ManagerCheckIns template
A 1:1 meeting template you can use this week
A good 1:1 is a standing half hour that mostly belongs to the report. This template gives you a shape for it, a set of questions to pull from, and a few habits that keep the meeting from turning into a status update.
The shape of the meeting
Thirty minutes is enough for most pairs. If you meet every week, twenty can work. Here is a split that holds up across roles.
- Check in (3 minutes). Ask how they are, and let the answer be longer than "fine" if it needs to be.
- Their topics (10 minutes). Whatever they put on the agenda comes first. If they put nothing, ask what has been taking their attention.
- Your topics (7 minutes). Feedback, context they might not have, questions you need answered.
- Follow-ups (5 minutes). Go through what was promised last time, by either of you. Tick off what is done and say out loud what is not.
- Close (2 minutes). Agree on the follow-ups that come out of today, with an owner on each one.
The agenda to copy
Shared agenda
- Their talking points (they add these before the meeting)
- My talking points
- Open follow-ups from last time
- Anything blocking you this week
- New follow-ups, each with an owner
Both people add to the same list in the days before the meeting. That alone changes the dynamic. The report is arriving with topics, and the manager is not improvising.
Questions to pull from
You will not use all of these. Pick one or two a meeting.
Work and priorities
- What is the most important thing you are working on right now, and what does done look like?
- Where are you stuck, and who or what would unstick you?
- Is there anything on your plate you think we should stop doing?
- What decision are you waiting on from me or someone else?
How it is going
- How is your workload compared with a month ago?
- What part of this week gave you energy? What drained you?
- Is there something happening on the team that I should know about?
Feedback, both directions
- What is one thing I could do differently that would make your work easier?
- Is there feedback you have been holding back?
- Here is something I noticed that went well. Here is something I would change next time.
Growth, once a month
- What do you want to be better at in six months?
- Which part of your job would you like more of? Less of?
- Is there a project, person or skill you would like to learn from?
Rules that make the template work
Keep the meeting even when there is nothing urgent. The 1:1 you hold on a quiet week is the one where someone mentions the thing that was bothering them. Move it if you must, but move it to another day, not to "sometime".
Write follow-ups down with an owner. "We should look into that" is not a follow-up. "Dana sends the vendor quote by Friday" is. Follow-ups should stay open across meetings until someone ticks them off, so nothing disappears when a topic gets bumped.
Take shared notes, and keep a private page for yourself. Shared notes record decisions and agreements, and both people can read them. Your private note is for impressions and half-formed concerns that you are not ready to say out loud. Neither person should be able to read the other's private notes, and nobody above you should be able to either. If your tool lets an admin browse private notes, people will write less in them, and the meeting gets worse.
Do not use the 1:1 for status. If you are asking "where is the report?" every week, put that in a shared doc or a short written update. Use the meeting for the things only a conversation does well.
If the report does not bring topics
Give it a few meetings. Some people have never been asked to set the agenda. Seed the list yourself with one open question, such as "What would make next week easier?", and stay quiet for longer than feels comfortable after you ask it. If they still bring nothing after a month, ask them directly what would make the meeting more useful to them.
How often
Every two weeks is a sensible default for an established report. Weekly suits a new hire in their first few months. Monthly is the slowest cadence that still works, and it needs a longer meeting. We wrote a separate guide on how often managers should hold 1:1s.