Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by andrewingram 1722 days ago
An hour seems like too much, but scheduling 30 mins, and leaving the subsequent 30 mins free in case something significant comes up during it, feels right.

Trust erodes surprisingly fast, so even if there’s not a whole lot of substance to discuss, a consistent time to shoot the shit or whatever, is worth the time out of your week. I’d be very worried if I joined a place and there weren’t weekly 1-1s with my manager.

It does depend on company stage though, if it’s very early and the team is small enough to not need these supporting tools, you can probably get away with less frequent 1-1s.

2 comments

>> but scheduling 30 mins, and leaving the subsequent 30 mins free in case something significant comes up during it, feels right.

Yes! this is an obvious (in hindsight) but pro move. You never want to cut off a direct report in the middle of an important, emotional discussion because "Hey, sorry got another meeting, peace out!"

To the GP: 2 months is too long between real 1:1s, this sounds like more of a career direction discussion or a skip-level with your boss's boss. Or if you're in a really small team/org you might be discussing 1:1 material far more frequently/casually without realizing it. I STILL like explicit, strict 1:1 schedules though because it's time owned by the IC who guides the conversation while the manager listens and figures out how they are going to solve the questions presented. I do very green juniors, people on performance improvement plans and those I'm mentoring for leadership positions every week; everyone else on 2-week schedules. Longer than that makes me nervous, out-of-touch and it's really hard to build personal relationships.

I agree. I had a manager who was really hard to pin down for one on ones. Whenever I asked for performance feedback he said I was fine but surprised me with a poor performance score at the end of the quarter and a bunch of improvement points. This is a great way to demotivate an employee, especially when performance scores are tied to bonuses etc. One on ones are a GREAT time to let employees know if they slipped up or you noticed something they could do better in future.