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95% of managers have one-on-ones with their employees. Just because they’re having them though, doesn’t mean they’re effective one-on-one meetings.

In the best cases, these meetings can be vital to an employee’s career trajectory. They keep team members focused and ensure they know what you expect from them in the short- and long-term.

These clear expectations, as well as support in their career, can improve employee engagement and productivity. It can even improve team members’ well-being.

So, how can you conduct more effective one-on-one meetings that drive employee engagement?

Have an agenda

Having an agenda for any meeting means that all parties know what type of meeting it’s going to be.

A one-on-one without an agenda can be a source of panic for employees, especially if they’ve previously worked at companies where one-on-ones consisted of their boss berating them for an hour.

Come up with a clear list of what you want to discuss. 

Ask employees what they want to talk about, too. 

That way, you both know what to expect and can do any preparation needed. Employees also get to feel like their voice is heard.

Create a welcoming atmosphere

Employees need to feel like they can talk to you. Otherwise, they’re going to shut down and you not only won’t get a lot from them in the meeting, but you won’t get the most from them work-wise, either.

Effective one-on-one meetings are the perfect place to discuss roadblocks or other workplace challenges. Just over 70% of managers feel this is a good way to use them.

But if an employee doesn’t feel you’re approachable, they’re less likely to talk to you if they’re stuck.

Instead of saying, “don’t come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution,” make it clear to employees that if they can’t think of a solution, you’re there to support them. But you’re also there to brainstorm and help them address challenges as well.

You can then encourage them to trust their instincts solving future problems.

Otherwise, they may waste more time feeling stuck because they can’t find a solution when you have one already.

Discuss the good and bad

The topics discussed the most in effective one-on-one meetings are:

• Growth and development
• Performance
• Employee motivation
• Connection to people and/or work
• Autonomy and accountability
• Alignment to company mission. 

These are some pretty meaty topics and can go in either direction. Getting the balance right requires giving effective feedback to help employees excel.

Many people are either better at giving criticism or praise. But effective one-on-one meetings have a balance of both. Employees need to know what’s pointing them in the right direction and what’s taking them off course.

If they’ve made a mistake or could have done something more efficiently, instead of dwelling on that, explain why it was less effective and teach them the better way to do things next time.

If you spend the meeting berating them or repeatedly telling them they were wrong, they’re far more likely to shut down and struggle to put what you say into practice.

So be sure to praise what they do right, too. Do they create a welcoming atmosphere for new team members? Are they quick to learn?

Soft skills are just as important as hard skills in the workplace.

Listen 

One of my strongest memories of a workplace one-on-one involved being talked at for an hour. I didn’t get a word in. 

I was told what I’d done right and wrong, and what I needed to achieve in the next year. That was it. 

I didn’t get a say; my thoughts, feelings, and opinions weren’t considered or even asked for. 

That shouldn’t be the purpose of effective one-on-one meetings, especially not in the modern workplace.

Instead, listen to your employee. What matters to them? What do they want to work toward, in the short- and long-term? What’s getting in their way?

How can you help them achieve their goals?

Give guidance

Sometimes, an employee doesn’t know what they want, either in terms of short-term or long-term career growth. Not everyone has a clear trajectory, and they shouldn’t be expected to map one out without support.

Expecting people to know where they want to go when they don’t know what their options are is like asking someone to cook a dish they’ve never heard of without a recipe.

Give them options for where they could go in their career. Consider positions that suit their personality, strengths, and motivations.

If someone enjoys the creative parts of being a marketer, there’s no point in suggesting they become a marketing analyst, for example.

Conversely, if they like the people part of marketing, they might make a great marketing manager or even salesperson.

Or, if you’re not sure what their future could look like, do some research together, or ask people within the business what they think.

Just because someone doesn’t have a clear career vision, that doesn’t mean they can’t do great things with a little help. Effective one-on-one meetings are a great place to start digging into these issues.

Come up with next steps

All effective meetings have a plan at the end. One-on-ones should be no exception.

Whether it’s a small task to be done for next week, like completing a brief, or a long-term plan to help them achieve their career goals, providing actionable next steps means employees know what you want from them, and enables you both to track their progress.

Conclusion 

Effective one-on-one meetings can play a huge role in an employee’s career development. Whether they want to become a manager, a subject matter expert, or something else, you have the opportunity to guide them through pivotal points in their career.

To make these conversations a success, employees need to feel comfortable opening up to you.

They also need to believe you’ll accept what they tell you without judgment.

The more you listen to them, the more they’ll open up, and the better they’ll perform in the workplace.

If you’d like to learn more about what employees want outside of effective one-on-one meetings, Workrowd can help. Establishing an ongoing culture of feedback with our automated surveys and analytics means you’ll always have a pulse on employees’ needs.

Plus, our employee program, group, and event management tools make it easy to design and launch initiatives in response to the feedback you get. Want to learn more? Drop by our site, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

4 ways to leverage personalization for more engaged employees

How to increase employee retention on a budget in 2024

Why cultural competence is essential for today’s global workforce

In my previous post on the mass return to office, we looked at the impact it’s likely to have on businesses’ DEI efforts. In this post, we’ll look at your return to office policy from a standpoint of how it impacts employee engagement.

While many managers want employees to be present in person, this can be detrimental to employees’ mental and physical health. Which, ultimately, impacts your bottom line.

So, let’s explore how a return to office policy can hurt employee engagement:

Employees can’t take breaks when they need/want to

I can’t sit at a desk for very long. Usually, I’ll write/edit a piece, then take a break. This makes me look like a massive fidget when I work in an office.

But if I don’t take a break regularly, I can’t concentrate.

The longer I sit still for, the harder it gets for me to focus.

This is the reality for many people who are neurodivergent or have chronic health issues. Sitting still becomes physically and/or mentally uncomfortable.

Not to mention it’s terrible for healthy people, too, causing long-term health issues such as chronic back pain.

Back pain is one of the biggest causes of employee sickness in the US. All told, it costs the economy $250 billion per year. Yes, billion.

I thought I needed new glasses when I read that, too.

Back pain is also one of the leading causes of early retirement.

So if someone retires early from it, you lose out on their industry and company knowledge. Plus, you have to spend money hiring and training other employees to fill the gap.

The simplest way to prevent all this? Ensuring employees move more and sit less.

Spending too long staring at a screen can also lead to eye strain and headaches. This then further causes employees to need to take time off to rest. All because they can’t take a screen/desk break when they need to.

Employees need to feel comfortable taking breaks and stretching their legs (and minds) as often as necessary.

But if their boss believes they must be at their desk in the office at all times to do their job, it doesn’t allow for the flexibility people need to move their bodies and maintain their health.

Employees feel less trusted

Forcing employees back into the office when they’ve worked remotely successfully for several years sends a negative message. This extreme return to office policy suggests you don’t trust them to do their job without someone to monitor them in person.

This message that those in charge don’t trust them can damage their confidence. This is especially true when they may feel like they haven’t been doing a good enough job already.

If they’ve worked hard but it’s perceived to not be good enough, the hit to their confidence can cause them to be less productive and may lead to workplace-related depression or anxiety.

All this adds up to employees disengaging, taking long-term sick leave, or leaving altogether.

Over time, this turnover will cause businesses to waste money on hiring that could’ve been saved by working with employees to find a hybrid or remote working policy that suits everyone’s needs.

Underrepresented talent feels they have to conform

Subconsciously, in an office, we judge the people around us. We judge them based on how they speak, act, and even what they wear.

This forces people to conform. Especially in a conservative workforce, or one that isn’t very diverse (even if it’s trying to change).

This subconscious conformity has an impact on how people think over time, too.

When someone doesn’t express their individuality however they want/need to, it can impact how they think, too.

They’re more likely to second-guess their ideas. So they won’t share them.

Eventually, this lack of other perspectives could lead to groupthink.

And that groupthink will reduce employees’ ability to think creatively, innovate, and problem solve because they’re working with just one limited worldview.

Your return to office policy can make it harder for people to speak their minds, especially if they’re constantly immersed in a one-size-fits-all office culture.

Offices are distracting

I delved deeply into how offices can be distracting in my previous post, so I won’t belabor the point here. But the short version is that big, open-plan offices can be distracting.

Office-based working means it’s easier for colleagues to interrupt someone when they’re concentrating. If that person doesn’t drop what they’re doing to talk to their colleague, they risk being perceived as rude.

But what if they were in the middle of a massive breakthrough, and someone coming up to them, unprompted, broke their flow?

It takes us 20 minutes to get back into something after an interruption.

With the amount of distractions we can experience in an office, those 20 minutes can add up. Just think how much lost time your return to office policy can lead to throughout the working day, let alone a week, month, or year.

Commutes can be draining

Commutes can be draining, especially if there’s a lot of traffic or problems with public transport.

When I used to get the tram to work, if there was some sort of tram delay (which happened a lot), it meant I got into work late. I started the day already feeling stressed before I’d even gotten to my desk. 

My elevated stress levels meant I was more reactive to my surroundings. As a result, I was less able to concentrate.

Plus, I was worried about whether the tram issues would be fixed before the end of the day. And if they weren’t, how long it would take me to get home. And how little energy I’d have left when I got there.

None of these things are an issue with remote working. Instead, employees get more time to spend on what matters to them and don’t need to stress about their commute.

Office-based working vs employee engagement

While some businesses will always need employees there in person, for many modern companies, there’s just no reason to implement a full-blown return to office policy.

For in-person meetings, in most cases, it’s still cheaper to rent a space once a year, or once a quarter, than have a permanent office space that no one wants to use.

If an employee is among the few who prefer to work in an office, they could always find a nearby co-working space, library, or cafe. This is likely to be closer to them than the office, but they still get to be away from any potential at-home distractions.

Looking to balance the benefits of in-person work with the employee engagement perks of remote? Workrowd can help. Our all-in-one tool suite enables team members to find community no matter where or when they work.

Personalized dashboards ensure everyone is always in the loop, and custom analytics let you track your results in real time. Sound useful? Visit us online to learn more, or drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

4 ways to leverage personalization for more engaged employees

How to increase employee retention on a budget in 2024

Why cultural competence is essential for today’s global workforce

Gen Z now makes up 30% of the world’s population. Of course, this also means an influx of Gen Z in the workplace. By 2025, members of this generation will comprise a quarter of our workforce.

This new wave of employees demands very different things from their employers than their predecessors. They have higher expectations and ignoring those, or being stuck in your ways under the guise of “tradition” puts you at risk of ending up like the steam engine or horse-drawn carriages.

If you want your business to survive, you need to engage Gen Z in the workplace sooner rather than later. They’re the future leaders, decision makers, and investors that could one day influence the fate of your business. The sooner you show them that you value their input, the sooner you’ll experience the benefits of a multi-generational workforce.

So, how do you engage Gen Z in the workplace? Here are 5 ways you can do just that:

Show diversity matters

Gen Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation ever. Half of its members identify as a racial or ethnic minority.

That means they care about what you’re doing to make your business more diverse. It’s not enough to just say you support diversity, or that your company is diverse. You need to prove it.

Some ways to do so include updating your hiring processes, creating ERGs, sharing employee stories on your social media pages, supporting a range of charities, or by getting your leaders to speak up about causes that matter to them.

On a deeper level, you need to embody diversity. You need to support employees who report a colleague for their behavior, whatever that may be. Don’t assume because they’re reporting their manager it’s because they don’t get along.

You also need to educate everyone within the business on things like microaggressions. Not everyone knows or understands how microaggressions can seep into everyday life. Just because they’re unconscious or unintentional, that doesn’t mean they’re not harmful.

HR teams need to work to address them, and not just because it’s key to engaging Gen Z the workplace. Ultimately, it’s just the right thing to do.

Update your hiring process

A company’s commitment to DEI is important to 83% of Gen Z in the workplace. 68% would be more likely to apply for a job with recruiters and materials that reflect a more diverse workforce. 

So you want to show them that you really are committed to it.

You can do this by offering different types of hiring based on candidates’ preferences. For instance, you could provide information in both video and written format. Are there ways you could make your hiring process more attractive to jobseekers with disabilities?

Less than a quarter of disabled people were employed last year, despite many of us being perfectly capable of working. We simply need to know our employer can work with us and not against us.

Consider what accommodations you can make to your hiring process, as well as to your workplace more broadly. And speak about it early and often. People with disabilities are likely to think your organization is not for them unless you show/tell them how you’ll welcome them.

And even if a prospective candidate doesn’t have a disability, they’re more likely to warm to your business if they can see that you enable different ways of working.

Also consider how inclusive your hiring team is. Is everyone from the same age group? Are they all from the same ethnicity? How can you broaden their experiences and backgrounds to get a more balanced view? It’s important to empower everyone to thrive, including Gen Z in the workplace.

Grow your groups

Unfortunately, more than a fifth of Gen Z in the workplace says they have no friends at work. Whereas baby boomers are nearly twice as likely to make most of their friends at work. 

This is a huge generational difference. Businesses need to work to change this. Loneliness in any guise can come with significant short- and long-term health problems. 

You could start by growing (or, if you don’t have any already, creating), employee groups. These communities give employees somewhere to get to know new colleagues outside of their immediate teams. 

They can connect with people who have similar backgrounds or interests to them, helping expand their friend group and reducing the damaging impact of loneliness.

Offer career advancement opportunities

76% of Gen Z-ers feel that upskilling is key to their career advancement. And 67% want to work somewhere they can learn skills that will advance their careers. 

So, if you don’t offer them this, there’s a high chance you’ll lose the interest of the next generation.

Gen Z switches jobs at a rate that’s 134% higher than before the pandemic. Millennials switch jobs 24% more. For boomers, that number is just 4%.

So, the more you can do to engage Gen Z in the workplace now, the sooner your business can grow and modernize to stay ahead of your competition.

Provide in-person training

Only 14% of employees want online training. 63% prefer in-person training. I can see why. It can be challenging to focus on an all-day training exercise, especially if that training is done at home.

Many trainings are hard to pay attention to, let alone when you’re getting bombarded with email and Slack notifications. 

Offering training in person gives employees a chance to meet their colleagues and get away from the office. This can help with idea generation and clearing the cobwebs away, as my nan used to say.

If employees go to an external training session, it allows them to meet people from outside of the company but with similar goals or roles to them. 

As well as providing them with the chance to make friends, this can also allow them crucial networking opportunities that may advance their careers further down the line.

Conclusion

Gen Z is the future of the modern workforce. One day, they’ll be the decision makers. The sooner you make your business attractive to Gen Z in the workplace, the more likely they are to rave about your business online. This will then attract more candidates from this next generation and all the benefits that can bring.

Ready to make your employee experience more attractive to Gen Z in the workplace? Look no further than Workrowd. Our user-friendly platform gives Gen Z one-stop shopping for all your employee programs, groups, and events.

That way, they can tap into what’s important to them from day one and easily form close connections with colleagues. Plus, real-time analytics let you know exactly what’s contributing to a positive experience for Gen Z in the workplace.

Ready to learn more? Visit us online, or just send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

4 ways to leverage personalization for more engaged employees

How to increase employee retention on a budget in 2024

Why cultural competence is essential for today’s global workforce