Goals and progress tracking
Teams use several metrics to understand employee performance and growth trajectories. OKR (Objectives and Key results), for example, is a widely used framework to help teams focus on top priorities and align the team’s results with the objectives of the company. One-on-ones can serve as a platform for managers and direct reports to discuss goals, growth, and performance.
- “Are there any blockers preventing progression in your current set of tasks?”
- “How is your progress towards your goals?”
- “Are you happy with your progress on your OKRs? If not, how can I help? ”
One-on-ones help mitigate the problem of work silos, where managers can get an understanding of whether enough idea exchange occurs amongst their team members so they can help nurture free-thinking, creativity, and ideation.
- “Are there enough non-task-specific discussions with the team to help you spur on ideas?”
- “What about our team/company do you want to learn more about?”
Give and get feedback
In remote settings, it can be challenging to get a pulse on employees’ experiences and emotions, hence one-on-ones become crucial to facilitate an honest 2-way exchange of feedback between the manager and the employee to aid building long-term cohesiveness. One-on-ones can also become the tool leaders use to understand whether the processes adopted to aid remote and asynchronous work are helpful, being used, and how they can be improved. In this regard, a manager should have the following questions in their toolbox:
- “What are your thoughts on the current process tracking and communications framework we have in place?”
- “What do you like and dislike about 1:1s?”
- “Are there any tools, processes, or tasks that are not working for you?”
- “If you can do one thing differently with regard to managing the team, tasks, or processes, what would it be?”
- “Is there anything I can do better to support you and your work?”
Digital tools are the foundation on which the company’s work, processes, and communications are built on. One-on-ones can be the perfect time for managers to understand the tools and infrastructure that is available to employees and find ways of helping their team members thrive in a remote setting.Â
- “Are you digitally well-equipped to successfully complete your work? Are there any tools, or IT infrastructure that can be adopted to help you work better?”
- “How can I or the company improve IT or digital support effectively?”
Conclusion
Asking the right questions opens the door to meaningful dialogue and it requires the manager’s active involvement to make the one-on-one effective by way of listening with empathy and following up with the necessary questions and actions when appropriate.
Being armed with the right set of questions to ask in a remote one-on-one is one part of managing a remote team. The other part is relying on a data-driven understanding of a teams’ work activities, collaboration patterns, productivity signals, and burnout signals to structure productive and empathetic conversations that prompt action and lead to individuals thriving in a team.Â
đź’ˇ Engineering managers use Hatica to track these metrics alongside personal and team goals to drive effective 1:1s that build performant engineering teams. Interested in building a data-driven meeting culture for your organization? Learn how Hatica can help.Â