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One-On-One Meetings: 5 Things Managers Should Keep in Mind

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The success of any organization largely depends on the quality of the employees. Due to this fact, employers have always devised and will continue to look for ways to make their employees feel valued and appreciated. When they are happy, they will be at their best. When you make them feel included in the company’s plans, they will work as if the company is theirs. One of the ways employers show that they care is by holding regular one-on-one meetings with their employees. As an employer, you should consider this if you are not already doing so. Here are some tips.

Let it be a regular exercise

The needs and workflow of your team are what determine how regularly you should hold one-on-one meetings. Most organizations hold one-on-one meetings every three months, but it should depend on what works for you and your team. One challenge here could be different time zones, especially when some of your team members live on a different continent. So, it’s important to select a time that is beneficial to all parties.

The meeting is supposed to go beyond the employee’s on-the-job performance. It is an opportunity to connect with all of your employees individually. You get to know what is working for each of them, celebrate their successes, and find out ways you can be of assistance to them. Whatever format you want to adopt, meetings should be consistent.

Prepare to listen actively

The mistake most managers make during meetings with their employees is that they make it a one-person show where they talk the whole time and leave no room for the employees to say anything. The employees do most of the office work and as such should be allowed to give their own view about things in the organization. The one-on-one meeting should be a chance to hear them out and understand their concerns, plans, and aspirations for the job.

It is possible that there is a difference in first languages, especially if you are meeting your foreign employees online. You can use remote interpreting platforms to help bridge that language barrier. Whatever your employees are concerned about or dissatisfied with should be handled immediately. This will make the employee always look forward to another meeting since the experience is always rewarding.

Choose your words carefully

There are various ways of conveying the same message. It could be friendly and it could be done callously. As a manager, you need to be careful with your words–as words badly spoken can cause great harm to the psyche of the employee. Instead of using words like “failed” you can use “unsuccessful.” Instead of phrases like, “You are not performing well,” you can use words like, “You are doing a great job, but there is room for improvement.”

At the end of the meeting, the employee gets the message without a negative psychological effect. If you are giving your employee some additional tips on how to improve their work practice, then be specific and clear. The employee shouldn’t feel confused. For example, if you are talking about the development of a chatbot and you want to let them know about a specific aspect of the project process that you want to change, be direct and don’t beat around the bush.

Discuss growth opportunities

When employees don’t see opportunities for personal growth at work, they become unhappy and the effect is seen in the output of their work. This is why discussing growth opportunities with your employees is very important. Managers are in the most suitable position to empower their employees and create opportunities for them to grow. So, when you meet with your employees, don’t just talk about the past or present, talk about the future also. Ask them where they see themselves in the next few years and what bigger roles they are interested in.

End the meeting on a positive note

During your meeting with your employees, you will probably discuss work most of the time. To mix things up and keep things more casual, ask your employee about his family and what the employee does for fun. Make this part of the meeting as pleasant as possible and let it be what lingers on in the employee’s mind at the end of the meeting.

Final Word

It may be difficult for you to monitor your employees’ everyday activities or know how they are faring outside of work. One-on-one meetings help you as a manager to bridge this gap and get to meet everyone individually. See this activity as part of your core duties as an employer. Do not replace it with other activities you presume are more important. If you start finding reasons not to have these meetings, they may stop altogether–and this could have a negative effect on your team’s productivity.

Image by Photographer London

6 Trends Hammering Today’s Workplace (And How Employee Surveys Help)

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Today’s workplace trends continue to cause a dramatic shift for organizations, employees, customers, and suppliers. Paraphrasing the cliché, “The only real known is that change is a constant.” That’s why constant awareness of what’s going on — and adjusting appropriately — is critical.

We may not be certain of what lies ahead, but we know that six workplace trends mark the early 2020s. And we know we’d better be all over them now in preparation for what’s to come.

Agility

Three-quarters of 2,500 surveyed business leaders rank agility as a top-three priority.

Employees have their ears to the ground through their own networks, contacts with customers, experiences with processes, procedures, and management. What are they seeing and hearing? What gaps in expectations exist? Where are the opportunities for improvement?

Being able to spot patterns and shifts quickly gives leaders the agility to change tack better than less nimble competitors. And a workforce invited to share insights regularly augments the ability to act with agility.

Enabling Remote Work

Remote work stats are as trendy these days as witty memes. Studies indicate 52% of global employees work remotely once a week, and 68% do so at least once per month. Work from Home (WFM) models are relatively new. There’s the physical environment — ensuring people have the tools and resources. And there’s the mental side — specifically, providing support and resources that can help with stress, anxiety, and isolation.

We often get caught up in ensuring everyone has access to the ‘same’ or ‘equal’ opportunities. However, diverse employee populations have different experiences and different needs. While the glass ceiling impedes women and members of minorities, ‘virtual’ walls have now been added into the mix, threatening the progress of current and aspiring employees.

Are remote workers being enabled in a way that works for them — and you? The only way to know is to ask.

Prioritizing Mental Health in the Workplace

Remote workers exposed to the stress of isolation, and on-site employees faced with potential virus exposure, are projected to trigger behavioral health conditions of pandemic proportions. Exhausted, anxious, and often sleep-deprived, many people show up at work — virtually or in-person — despite mental or physical ailments. For many organizations, the result is immense productivity losses and increasing risks.

Today, employers are facing a potential mental health crisis. They need a window into employees’ hearts and minds, especially those absent from the physical work world. At the same time, it’s vital to recognize specific employee populations need more support in dealing with their personal life circumstances than others. For instance, anxiety and depression figures reported in December 2020 are higher for Latinx (46.3%) and Black respondents (48%) than the overall 42.4%average.

How do we know who needs what support? And whether it’s effective?

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)

Employees have become more outspoken about the discriminatory treatment they’ve observed or experienced in the workplace. Creating a safe environment for people to speak up and feel like they belong is a hot topic among executive leaders.

Employees are your compass when navigating matters of DEI. Their insights point a way forward and help keep your organization informed and on track. But change has never been as fast and as furious — nor as forcefully dominant — as it is today. And employee sentiment is far from immune to this tide of transformation.

Reaching an intended DEI destination depends on continuously checking coordinates — the voice of employees — and making adjustments as the winds change.

Frequent Surveys

Frequently monitoring the pulse of employees is helping more leaders make the right kinds of decisions across issues like agility, mental health, DEI, and more. Here at WorkTango, more than half of the organizations we support that weren’t already offering pulse surveys or using the active listening model have started to shift how they collect input from employees. Those companies now see higher participation than ever, with many receiving upward of 85% to 90% response rates. Why? When surveys are contextually relevant to an employee’s experience, they want to give feedback.

The themes associated with frequent pulsing can be around anything – whatever’s important in the moment. It’s an ongoing process to gather and understand sentiments around all the moving parts of your organization.

The bottom line: Pulsing is a diagnostics tool that gives leaders something they can focus on—and ignites a shift from measurement to action.

Heightened Accountability

Regularly checking in to get employee feedback gives leaders a quick snapshot of whether the actions they’ve taken are working. We then inextricably link accountability with these quantitative and qualitative insights.

With more frequent measurement, leaders tend to listen more. They take steps, actively review progress, make tweaks, and cycle through the process — fine-tuning as they go. The data collected and shared puts the onus on functional leaders and hiring managers. Because seeing their survey score — how they’re trending and their own personal management results (and knowing that data is public to the executive team) — creates built-in accountability.

The thread that links these six trends?

Actively listening to the voice of employees and using scientifically validated data to guide meaningful actions.

Centralized Survey Structures in Today’s Workplace

A centralized survey tool helps your organization measure and adapt to the needs of your human capital throughout the employee lifecycle.  Whether your approach is to gather employee engagement insights annually or to run more frequent pulse surveys, a single survey platform is where the real power of data can be found.

Plus, whether giving feedback or for reporting, it’s easier for employees to use and get comfortable with one platform. So when choosing a survey tool, look for a single platform that eliminates the need for multiple vendors and the time involved to learn and support various platforms.

We’ve been going through more disruptive shifts in the last 15 months than we have in the past 15 years. To paraphrase Charles Darwin this time: “It’s not the strongest or most intelligent that survive, but the ones most responsive to change.”

For organizations, that responsiveness comes from listening to employees frequently and attentively. Using a centralized survey platform to obtain real-time insights into workplace issues that matter now — or point to potential trends and taking pre-emptive action to keep a step ahead — helps make active listening a critical element of your company culture.

 

Want to know more about WorkTango? Listen to our own Cyndy Trivella’s thoughts on this 2021 TalentCulture HR Tech Award winner:

Reenfranchising Your Company’s Disenfranchised

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If 2016 taught me anything, it’s that I may have overestimated how tuned in I am to large segments of the population. I would not call this group a silent majority (as they are neither “silent” nor a “majority”), but recent political events have reinforced my need to engage and find common ground with those who feel alienated.

In his recent movie, Imperium. Daniel Radcliffe plays a FBI agent who goes undercover in a white-supremacy group. According to Radcliffe, “…my biggest takeaway from this film is that, as much as we want to demonize these people and in a way demonize their views, we should try and find a way of getting them into this conversation, unfortunately as awful as that sounds, because the more you ostracize them and aggressively dismiss them, the more it just plays into their worldview that everything is a conspiracy against them.”

Before you send me your oppositional emails, let me be clear: I am not equating, comparing, or in any way associating those who feel disenfranchised with white supremacists or racists-at-large. What I am saying is that Radcliffe makes a valid point about demonizing people without engaging in a conversation to understand their point of view.

Imperium’s Director, Daniel Ragussis, added that characterizing those on the fringe with insults like “monster” is not helpful.—“They don’t give you any access as to the mechanism that’s going on there and why the people are behaving the way they are. I think if you’re going to try to dismantle that or change it, you have to understand what’s going on and what’s happening.”

A mutually beneficial workplace culture is not determined solely by the leaders; the employees ultimately decide what practices and habits they will adhere to… and this includes those who don’t feel welcomed to participate. Therefore, companies must focus their resources to involve these individuals.

To help us encourage those who believe they are estranged from the decision makers, we must be mindful of one important concept: Don’t confuse feeling disenfranchised with feeling disengaged. The disengaged are not willing to put in extra effort for success. They don’t like work and they aren’t afraid to show it. The disenfranchised, on the other hand, believe they are deprived of rights and/or privileges. They want to contribute, but either don’t know how to initiate, don’t think they are allowed, or don’t feel welcomed into the process.

To reenfranchise, start by listening to their concerns. Actually, that’s too easy. Your really need to start by withholding judgment. It’s easy to dismiss those who disagree with us, especially when they are not in a position of power. An effective leader, however, cannot disparage or ostracize these individuals. They are part of the organization, so either treat them like they are part of the organization or release them from your condemnatory sentencing.

Once you are able to withhold judgment, you can begin listening to their concerns. Schedule one-on-one’s to figure out what they need to feel embraced. Ask questions, focus on their concerns, and formulate an ongoing plan.

After you know their hindrances and have a plan in place, it is your responsibility as the leader to change how you manage. However you led before resulted in a disenfranchised populace, so figure out what you can do differently to be more inclusive. And follow up frequently to ensure that your efforts are effective.

If attitude is an indication of success (and it is) you will get more bang for your buck if you concentrate on reenfranchising the disenfranchised then engaging the disengagement. Since the disenfranchised crave involvement, involve them. If you don’t, they will find their voice, with or without you. Why wait for them to be an organized opposition? Make them allies and strengthen your team.

Photo Credit: maransa99 Flickr via Compfight cc

5 Leadership Lessons: Listen, Learn, Lead

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye! We all go through life half-aware sometimes. We have to – there’s so much input these days that if we actually paid attention to it all, we’d be in a straightjacket within weeks. Advertising, social media, music, TV, mobile devices and apps, games, big data, the crazy-quilt cacophony of social media life — a million voices all competing for our hearts, minds and pocketbooks. It’s all too much to handle. So we don’t. We basically hit the mute button on the vast majority of the sensory tsunami. It’s really a matter of self-preservation.

Except when it’s a matter of self-destruction. For a leader – or anyone else who wants to succeed at hiring and retaining the very best talent – listening is a crucial skill. Because when you tune the wrong people (talent) and information out, you’re depriving yourself of priceless tools that will enable you to take your career, and life, to new levels of workplace fulfillment, reward and fun.

To reach our full potential, we must master the art of listening. Really listening. Which means awareness. Which means thinking about what we hear. Which means applying it, if possible, to the leadership challenges at hand.

The art of listening isn’t difficult to master. And when you have, new worlds open up. It’s exciting.

Here Are 5 Steps To Help You Keep Your Best Talent Happy:

1) Take An Input Inventory. There’s just too much stimuli and information coming at us. We would drown in the tidal wave if we tried to absorb it all. So take an inventory of where the valuable information and insight lies. Who in your work life should you be listening to? Who in your personal life? Which social media channels are relevant? Can you apply online filters to automatically filter some of the useless clutter that assaults us? Write down your inventory. Expand or contract it as your listening skills improve.

 2) Stretch Your Muscles. Now that you have an idea of who and what you should be listening to, start to practice. Within the next 24 hours, seek out someone who you think is smart and insightful and pick his or her brain on a specific topic. Thank them, and then go write down what they said and anything actionable that you have gleaned from it. This exercise starts to train our ears and brains to be in sync. It gets easier with time. And it’s fun!

 3) Listen To What Is Unsaid. In both our professional and personal lives, absolute candor can be tough. For a variety of reasons, we often communicate obliquely, especially when a topic is uncomfortable. Disagreeing with your boss, expressing unhappiness with a project, colleague, or assignment can be tough.  Successful leaders learn to listen between the lines. They encourage direct expression, but understand it can feel risky for people. In the next 24 hours, have a conversation in which you’re listening for what is unsaid. Then go write down what was said and what you feel wasmeant. This exercise is closely related to emotional intelligence. Master it and your learning and leadership toolbox will have a powerful new tool.

4) Refresh Your Ears. We all fall into patterns, which can lead to stale performance and career ruts. The visionary, contrarian investment manager Dean LeBaron, who founded a local company in my universe Batterymarch, shuffled the cubicles (including his own – I know this for fact btw) in his office every few months. This workplace culture reorientation refreshed everyone’s creative juices and boosted employee morale. It also communicated loud and clear that LeBaron cared about his people and understood human nature. Refresh your ears by changing your listening patterns. Tune to a new radio station as you drive or ride to work. Trade Lady Gaga for Bach (or vice versa) for a day. Visit a new social media site. Trade Under the Dome for Storage Wars for at least one episode (yes, you can record Dome!). Ask the cashier at CVS how she’s feeling and really listen to her answer. Ask a follow-up question.

5) Keep An Open Ear (And Mind). Moliere said, “I take my good where I find it.” Smart words. Start listening to people who you never listened to before. (Yes, I know this seems to contradict Step1, but actually it compliments it, and keeps it fresh and spontaneous.) This means seeking out people who you never really paid a whole lot of attention to, and actively soliciting their input. You’d be surprised at what people have to offer when asked. The receptionist, the cleaning guy, the head of another department, someone you don’t click with on a personal level, an acquaintance who works in a completely unrelated business, a high school classmate you reconnected with onFacebook. This exercise works best when applied to a specific challenge. Ask for ideas. Listen to them. Write them down. You might be surprised at what you learn (yes, 90 percent of it may be useless, but …remember the 10 percent)

Learning to listen is a blast. It makes us fuller, smarter, more empathetic, more successful people and leaders. Lets all take our earplugs out and tune in to the wondrous wealth of inspiration that surrounds us. Your future and current employees will thank you.

A version of this post was first published on Forbes on 08/04/2013

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