Interesting that many seem to prefer weekly 1:1s. That seems far too much to me. I would absolutely dread having to spend so much time on that with my manager or my managees and I can’t imagine there are substantial benefits to it (does anyone REALLY have meaningful thoughts about their job/career path EVERY WEEK?)
Whenever I've managed people, I've made a point of scheduling weekly 1:1s; did that even with 12 or so reports, and it did take a significant chunk of time, but it was IMO one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, I could do for them as a manager (and also the one I enjoyed the most about the role).
As other commenters have said, the 1:1 time is the report's time. It's a chunk of time in which I'm entirely and exclusively available to them. I have a set of standard questions I can default to, mostly trying to understand how they're feeling, and open-ended enough that they can talk about whatever they want. Some are done in 5 minutes with a progress report, some take close to an hour in which they sometimes share personal stuff; it's all good from my POV, happy employees are productive employees.
It's absolutely not just about their job/career path. You wouldn't believe what a MASSIVE difference it makes for people just to be heard and have your undivided attention.
I am about 6mo into a job with weekly 1:1s, and am coming from a job that did them every other week. I am always excited for my weekly 1:1.
As a disclaimer, my boss scheduled a weekly 30min 1:1 when I started, but with the caveat that we could make it less often if I found it not useful. He just preferred weekly during the "settling in" phase.
Almost without fail, our 1:1s go over time, totaling between 45min and 1hr. I can't imagine how my boss finds the time, but I so appreciate that he does.
I keep a pinned slack message in our DM, of priority-ordered things to discuss. Often these are things like:
- Something went wrong this week. How did I do? How could I have performed better?
- I noticed something unhealthy with our team, how can we fix it?
- You did something that surprised me as a manager, what was your thought process (this is sometimes critical feedback, sometimes curiousity)
- Is this thing I want to do a good idea?
- Debrief on progress (or lack thereof) on a predefined goal.
- Help me with this stupid HR/Expense report thing
And the list always ends with:
- leave space for <BOSS> to discuss things he wants
This is easily the most valuable growth time of my week. I appreciate my IC time to do an excellent job, but the 1:1s help me pick my head up and think about bigger things.
> As a disclaimer, my boss scheduled a weekly 30min 1:1 when I started, but with the caveat that we could make it less often if I found it not useful
I always preferred managers like this, who are not totally dogmatic about things like weekly meetings - instead doing what works best for each individual.
I don't know but when I was reading your comment I just kept thinking that the weekly 1:1 that you're advocating is being done for your reports is really just being done for yourself.
Is once per two weeks better for you, or also for everyone else? I've noticed that people are pretty wildly different as employees. And that it's a lot easier to ask for fewer 1:1s than to ask for more.
I give my reports an opportunity to raise any topics they wish to discuss. Then, following the example set by a previous manager of mine, I always ask these 4 questions:
- On scale of 1-5 (3 being ok, 5 being really bad), what’s your stress level?
- What has been the most challenging thing since our last meeting?
- What has been the most rewarding thing since our last meeting?
- Are there any resources that could assist you or our team with our projects/goals?
I meet every other week for a half-hour with each of my reports. I've found it invaluable and am a strong proponent.
I've also had one-on-one with managers who just wanted to shoot the breeze or complain about other people we worked with. And during one really bad stretch, I had regular one-on-one's with a manager who, after putting me on a PIP, would quiz me about random details of our applications in an effort to collect evidence for HR that I was unqualified for my job. So YMMV.
(I'm one of the managers with a README in the article)
It really depends - I've had direct reports that have had plenty to cover on a weekly basis, and others that don't really have anything new -- the point of the weekly 1:1's is that they have dedicated time whatever they want or need from me - and it's their time to use as they see fit. If they want to skip that week because there's nothing new on their side, that's fine (but not every week), and if they are done in 10 minutes that's fine too. Other people have wanted closer to 2 hours a week of 1:1 time. It really comes down to the individual.
We had/have similar concepts at my first employer NASA/JPL and my current employer Red Hat. At JPL we called them Quiet Hours, in practice were closer to 30 minutes and they were held at least monthly which is significant amount of time when managers had 15 or more subordinates. Sometimes we rolled them into lunches. At Red Hat Consulting, we’re geographically distributed (even if geographically organized) because of our projects so we do 15-30 minute calls once or twice a month.
It’s a practice I’ve induced my managers into since JPL. And they’re hugely emotionally helpful since I don’t normally have a team that I work with to bounce things off of at lunch or happy hour anymore.
Kudos to you Elliott. Sounds like you’d be a decent manager to work with.
Career progression, walking through or pairing on problems, even personal life topics - remote employees sometimes desire some additional contact as well.
I worked with a team of remote devs, and ended up on both sides.
As a dev seeking manager time, I wanted/needed information. Diagrams, access, contacts, meetings. There was no onboarding and nothing but a codebase for a massive system. This was more like every other week, though.
As a peer, I ran interference with a lot of the junior devs to make sure they had the info they need, to push for the info they didn't, and to get them hooked up with the people who had it. The lack of information enabled a lot of isolation and feelings of imposter syndrome, and the weekly chats gave my peers a forum to vent.
Being remote, communication & culture require a lot more attention and effort.
What I cover is a mix of decisions I need in the next week, technical questions I need help with, or a project I'm thinking about proposing. The general idea is to get some feedback on what it takes to earn a promotion, and where I stand.
I had a job where my Manager didn't schedule weekly 1:1s, and what ended up happening is that the only face time I got with my manager was when I did something wrong and needed to get beaten up. I dreaded all contact. After some years of this, I suggested we have weekly 1:1s instead, and it was great, because we could share other topics: good things, when things were going good, career growth, etc. Totally changed things.
I agree. I've had managers who like to do the weekly 1:1 and in every case I've ultimately left those jobs. It's too time-consuming, too intrusive, too personal, for no benefit that I ever saw.
I would try to say that I really had nothing new to discuss this week, but the meetings were not optional. And to be clear, the meetings weren't the main reason I left those jobs. They were more just annoyances than anything else. But I feel the same way about stand-ups which are apparently pretty popular.
Sounds like we are pretty similar. I just never saw the benefit as an employee or a manager. I really hate meetings that are unproductive, and weekly 1-on-1s always felt that way.
One thing to distinguish is whether that's a scheduled opportunity or a forced occurrence.
For example, I have weekly scheduled 1:1s with my manager, as does everyone else he manages (we can see the times on his calendar), but rarely do we actually chat every single week. I think my last one was 2 or 3 weeks ago.
Additionally, my manager isn't actually on the team, and has no idea what goes on day-to-day. Our 1:1s are usually him getting caught up on what the team is doing and my perspective on our newer team members, rather than anything about myself. Often it gets sidetracked by something totally unrelated - one of these 1:1s was how I learned his favorite superhero is the Hulk, though I don't remember at all how the conversation actually got there.
Being able to chat often like that, and get comfortable talking to your manager, makes it a lot easier when you actually need to talk to them about something important.
I thought the same thing. Weekly 1:1s are worthless. That’s coming from an employee who had to do them and a manager who refuses to do them.
I found them a waste of time when I had to do them. I hated them because if I needed to discuss something with my boss I would, and I had better things to do with my time than talk to him. They are also an interruption, so even if they are only 5 minutes, that’s at least 30 minutes of ramp up and down time.
Hmm... so you aren't one of those people who feel uncomfortable bringing things up to their boss. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
One of the fundamentals every manager needs to learn is, people are not all like you. Extroverts may need someone to bounce ideas off of. Introverts may need a time to bring something they have been thinking about to your attention, because otherwise they assume you don't want to be bothered.
People have families and relationships and health issues outside of work that never the less it may be helpful to discuss if it impacts stress, times they can be in the office, their work flow, etc.
And then, and this is truly important, there are interpersonal relationships in the office. Are two employees not getting along? Having a 1:1 with them will often let you get both sides of the story, instead of, potentially, hearing nothing about it.
Finally, while your bosses may have been fine with you discussing something with them any time you wanted, or fine with an email on a topic, I personally hate being interrupted, and would prefer anything like that be scheduled, and find that in person or video chat conversations are helpful in providing context that text communications, especially those that aren't in real time and interactive, may lack.
> People have families and relationships and health issues outside of work that never the less it may be helpful to discuss
This is one of the problems I had with my managers who like to do one-on-ones. They always wanted to talk about things outside of work. Got to the point where I just wanted to say none of your effing business, but I tend to be more polite than that in a professional setting.
For me work is its own thing. I don't go there for friends, relationships, entertainment, mental health or medical advice, and don't expect my employer to provide or want to be involved in those things.
You’re not alone, although we are hard to employ in the BA it feels. I feel it’s partially due to the prevalence of divide and conquer and creatives’ pattern recognition, I’ve also been pushed off a hand worth of jobs since moving here for non-performance reasons (ie. social/cultural), leaving me pretty apprehensive and alone with damaged confidence. Not watching Silicon Valley or Black Mirror feels like the next outgroup indicator in development. The latter experience alone is enough to scare off any manager who wants to talk life outside of work (never mind my extensive pre-sf success and big circles, I must disclaim, I still feel like a good person who just wants to move on and thrive personally and professionally).
> Hmm... so you aren't one of those people who feel uncomfortable bringing things up to their boss. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
I understand that. But I do tend to hire employees who are not like that. Regardless, I feel like having often scheduled 1-on-1s are an unproductive method of bring things up.
> One of the fundamentals every manager needs to learn is, people are not all like you. Extroverts may need someone to bounce ideas off of. Introverts may need a time to bring something they have been thinking about to your attention, because otherwise they assume you don't want to be bothered.
> People have families and relationships and health issues outside of work that never the less it may be helpful to discuss if it impacts stress, times they can be in the office, their work flow, etc.
I don't disagree with that at all. But I do disagree that often scheduled 1-on-1s are the best solution for that.
> And then, and this is truly important, there are interpersonal relationships in the office. Are two employees not getting along? Having a 1:1 with them will often let you get both sides of the story, instead of, potentially, hearing nothing about it.
Which I have done. But again, I'm talking about often scheduled 1-on-1s.
> Finally, while your bosses may have been fine with you discussing something with them any time you wanted, or fine with an email on a topic, I personally hate being interrupted, and would prefer anything like that be scheduled, and find that in person or video chat conversations are helpful in providing context that text communications, especially those that aren't in real time and interactive, may lack.
I find that scheduled things just delay information, and its better to be interrupted. My belief is that a manager's job can require them to interrupted often. Its just the nature of management.
> so you aren't one of those people who feel uncomfortable bringing things up to their boss. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
Not at all. I'm happy to complain all day long, but what good does it do week after week? 1:1s are not a make everyone happy and not an opportunity to retread the same old stories. We work in the same place, we see the same things. We don't work together that closely, you're too disconnected to understand and taking up time from my actual responsibilities. Weekly 1:1s aren't just a sign, but proof of bad management in any company.
Your bosses did them wrong. If there's nothing to discuss they need not take longer than 5 to 10 minutes, just a chance for you to assure the boss that there are no blockers that you need unblocked and boss to briefly tell you about stuff that may be coming up on the horizon and to make sure you’re happy.
No, that exactly what they were like. If I have a blocker though, I'm not waiting a week to tell my boss. I'll tell him right away. And stuff coming up we'd discuss at our team meeting. As for being happy, we'd discuss that as needed.
Eh, I think it depends on the individual. I have a 1:1 with my manager every three weeks, and that's plenty for me. If something urgent comes up between meetings (which is pretty rare), he's just a Slack message away. But some employees have enough to discuss that weekly is great for them. I think it's nice for a manager to at least give their reports the option of a weekly 1:1; if there's nothing to discuss sometimes, it should be ok to cancel, and if you just need a 5-minute check-in, that should be fine too.
You probably hit on why some people love them and why some don’t. I think it depends on the manager, the employee, and the nature of the job. When I was an employee, I hated them. As a manager, I talk enough with my employees that scheduled 1-on-1s are unnecessary. We are also so busy that I can’t see scheduling 1-on-1s. But I could see other companies, employees and managers being different.
Yeah, agreed. It'd be nice if a manager let their reports set the frequency of the 1:1s, or at least encouraged them to cancel or cut them short if they don't have much to discuss. (Obviously canceling to the point where you don't get to chat for months isn't great, but there's a happy medium somewhere.) But many of the managers I know seem to value the ritual (or perhaps the "look at me, I'm doing useful work!" aspect) of the 1:1 so much that it would reflect poorly on the employee at review time if they skipped even rarely.
It's not about there being meaningful / weighty subject matter every week! Rather, by establishing a weekly cadence (which has value per se in creating and strengthening an interpersonal, human connection), it ensures that if/when there _is_ a momentous discussion, there is minimal friction involved, in having the conversation and in how that conversation goes.
"So much time" means they are taking longer than they need to. There is no reason a weekly 1:1 needs to take more than a more than a couple if minutes in some cases: "I'm still buried in $project", "Need anything from me?", "No, I'm good".
It does seem natural for people to want to fill some minimum time period though. I always seem to be the one calling "anything else for this meeting?" to cut them short before the rambling sets in. If nobody is guiding the meeting, then it is your job.
Consider that a lot of meetings happen because people need to look busy not because what is agreed on the agenda (if there is agenda in the first place)
I have weekly 1 to 1s. They aren’t typically about career path or job, they are protected time so that you can go through priorities and talk about any conflicts between scheduling - and they are useful for getting your boss to commit to decisions. Sometimes they only take 15 minutes. Sometimes they take an hour.
