Having a one-on-one meeting template means managers and employees can have structured and meaningful conversations. A good template gives perfect insight into key moments like feedback, team performance, career development, employee performance, personal goals, and common pain points like unclear expectations or talking points.
By having one on one meetings, you're able to create open communication and solve problems relating to unproductive meetings or misalignment with a direct report. Read on to discover tools and tips for crafting an exceptional one-meeting agenda template that will drive growth in employee productivity, deliver long-term value, and improve relationships between teams, and individuals.
What’s A One-On-One Meeting?
A one-on-one meeting with a set agenda and recurring meeting or conversation between a direct report member or employee and a manager. These are different from general team meetings as they focus on the individual’s challenges, career goals, and aspirations in a private setting. They will also discuss the team member’s KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that will align with their goals. One-on-one meetings boost and improve team culture and dynamics, employee engagement, and employee development and growth by talking about feedback, employee career aspirations, and personal goals.
Types Of 1:1 Meeting Templates
OKR goal setting and planning
This meeting is about aligning an employee’s goals and objectives with the company org. It’s often used to set clear results that are measurable and make sure managers and employees always know what their responsibilities are. These meetings are to clarify expectations, hold people accountable, discussion points, encourage employees to exchange feedback, and track progress.
Career growth meeting
These meetings are to help employees grow by talking about goals and aspirations. They help identify gaps in their skills and explore opportunities for professional growth and advancement. They’re perfect for planning long-term career paths, immediate professional development opportunities and needs, and building an action plan.
Onboarding and training meeting
Onboarding meetings help new team members get familiar with the company and the new team they’ll be joining. These meetings are about understanding the role, addressing questions, and going through the training schedule. These meetings are to set the tone for engagement and productivity for the entire team of new employees during the first few weeks.
Brainstorming meeting
Brainstorming meetings are the place to get together and come up with new ideas and thoughts. These meetings are to encourage open conversation and collaboration to find solutions for new projects or tasks between two people.
Employee well-being meeting
These meetings are about an employee’s professional and personal well-being. This is a manager’s way of checking in on an employee’s workload to balance stress levels and overall job satisfaction. They’re a private space for employees to vent and a space for managers to validate, reassure, and provide performance feedback.
Skip-level meeting
These meetings are for senior leaders to have a well-rounded discussion with an employee two levels down in a dedicated space, bypassing immediate managers. They are for productive managers to gather unfiltered, constructive feedback, build relationships, and understand team dynamics across organizational layers, they might even include talking about company compensation philosophy.
Problem-solving meeting
These meetings are to address a specific challenge a team or employee is facing. They’re to discuss potential solutions, identify issues, and decide on a way forward. These 1:1 meeting templates work well for software engineers. Problem-solving meetings promote proactive conflict resolution, mutual respect, and teamwork on status reports.
How To Use The One-On-One Meeting Template
Step 1. Set up a one-on-one meeting
Start by creating a one-on-one meeting template that’s relevant to what you’ll be discussing in a meeting. You should include:
- Career development, which will include their aspirations and goals.
- Review tasks and projects from the previous week and look at their current status.
- Take notes and identify challenges, give feedback, and set goals and expectations for the next catch-up.
Step 2. Do the one-on-one
During the meeting:
- Find a quiet space whether virtual or in person and decide on a time slot that works for both parties to be private.
- Listen actively to show respect and open communication.
- Review tasks completed, day-to-day work challenges, and employee’s efforts.
- Give feedback on performance, try to address concerns, and explore career planning for the future and professional development.
- Use this conversation-focused session to show genuine interest in the employee’s personal growth and aspirations.
Step 3. Summarize and share with the attendee
After the last meeting of:
- Summarize key points such as topics, goals, and action items for the future meeting.
- Share the notes, highlights, and summaries with the attendee so both of you are clear on what was discussed.
- Use the feedback to refine future ones to have a more effective company culture.
- Plan to have bi-weekly meetings to ensure your employee feels valued when they have completed tasks.
One On One Meeting Guidelines
A good one-to-one meeting template always has a personal check in the :
- Review of past and recent projects
- Talk about status updates of the past week and review any obstacles and achievements from the previous meeting.
- Career aspirations and goals
- Try to explore growth opportunities for your employees like professional goals and career aspirations within the company.
- Set expectations and give feedback.
- Swap out feedback and advice and address any questions you need clarity on for the next meeting.
- Start with agenda points.
- Let your employee share their concerns and topics for discussion in a safe space to encourage open conversation.
One On One Meeting Tips
- Focus on your employees.
- Spend most of the meeting time listening to your employee and understanding their direct report’s perspective.
- Talk about their day-to-day work, current projects, and what challenges they’re facing in the workplace.
- Practice active listening
- You can listen actively by asking open-ended questions and maintaining eye contact. Don’t interrupt when they’re speaking.
- Show you’re interested in their feedback and thoughts.
- Development of career
- Talk about their career, goals, and long-term goals.
- Bring up opportunities to improve their soft skills and development.
- Give feedback
- Balanced feedback on their strengths what they could improve on and how they can improve on those things.
- Give examples of how to improve on certain obstacles.
- Encourage open communication
- Be nice and invite your employees to come and talk to you about work-life balance and engagement.
- Ask your employees to share their thoughts on workload, dynamics, and development.
Conclusion
Having a one-on-one template for managers and team members is the best way to open up communication and build relationships between the two. Having a dedicated time and secure space to share your fears, dreams, and goals. In turn, one-on-ones can bridge the gap of miscommunication.
You may not always be able to take notes or summaries during the first one-on-one conversation meeting as you’re trying to build a strong relationship with your employees. That’s where Bluedot shines. Bluedot is the best tool to use for recording meetings and even creating one-on-one meeting templates to help with the discussion.
Recording meetings, especially during one-on-ones is key to capturing everything and Bluedot does this well. Beyond transcription, it has features like an AI chat feature, auto-generated emails, customizable interview transcription software, 1:1 meeting templates, meeting agendas, and secure storage for future reference.
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