Author: Sachidanand Kulkarni
“People are Key to success”
... everyone says this and to some extent do follows the required paradigms to ensure people are motivated and their interests are taken care. However I feel there has to be a program in place to execute initiatives such as Talent engagement and development of people.
One of the best ways to understand people and their aspirations is to meet them in person and conduct 1-on-1 meetings. The traditional approach of conducting Annual Appraisals and limiting it to only monitory corrections doest really help anymore. People are keen to know where the organization is heading? What is the management plan for next 3 years? What is the career plan for each individual and how their growth is aligned in organization? There are thousands of such questions every ambitious employees has. The need today is to create a forum for such employees to come together and raise this. Finally it’s question of theirs & organizations ‘Survival-Growth-Success-Significance’.
I think ‘1-on-1 meeting’ is very essential tool and first step towards knowing your people. It is an attempt to create opportunity for one to come up with new ideas and contribute to the final goal. Following 1-on-1 route, you boost confidence in people. They open up and give honest feedback on what is right and what is wrong. This shouldn’t be limited to one sided approach, it is to be aimed to collect feedback from individuals, and also communicate and clarify organizational goal.
1-on-1 can be also conducted as ground for ‘Performance Review’ and then focus on certain key areas like:
1. Role and Responsibilities
- Communicate role and responsibilities of individual aligned to Management Objectives
- Provide clear direction and quarterly objectives with measures
- Conduct 1-on-1 at the end of every quarter to carry out performance review and revisit next quarter plan
- This has to be mutually agreed and accepted plan
2. Road ahead
- Show clear picture and organizations vision for next 3 years
- Individuals to commit for the contribution and continuity
- Design your ‘Road Map’ and paint your milestones
3. Environment and initiatives
- Create and live in healthy environment, make others smiling with your presence of persona
- Take initiative; be proactive to be part of the game than criticizing behind the board.
- Create forums for people to come together and share experiences, help others when are stuck
4. Performance feedback and Expectations
- Communicate performance feedback as is, and make people understand the gap.
- Give opportunity to review and revert with feedback
- Clarify expectations and align future objectives
5. Corrective measures
- Suggest corrective actions and plan for grooming
- Revisit grooming plan, have assessments in place and review mechanism
- Track progress and communicate
‘1-on-1’ gives opportunity to establish due dates, timelines and significant events to determine ‘go’ and ‘no go’ decisions. These conversations go a long way in helping us to learn about each other. They are essential to team-building and creating meaningful long-term business as well as personal relationships. Every single manager must follow this at team level and there by at organizational level to make people happy, to take organization towards healthy growth.
This is the heart and soul of development towards a larger goal. If you don’t have 1-on-1’s with your people, you are missing the primary tool for moving your people from good to great.
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Sachidanand, I agree with your views on 1-on-1 meetings. Everyone wants to be recognized and to be heard. Such meetings provide the employees that platform. They get the feeling that they are being cared for and thus helps raise their motivation and commitment levels: direct impact on business!
ReplyDeletePractical implementation of such meetings in a large organization though could be a challenge.
1. Most of the meetings generally tend to get formal. Educating the managers would be important to ensure informal atmosphere so that employees can speak their mind.
2. The objective of the meeting is to make people open up, Nevertheless, those who are not in a very good association with their current supervisors may not open up in such forums. Hence, the exercise can be either done by Director HR/ HR Head or may be reporting manager’s manager.
3. Admittedly It can be a very effective program however, would also be a very time consuming project. Hence complete planning on how the meetings are to be conducted, what points are to be discussed and covered, company roadmap/plans to be shared, phases in which the exercise would be completed would be required
Rashmi Singh
Sachidanand, While we have always heard the term "1 on 1" fairly often, i wanted ro clarify my understanding of this term:-
ReplyDelete1. does a 1 on 1 always mean a "physical" face to face meeting?
2. Or does this mean getting 1 on 1 time with some one, irrespective of the way this is conducted (e.g. phone, video conference)?
The reason I ask these questions is that today the number of reportees/peers/bosses in distant/remote/onsite locations is increasing.
We do all know that a face to face/physical medium is the best way to interact, however, on account of increased geographies being added to businesses, do you have any tips for meetings conducted via electronis media or such alternatives?
Most people want face to face time with employees but in the interest of time, travel expense,etc this may not always be an available option even for things as critical as appraisals.
look forward to your suggestions
Meenu Singh
Hi Rashmi;
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback. I agree that unless the agenda and scope of 1-on-1 meeting is clear it is difficult to achieve desired out put. I will work on this and suggest the structure for 1-on-1 meeting and how to conduct it successfuly.
Dear Minoo;
Thanks for your feedback. your questions are very valid and let me try to attempt these:
1. does a 1 on 1 always mean a "physical" face to face meeting? - It is preferred to have 1-on-1 meeting face to face as its impact is high in that case.
2. Or does this mean getting 1 on 1 time with some one, irrespective of the way this is conducted (e.g. phone, video conference)? -
Its is acceptable for 1-on-1 telephonic calls or video conferance meeting in case the physical face to face meeting is not possible.
For larger group of employees it is not possible to conduct 1-on-1 meeting but if each managers plans for this initiative span across a week or two it is quite possible to cover considerable people to get chance. One of the tips can be, prepare meeting agenda, points to be covered by Managers and employee, make it more focused and communicate the template of questionairs to employees for his action. Let employee complete it and send it to Manager, and then manager can organize for call or video conferance for clossure.
Thanks
Sachidanand