I've got a pretty specific set of things I cover at the start and at the end of the process, but as you'll see the rest of the type (typically 30m, weekly) is devoted to whatever they want to talk about. And if that is nothing, we adjourn.
The steps:
0. 5m of catch up, ask about any ongoing personal stuff, talk about hobbies, whatever. Be a human for the start of it. I cannot overstress how important this is. Talks like this are your window into your team-mates personality and what kind of incentives they respond to. Similarly, you have to expose your opinions and motivations to your teammates here so they understand how to respond. Managers absolutely need to lead the way and be more transparent here. I usually offer one of my many cute stories about my 4 year old daughter and her ongoing absurd antics, or talk about upcoming pet rescue work, or ongoing tech projects I take on the side. I listen more than I talk, when I can.
1. If there are HR concerns raised or to be raised, I start with those. These include things like inter-personal interactions, performance, etc. I'm blessed with teams that seldom have these issues, but when new team members join you can use this time to help establish team norms.
2. I make sure to answer any HR or complaint questions they have. This is also where I ask about career advancement goals and how they feel about progress. This may take the full amount of time.
3. I try to summarize how their progress so far is matching the career goals we set at the start of the evaluation period, and make suggestions if I have any.
4. We then carry over to the remaining time discussing any sort of directly work-related things if they want help or advice with that.
5. If the employee wants to talk about work, we can fill the remainder of the time talking about personal things. For example, the other day a friend of mine offered to look at a magic deck I put together as I got back into the hobby.
6. I always end it with a phrase pretty much verbatim, "As always, if you come up with other questions you need answered or if there's anything you feel uncomfortable talking out loud about, please email or slack me. You can also email or slack my manager, their email is blah@blah.com."
The steps:
0. 5m of catch up, ask about any ongoing personal stuff, talk about hobbies, whatever. Be a human for the start of it. I cannot overstress how important this is. Talks like this are your window into your team-mates personality and what kind of incentives they respond to. Similarly, you have to expose your opinions and motivations to your teammates here so they understand how to respond. Managers absolutely need to lead the way and be more transparent here. I usually offer one of my many cute stories about my 4 year old daughter and her ongoing absurd antics, or talk about upcoming pet rescue work, or ongoing tech projects I take on the side. I listen more than I talk, when I can.
1. If there are HR concerns raised or to be raised, I start with those. These include things like inter-personal interactions, performance, etc. I'm blessed with teams that seldom have these issues, but when new team members join you can use this time to help establish team norms.
2. I make sure to answer any HR or complaint questions they have. This is also where I ask about career advancement goals and how they feel about progress. This may take the full amount of time.
3. I try to summarize how their progress so far is matching the career goals we set at the start of the evaluation period, and make suggestions if I have any.
4. We then carry over to the remaining time discussing any sort of directly work-related things if they want help or advice with that.
5. If the employee wants to talk about work, we can fill the remainder of the time talking about personal things. For example, the other day a friend of mine offered to look at a magic deck I put together as I got back into the hobby.
6. I always end it with a phrase pretty much verbatim, "As always, if you come up with other questions you need answered or if there's anything you feel uncomfortable talking out loud about, please email or slack me. You can also email or slack my manager, their email is blah@blah.com."