Approximate duration]
- [One or two professional career goals or objectives to achieve by the time of the next one-on-one meeting or some other future meetings.]
Final Thoughts: The Importance Of One On One Meeting Templates
Now that you know the things you should cover in your one-on-one meetings, it might be the perfect time to start using them to conduct a productive conversation with your employees.
Entering each meeting with a ready-to-use one on one meeting template and only filling in specific discussion points, meeting questions, data, or feedback you’re willing to share with each employee will ensure that each one-on-one conversation you have is tailored exclusively for the other participant. Make sure you use this powerful tool to its maximum capacity.
