One-on-One Meetings

We all can agree that your employees are your most valuable asset. You rely on them to do a good job yet, the busyness of the moment many times gets in the way of having direct meetings with them.

Taking the time to make sure that your people are engaged in their jobs is one of the most important things you can do for your company. Remember, most people quit their boss, not their job and not feeling important is a primary reason they quit. One-on-One meetings can be your most powerful tool to align the employees and management.

Simple 20 minute One-on-One meetings can help immediately address these issues:

• Under Performers – those employees that are not doing the job they were hired to do. Do not wait until the annual evaluation or when you have to write them up for something they did wrong. You can turn around an employee by either engaging with them or you will realize that they just are not the right fit for the company.
• Slacking Performers – those that are not performing like they used to or you want them to. You know they can do more. These employees used to perform better but for some reason their performance has slacked.
• Absent Performers – those that are not mentally showing up. An employee that is normally happy and joking around is now sullen and withdrawn. There could be a personal issue someone is going through, or an employee that was put into a role that they really don’t like.

Steven Covey said “First Seek to understand before being understood”.
Of course, One-on-One meetings should be held with everyone, but need to follow the same framework for truly effective communication. Use the following steps to begin utilizing One-on-One meetings within your company.

1. Meeting Flow – establish what you want to accomplish, include time for 5 minutes in each of these categories.
• Connect – building report – ask questions about their life, how they are doing, let them know some things about you.
• Inspiration – understand where they want to go in their career and how you can help them get there. et expectations and goals for work – what needs to be accomplished?
• Alignment – understand what they believe their priorities are and what you believe they are and what is missing. Make sure they are aligned with the companies, make sure employees have the skills and tools to do their job.
• Feedback – get feedback on your performance. How have I been showing up for you?

2. Agenda – Create an agenda to use with everyone. It will help guide the conversation and keep the meetings similar between all employees. You can have notes on what you want to talk to the specific employee about right on the agenda. Perhaps you saw them overreact in a meeting, make a note on the agenda and ask them “how do you think you handled that situation?”

3. Skip a Level – Make sure you also connect with each level of employees so you get feedback on all employees, supervisors and front line production workers. Front line information will help you to know what is going on with the crew. This will help guide team, it can help you mentor them and shows you have a belief in that individual.

4. Connect the Future – Ensure that you are continually discussing the future within your One-on-One meetings. Use a career path diagram to explain how the individual can advance within your company. To develop a career path check out this article we wrote. Don’t let your employees get bored or uninspired by having them feel there is no chance of advancing within your company.

5. Your Performance – Not only will you be able to give critiques to the employee on their work, this is the time to let them comment on your performance. To do so, you must create a safe place for them be honest without fear of retribution. Let them know that you are only going to get better by knowing their concerns, that they are not going to hurt your feelings. Ask any combination of these questions:

a. If you were me, what is the one thing you would change in our organization?
b. How would you have handled the situation differently?
c. How am I showing up for you?
d. Is there anything in that last decision I made that you have questions about?
e. What are one or two things that would help me become a better leader for the team and yourself?

When you incorporate these five items into regular One-on-One meetings with your team members, you’ll see a drastic change in their energy, production level and overall happiness within your company. I don’t know about you, but doesn’t everyone want that within their company?

For more specific help with building the right culture within your company, reach out to an ArboRisk team member today.