How do you run one-on-one meetings with employees?

What a one-on-one is

A one-on-one, or 1:1, is a regular conversation between a manager and an employee. Task status isn't on the agenda. That's what the team chat and standups are for. At the meeting, you talk about things nobody would raise in front of the whole team: what gets in the way, where the employee wants to grow and what they need from you as their manager.

Why it matters

• You hear about problems earlier. Nobody posts about burnout or thinking of leaving in the team chat, but it's much easier to say one-on-one.
• Feedback doesn't pile up. You say what worked and what didn't while it's still fresh, without waiting for the six-month review.
• Growth doesn't get pushed back. You talk about courses, new projects and promotions early, long before the employee starts looking for a new job.
• New hires ramp up faster. Questions that feel awkward to ask in the team chat get asked at the meeting.

How often to meet

For most people, 30 to 40 minutes every two weeks is enough. Meet weekly with a new hire, someone who just moved into a new role or anyone on a tough project, and don't go less than once a month. If the time doesn't work, move the meeting to one of the next few days instead of canceling it: when one-on-ones keep getting canceled, the employee hears "I don't have time for you right now."

What to talk about

The employee brings the topics, and you add yours. If there's nothing to discuss, a question or two will get things going:

• what was hardest over the past two weeks and what got in the way;
• what tools or access are missing;
• what kind of work they want next and what they'd like to learn in the next six months;
• where they need your help and what you should do differently as their manager.

What to avoid

• Talking about coworkers. If the employee complains about someone, steer the conversation to the work problem and how to fix it.
• Criticism without suggestions. Feedback with no idea of how to do better sounds like a verdict.
• Comparisons. Someone else's growth or salary isn't a topic for this meeting.
• Prying into personal life. The employee decides what to share, and whatever they say stays between the two of you.

How to run the meeting in Pachca

Taking notes gets in the way: while you write, you're looking at a notebook and not at the person. And without notes, two weeks later you and the employee remember the agreements differently. In Pachca, you don't need to write anything down. Call the employee from your direct message and turn on transcription:

1. Open the direct message with the employee and click the video camera icon in the header.
2. In the call, click "⋯" in the bottom bar and choose "Start transcription". In one-on-one calls, it doesn't turn on by itself.
3. Talk, then end the call.
4. Open the thread under the Video call bot's message: the AI summary and the transcript are there as two .md files.

Try it yourself: click "⋯", turn on transcription, end the call and then open the files in the thread.

What you get after the call

The summary covers what you talked about, what you decided and what tasks came up. The transcript has the whole conversation with names and timestamps. It's handy for checking dates and exact wording. Both files live in the direct message's thread, and only the two of you can see them.

Let the employee know the conversation is being transcribed. If you want to talk about something personal, stop transcription in the same "⋯" menu.

How to keep track of agreements

For each agreement with a due date, create a reminder: hover over the summary message, click the three dots and choose "Create reminder". Set an assignee and a due date, and they'll get a notification on the day. Reminders created from a direct message are visible only to their creator and assignees. The list opens with the purple checkbox icon in the chat header, and it's a good place to start the next meeting.

How to prepare for the meeting

Keep the agenda in the direct message's note, the green icon in the header. Write a template there, and the employee can add topics as they come up, since you can both see and edit the note. To keep them from forgetting, send "We're meeting tomorrow at 3 p.m., add your topics to the note" with "Schedule message": set it for the day before the meeting with a weekly repeat.

Daniel Reed

Online

Wednesday

Max Collins15:00

We're meeting tomorrow at 15:00. Add anything you want to discuss to the note

Daniel Reed18:21

Added two topics

👍1

To refresh your memory of what the employee has been up to lately, ask an AI agent, for example:

Find what Daniel Reed posted in the team's chats over the past two weeks. List his tasks and their status, where he asked for help and what we agreed on in our direct messages. Facts with links only.

How to connect the agent is covered in the use case "How can a manager use AI for reports and planning?".

Where to start

Try it at your next meeting with one employee: call them from your direct message and turn on transcription. After the call, set reminders from the summary, and start the next meeting with it. Once the format sticks, run one-on-ones this way with the whole team.