So, you’ve heard about others doing one-on-ones. Some do a one-hour session every other week with each team member. Counting preparation time, one-on-ones would take up a significant part of your busy schedule. You ponder: Would all the hours be well spent and justified?

It is true that one-on-ones can be time-consuming. Yet the time you spend on a session, will benefit you and the team a great deal if done right. That is 30-60 minutes of honest feedback, which is often difficult to seek otherwise.

Another way of thinking about it, is to acknowledge that you pay the employee “x” amount for his/her full potential. If you have an hour meeting with him/her once a week, that will effectively give you 48 hours a year (taking public holidays / leave into account) with the particular person to motivate him/her and influence his/her performance with the end goal to ultimately utilise the employee’s full potential.

Here are a few reasons why one-on-one meetings are so important:

• Enable pro-active decision making, effective planning and monitoring of projects
• Timeous managerial information
• People value timely feedback
• It is an opportunity to motivate and support your employees
• You can check in with the team’s morale
• You get to know the people you are working with better
• Time to focus on higher-level things like career development and continuous learning
• One of the best ways to seek for feedback (as well as giving it)
• Enhances employee engagement and let them know that you value them

At the same time, feedback shouldn’t be given exclusively during one-on-ones. Whether it’s following up after your last conversation, or providing coaching on a new project, you want to let your employees know that they can always come to you for advice, even outside of one-on-ones.

At Joubert & Associates, we offer training on performance management, which include communication routines (such as one-on-one sessions, team sessions, etc.). Contact us for training on effective communication and performance management skills.