Ask HN: 1-on-1s in the Workplace

1. Yes.

2. Yes. Though like anything, you get out of them what you put in.

3. Set on a per-person basis. Some people need/want to meet every week. A lot of them are younger developers and are looking for constant guidance/feedback on how they're doing, ways to improve, or just to talk through issues.

While a person is in charge of their frequency, we do require at least once a month. Those people are usually more senior in their careers. In those cases, a lot of times the meetings are shorter and we just have a quick chat to make sure everything's okay with both them and their team.

1. Yes we have.

2. YES! Very much so!

3. A 1 hour meeting every other week! If you want to have weekly 1-on-1s, you can have a 30-45 minute meeting.

A few tips:

- Focus of 1-on-1s should be on supporting your direct reports. How they feel at work, how they can achieve more, what should they do for their career developments, etc.

- Active listening is very important! It's a meeting about our direct reports goals, so most of the time we should listen to what they have to say.

- I found this guide by Lighthouse helpful, but there are lots of other good guides:

https://getlighthouse.com/blog/one-on-one-meetings-template-...

1) Yes 2) Yes 3) Weekly, but either of us feel free to cancel if we need the time back

My direct report is our product manager, and has his schedule packed with meetings. Keeping a 1on1 on the calendar means I can nab him with questions during a busy week without sending another fifteen emails to an already overflowing inbox. Plus, it makes us both pick our heads up at least once a week to socially engage, which we could both easily forget to do.

I have a weekly 1 on 1 with my manager, but we end up skipping most weeks, as neither of us have anything we need to talk about. We tend to average about once a month.

Usually our 1 on 1s turn into a planning session to discuss project that will be coming the following months. So I do feel they are useful.

1. Yes.

2. Not really.

3. They are weekly.

I just don't have much to say most times, so it's a quick "everything good?", "yep", "cool".