Have an Effective One-on-One

Part of being a good supervisor is being able to communicate your agency’s mission and goals effectively and hold your team accountable to those goals. One very powerful way to make sure your employees stay on track is to hold weekly one-on-one meetings with each of your direct reports.

Kai Fawn Miller, the Chief Experience Officer at Emerald One, LLC, joined GovLoop in a recent New Supervisors in Gov Community of Practice session to offer her advice on making one-on-one meetings productive while also building with your direct reports. Here are a few takeaways from that discussion:

Prepare Ahead of Time

As a rule of practice, Miller begins prepping for her one-on-one meetings 48 hours ahead of time to ensure every minute of the meeting is spent wisely. Starting 48 hours beforehand, she looks back at any notes made at the previous meeting to check that both her commitments and those assigned to her employee have been completed. The next day, she sets the agenda for the one-on-one, letting her employee know if there’s anything special or specific that needs to be discussed.

Make the Most of Your 30 Minutes

Miller provided a template that she applies to her one-one sessions, carving out the half-hour time period into four chunks. The first five minutes is spent on a personal check-in, which allows you to get to know your employees on a more personal level and build trust. The next 10 minutes can cover ongoing projects, including any questions, obstacles, or opportunities that need to be addressed. Following that is another 10-minute block to go over upcoming goals, and lastly, she recommends closing out the last five minutes by leaving room for any miscellaneous things that need to be talked about before parting ways.

Don’t Let the Meeting Be One-Sided

A good one-on-one session embraces coaching versus taking a “command and control” stance. Miller recommends practicing active listening and giving your employee your full attention by silencing any electronics, as “they will notice your full engagement.” She also advised against using one-way communication, such as presentations, in favor of mural boards or collaborative note-taking.

You can watch the entire Community of Practice session here, and don’t forget to sign up for the next CoP virtual networking event on Dec. 18 at 4 p.m. ET, How to Hold Your Team Accountable.