Increase Employee Engagement through Effective 1:1's

Did you know your employees could be compared to plants?

Just like plants, your employees require attention, care, nourishment, and sunshine (enlightenment from their leader). And just like plants, each employee requires a different amount of these resources. They may also require different conditions or treatments.

Place them in a well-nurtured environment and they will flourish.

You need to meet your employee’s personal goals to ensure optimal productivity and success, as well as establish retention. A great way to make this happen is to set up 1:1 meetings with each member of your staff.

A 1:1 is just what it sounds like– it’s a recurring meeting set up with each employee. 1:1’s increase employee engagement because they dedicate time and attention for employees to be seen and feel heard by their leader or manager of their organization.

1:1 meetings are also perfect for employee check-ins. During these meetings you can collaborate with your employees to make sure everything is going well in their world.

Conducting regular 1:1 meetings will build retention, to not only keep your 5-Star Employees engaged, but to really set yourself apart from other businesses and express employee appreciation.

Now, let’s get into some ideas for 1:1 meeting content:

•  The Water - Work Topics & Workload

Your 5-Star Employees are diligent workers.  Discussing their projects, assignments, and workload are all great ideas for a 1:1 meeting. This goes along with the time to have a check-in with employees. You can hear about what they’re working on, ideas about improvement, and any hiccups they have encountered, and then give any advice you see fit.

•  The Food - Questions and Confusion

Your 5-Star Employees will always have questions to ask you, and that’s a good thing! Think about all the instances you’ve had where asking one simple question could have saved time. These meetings will serve as time for your employees to ask questions, get clarification, and voice any concerns they have.

•  The Sunlight - Scheduled Conversation Time

Your 5-Star Employees see how busy you are and won’t interrupt your daily routine to express their thoughts on non-urgent matters or brainstorm ideas. Scheduling a regular 1:1 meeting would be their time to talk, pitch ideas, and bond a little bit with you. Not only do you want to ensure their work days are going according to plan, but you need to build a working relationship with your employees to build retention.

Remember that like plants, not all employees are the same. Some may require more attention than others!

One last thing about 1:1 meetings - you have the option to delegate them. It is important for the business owner to develop a working relationship with each staff member, but sometimes you’re too busy. Make sure these meetings happen - it keeps up morale and shows you care!

If you have managers overseeing departments in your organization, they could conduct some or all of the 1:1 meetings. However, going ALL IN means being there for your employees, and you want to put in that effort as often as possible.

Think about your workplace as a garden - each employee deserves the right amount of attention and collaboration; a cadence of private meeting time will help your garden grow prosperously.