7 hacks for productive meetings with your employee – Adrem

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If you do not know how to lead a simple and easy meeting  or you have not had a satisfaing result at the end of the meetings with your employees, things can change even now, with a little effort.

The individual meeting (points individuels) allows you to get direct feedback from your employees and take the necessary measures to improve the quality of life at work.

As a manager it is necessary to organize these meetings with each of your employees.

It is an incomparable moment of exchange that should help you strengthen your relationship and for your employees to move forward and develop.

Of course, there are several forms of it:

– framing / integration

– disciplinary

– evaluation

– professional development, etc.

Organizing a meeting with your employee requires some time and a minimum of preparation. Especially since most are somewhat afraid of this face-to-face meeting.

Here are just 7 tips that can simplify these individual sessions so that you can build trust and encourage dialogue.

1. Schedule regular meetings

The first thing to do is to schedule these meetings regularly, ideally once a week or every two weeks. Reserve an hour in the agenda, an hour so that you are not disturbed by other events. Personally, my planning is once a month with the team and every Monday at noon with the Management.

Make sure you spend enough time between 30 minutes and an hour.

2. Follow the schedule

This is one of the most common pitfalls: not following a single planned meeting.

In addition to preventing an exchange that could have been fruitful, you send an extremely negative message to your employees if you are canceling meetings on the last minute (“my manager is not interested in me”).

If you have an impediment, always try to reschedule in the next few days.

3. Have a common agenda

It is important to have a list of topics to discuss.

This agenda must be built by both the manager and the employee. It is important to indicate to the employee that he has control over the subjects and that he must feel free to discuss all of them (his daily work, problems, professional development, administration, etc.) including the delicate ones (team conflicts, personal problems …).

If your collaborator mentions a few topics, you can simply start the exchange with a simple question like, “What do you want to talk about? or “What are you thinking about now?” Do not hesitate to continue with a simple and effective question “Are you thinking of something else?”.

I advise you to use “Trello” to set and follow the agenda. Set up three columns (“Scheduled”, “In progress”, “Finished”). Everyone – employee and manager – can thus put a topic on the agenda by adding a card in the software. This way everyone can add cards during the week without waiting for D-Day.

Some topics are also addressed directly in the application, without beeing addressed during the meeting. The “Ongoing” column is important for follow-up of topics (see tip # 7) and for indicating deadlines.

4. Make yourself available

On the day of the appointment, make yourself available as much as possible. This means: turning off the phone, not opening the received e-mails, etc.

You need to be 100% focused on the exchange you have with your collaborator.

And, as always, be punctual. And if your agenda ever shifts, let your coworker know.

5. Listen actively

As the topics covered can be very varied (see tip 3), you need to actively listen to your collaborator / employee.

If you are unfamiliar with the “active listening” method, here are some helpful principles:

– Let your collaborator express himself without interrupting him,
– Ask questions to encourage him to clarify his thoughts (“you only mean XXX?”, “What would you like is that XXX, right?”…),
– Give visual or verbal signs of interest (for example, nods) and pauses to allow the collaborator to continue his idea,
– Adopt an attitude of active listening .

6. Ask questions

A good question is a powerful weapon.

As a manager, you are not a mentalist who reads the minds of your employees; but even the best managers may have trouble knowing what their employees think or need. The best way to solve the problem is to ask questions!

Therefore, it is good to have a series of questions to ask during the individual sessions. Here are some that you can address to your collaborator:

– How do you get along with the rest of the team?
– What else would you like us to discuss?
– What do you think about project X at the moment?
– What can I do to help you?
– I noticed you were a little more XXX than usual. Do you want to discuss a specific topic?

Personally, I really like the question: “What else do you want to discuss?” It is not uncommon for this question to allow a collaborator to bring up a somewhat “buried” topic.

7. Keep a written track of what has been said

There is nothing worse than not remembering what was said during a previous talk and, in particular, not checking in time the tasks that were previously set.

Therefore, it is a good practice to take notes during your meeting.

Everyone can have their own technique in this regard:

– take notes during the session on a computer or on a phone (don’t forget that this can disrupt the talk).
– take notes on a notebook (very useful if you take a showdown in a more informal place or during lunch).
– take notes at the end of the exchange (a good way to summarize what has been said and check with your collaborator that you have not forgotten anything important).
– take notes immediately after each point brought up.

Personally, I prefer to take notes as the meeting progresses so as not to lose anything. If you use Trello (see tip 3), write the ideas directly in the comments of the cards, which allows you to have the notes shared with your collaborators. They can do the same.

Here are the 7 tips to optimize meetings with your employee.

I look forward to your comments and ideas that you want to share with us.