How to set up a better one to one process for your managers

To set up a better one to one process, agree what a one to one is for, give managers a simple structure they can reuse with everyone, and decide how often to hold them. The conversation belongs to the person being managed, so it should cover progress, blockers, growth and how the person is working, rather than acting as a status update for the manager.

This guide covers what a good one to one process looks like, how to agree its purpose, a repeatable structure managers can lean on, how often to meet, and how to keep the conversation about more than task updates. It is written for owners and managers of small or growing teams who want their one to ones to be useful and consistent, without turning into another reporting chore.

A good one to one process is simple, repeatable and owned by the person

A one to one process is the shared agreement about why these conversations happen, who runs them, how often, and roughly what they cover. When that agreement is clear, every manager runs one to ones the same broad way, and every person knows what to expect when they sit down.

The strongest sign of a good process is that the person being managed feels the time is theirs. They bring what is on their mind, they leave with something useful, and the manager spends more time listening than reporting. A process that only serves the manager turns into a check that work is getting done, which the manager could often see elsewhere.

Agreeing the purpose comes before agreeing the format

Before you set a structure, agree what a one to one is for in your team. The most useful framing is that the meeting is the person's space to think out loud, raise blockers, and talk about how the work and their growth are going. It is not the manager's slot to collect updates, because updates can live in a shared board or a weekly check-in.

Write this purpose down in one or two plain sentences and share it with managers and their teams. When people know the meeting belongs to them, they prepare differently and arrive with more than a list of completed tasks. The manager's job becomes asking good questions and removing obstacles, which is a calmer and more valuable use of the time.

A simple repeatable structure managers can reuse

Managers run better one to ones when they have a light structure to fall back on. The point of a structure is consistency rather than a script, so it should be loose enough to follow the person's priorities on the day while making sure nothing important is skipped over weeks.

• Open with how the person is doing, in work and in general, before any task talk.
• Review progress on their current priorities and what has moved since last time.
• Surface blockers and decide who removes each one.
• Talk about growth, learning, or a longer goal, even briefly.
• Agree clear next steps and note anything to carry into the next conversation.

Five short prompts are enough. A new or busy manager can hold a steady one to one using them, and an experienced one can move through them quickly and spend the rest of the time where it matters most for that person.

How often to hold one to ones depends on the person and the work

For most teams a weekly or fortnightly one to one works well. Weekly suits newer team members, fast-moving work, or anyone going through a change. Fortnightly suits experienced people in steady roles who do not need the more frequent contact.

Whatever cadence you choose, protect it. A one to one that is moved or dropped whenever things get busy quietly tells people the time is not really theirs. If you find yourself cancelling them often, the problem may be meeting load rather than the one to one itself, which is worth looking at separately.

Good one to ones cover more than task updates

If a one to one only covers what got done, it competes with every board, report and message thread you already have. The conversations that earn their place go wider, into how the person is working, where they are stuck, what they are learning, and what they want next. Those are the things a manager cannot read off a screen.

A practical way in is to ask about working preferences out loud. When a manager knows how someone likes to receive feedback, when they do their best thinking, and what drains them, the one to one can adjust to fit. That is where each person's working manual helps, because it puts those preferences in front of the manager instead of leaving them to guess.

Helping managers run them consistently across the team

Consistency comes from two things being visible to every manager: how each person works, and what the team is working towards. With both in view, a manager can run a one to one that connects the person's progress to the priorities that actually matter this quarter, rather than a general catch-up.

Set managers up with each person's working manual and the team's visible priorities before the first round of one to ones. Then the same light structure produces useful conversations in every part of the team, and people get a recognisably similar experience whoever they report to. That is what turns a set of individual habits into a process you can rely on.

It helps to read these alongside our guides on making team priorities visible, what goes into a working manual, and what to do when you have too many one to one meetings. If you would rather set this up in one go, the Working With Me workshop builds your team's working manuals, priorities and rhythm in a day, with a four-week platform trial so the process keeps running afterwards.

Common questions