Remote work is here to stay, and so are its challenges. Remote employees can easily feel disconnected and disengaged due to feelings of isolation and a lack of informal social contact with the rest of their teams. Without clear, structured communication, they also miss out on important context, making them less effective in their role.
That’s what makes 1-on-1 meetings uniquely important for remote employees. It keeps them aligned with their managers, prioritizes their growth, and reinforces the bond that keeps everyone driving towards broader organizational goals.
Tools like 15Five’s 1-on-1 feature help streamline and systematize your 1-on-1s, making them more consistently effective.
Here’s your full guide to remote 1-on-1s.
Key takeaways:
If you think remote employees don’t need 1-on-1 meetings as much as the people you see in the office every day, you’d be wrong.
Keeping remote employees engaged comes with unique challenges that would be simpler to address if your workforce was in the office full-time. Some of these challenges include:
Regular 1-on-1 meetings can help managers tackle all these challenges. They give remote employees much-needed social contact. They give managers a better sense of what their direct reports are working on and where they need help. They centralize communication, shoring up the weaknesses of other communication channels and giving the whole team a foundation to build on. Finally, they can help combat proximity bias by giving managers more time with remote employees.
Additionally, 1-on-1 meetings are key to building trust, connection, and accountability. Because trust is so crucial for successful remote work, regular 1-on-1s are essential.
Employee engagement software can help you identify engagement problems and use 1-on-1s to fix them. See how 15Five makes that possible.
A successful 1-on-1 requires an investment and commitment from both managers and direct reports. It’s not as simple as showing up in a virtual meeting room and chatting for half an hour. You need to show up with a plan, that plan needs to be connected to broader objectives, and both parties need to practice their active listening skills.
Here are essential elements for making every 1-on-1 more productive.
1-on-1 meetings are the perfect vehicle for both setting goals and checking in on progress. These goals should be one of the core things you cover in every 1-on-1. That way, any conversations happening in these meetings can be had in the context of an employee’s overall objectives—instead of a vacuum.
The more your 1-on-1 meeting feels like you’re going through a checklist, the less effective it will be. A manager needs to listen attentively to what an employee has to say during a 1-on-1, even if it doesn’t fit neatly within their agenda. Regularly ask questions and check in to make sure you understand what’s being said.
1-on-1 meetings aren’t a manager’s opportunity to criticize everything their direct report is doing wrong or dispatch tasks. A better approach? Taking in what their direct report is saying and focusing on ways they can guide that person towards a path that leads them towards their goals.
Progress on goals and important projects isn’t the only thing that should be discussed in a 1-on-1. Managers should show empathy and check in on a direct report’s personal life, usually at the beginning of the call.
Go into every 1-on-1 meeting with a plan. Better yet, make sure every 1-on-1 is consistent with a templated agenda or checklist. That way, direct reports know what to expect going into every meeting, and managers can trust they they’re giving everyone on their team a similar 1-on-1 experience.
1-on-1 meetings come with important challenges, though some are unique to remote meetings. Here are some of the challenges you’re likely to run into when running 1-on-1s with remote employees.
Remote work gives you access to a massive, worldwide talent pool. But it also makes coordinating work—and 1-on-1 meetings—more of a challenge. When managers on the East Coast of the United States have to meet with direct reports working from Thailand, 1-on-1 meetings start to become less and less common.
In many situations, this can be resolved by adopting standardized hours for which people need to be available for meetings. This might stretch work days for some, but if 1-on-1s are important for you, this is a cost you’ll have to pay.
Alternatively, you can use asynchronous messaging or performance management tools to handle your 1-on-1s. That way, all the information everyone needs is kept in one place without anyone needing to stay after their regular workday.
In-office teams have multiple opportunities to meet, collaborate, and communicate informally. Remote workers don’t have access to any of these. That means they miss out on any important context shared around the water cooler or impromptu announcements from the CEO. Likewise, a manager might be missing some significant context on a direct report’s work when they’re remote.
The best way to resolve this is to prioritize asynchronous communication when your team has a significant number of remote workers. This means these employees can check in on important context through a chat app or email, making them better prepared for their 1-on-1.
An important portion of communication is non-verbal. 1-on-1 meetings held in person allow managers and their direct reports to meet up in the same room and pick up on all non-verbal cues. This helps avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication. Remote 1-on-1s don’t have that luxury, even when they’re held through video conferencing.
You can mitigate this problem by being more intentional about your verbal communication. Be abundantly clear in everything you say, mind every word, and pay extra attention to what the other party has to say. Even if you can catch some non-verbal cues on a video call, you’re likely to miss some important ones.
Remote work comes with a share of distractions, from packages being delivered to children crying in the background. At best, these distractions can make 1-on-1 meetings a bit more difficult. At worst, they can completely derail important conversations.
It’s impossible to avoid all distractions. Both managers and direct reports need to show some understanding and compassion if a distraction temporarily interrupts their 1-on-1. Similarly, both should also take precautions to avoid these distractions, like having meetings in a room with a closed door.
Remote 1-on-1s rely on technology in a way that in-person 1-on-1s don’t need to. That means anything from a Bluetooth headset failing to connect to an important tool being completely down can derail 1-on-1s for remote employees.
Not all technological issues can be avoided, but many can be mitigated by testing tools and equipment before a 1-on-1 meeting.
A 1-on-1 meeting can be as simple as sitting in a meeting room with a printout of a template. But not only can this minimalistic approach be artificially limiting, but it’s also completely incompatible with remote work. That’s why managers need a dedicated platform for 1-on-1 meetings.
15Five is a performance management platform that streamlines, optimizes, and automates just about every aspect of driving employee engagement, tracking performance, and upskilling your workforce. It’s also an essential tool for structuring your remote 1-on-1s. 15Five can make your 1-on-1s stronger with:
Combined, these features give managers all the context they need for every 1-on-1 meeting. They give you a plan you can standardize across meetings, and they turn your 1-on-1s into data that the organization as a whole can use to improve.
Want to see how this can impact your teams? See a demo here.
Communication is key to the relationship between managers and their direct reports. But that communication is more challenging with remote workers. That’s why both these workers and managers have to be intentional about improving the way they communicate.
That starts with psychological safety. In a team where psychological safety is a priority, everyone feels comfortable enough to bring their full, true self to work. This leads to more open, honest conversations, in which managers and their team can really solve important problems.
As part of this, organizations need to implement feedback loops, which habituate teams in surfacing important feedback, whether it’s about other team members, their managers, or leadership. With a culture of continuous feedback at every level, you’ll foster communication throughout the team and allow remote workers to help surface and address issues as they come up.
These broader cultural elements can help improve your 1-on-1s, but the following elements are essential to the 1-on-1 meetings themselves:
Regular 1-on-1 meetings are essential for everyone, but they’re especially important for remote workers, who can easily feel disconnected and isolated from the rest of their team. These meetings can help improve employee engagement and build clear paths for their development. When managers use the right tools and proven strategies, they can make each 1-on-1 even more effective, and that effectiveness has a lasting impact on their team.
Want to see how the right tool can completely transform your 1-on-1s? Get a demo of 15Five here.