Going Live with 1:1 Conversations

Below shows what the 1:1 Conversations interface looks like. Accessible from the Homepage, you'll be able to set up and schedule with conversations with people you directly work with (your manager and if you have them, direct reports), as well as anyone else in the company that you may be working cross-functionally with.

Manager and employees know that the best practice is to meet regularly, in a 1:1 manner. However, numerous managers and employees do not prepare for these conversations or feel confident that they are following up on the most important actions.

Feel free to use any of these points when marketing/communicating/rolling 1:1 Conversations out to your employees.

There are four stages to regularly occurring conversations that 1:1 Conversations solves for:

• Schedule: There are few guidelines, enforcement or structure for many ad-hoc 1:1 meetings.  Even harder is the task of standardizing this across an entire organization. If meetings get off track, it's easy for them to continue to slip. Scheduling meetings and having it in the Reflektive system helps maintain visibility and accountability around them, giving them a significantly better chance of it happening and that habit sticking.
  
  
• Preparation: This is the piece of the conversation that can really provide value to the employee. The majority of managers and employees do not prepare for 1:1s, but acknowledged preparation aids in better conversations. There is also evidence that more employees prepare than managers, so it's important that they have a centralized place where they can set their agenda, or use one of pre-set conversation starter topics to ensure that conversations go over what needs to be covered and stay on track. You can consolidate all those emails, pings, calendar invites, and more with the 1:1 Conversations tool. 
  
  
• During: There is an issue with consistency here as well. Some employees take notes during their 1:1s while others do not. With Reflektive, it is encouraged to keep a record of conversation points so that nothing gets lost or forgotten over time. These notes can be referenced in the future to hold both employees and managers accountable.
  
  
• After: Great conversations should result in some type of follow-up or action. We want to allow users to create action items to follow up on and view historical topics discussed, potentially creating a powerful and effective loop.

The biggest issue with this and any tool is raising awareness of it, getting solid adoption, and instilling good habits right from the get-go so people can start giving and receiving valuable feedback right away. Below are some of the best ways to begin going about this:

• Executive Sponsorship: Like most company initiatives, change should start at the top in order for its impact to trickle down.  Set up a promotional period led by your leadership team to increase awareness and to bring it up in their respective meetings.  
  
  
• Leading by Example: Set goals for department heads and managers that will set an example for the rest of the company. Encourage the leaders within your company to all initially set up weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings within the 1:1 Conversations tool. Or, if such a format already exists outside of the tool, have leaders port existing content within the tool to avoid disturbances with existing meetings. Also, if meetings outside direct reporting lines happen, encourage people to track those as well, especially if there is cross-department synergy at play.
  
  
• Comprehensive Communication Planning: Communication is key when announcing the 'why' behind any organizational change.  As such, try employing a variety of communication channels to introduce 1:1 Conversations leading up to the launch, such as emails, company newsletters, and announcements at all-hands meetings. Maintain your launch momentum with reminders on posters and TV monitors around the office.
  
  
• Internal Education Resources: If having an ongoing 1:1 Conversation is an unfamiliar practice to your managers and employees, make sure they feel supported as they learn this new skill set. Leverage your company intranet, an employee resource Wiki, or other learning repositories to house educational materials on providing effective feedback to others.
  
  
• Meet Employees Where They Are: While Reflektive's web application offers the most robust performance management experience, we also offer a variety of integrations with other solutions that your employees might already be leveraging in their day to day work. Consider learning more about our integrations with Gmail and Outlook, in addition to Slack and Microsoft Teams.