2025 1 On 1 Meeting Template

Many managers view one-on-one meetings as a simple status update. This is a huge mistake. A great one-on-one meeting is a dedicated, protected time for coaching, support, and strategic alignment. It’s the primary channel for building rapport and understanding what truly motivates each of your team members at work. In a fast-paced business, this dedicated time prevents small issues from escalating, and ensures your employees feel heard, valued, and supported.

 

The key goals of a one-on-one meeting go far beyond a simple work review. They are designed to:

 

1. Provide and receive feedback: This is a safe, regular space for two-way, direct feedback. It’s not about waiting for the annual performance review. It’s for offering timely, constructive guidance, and, crucially, asking for feedback on your own management and the support you provide.

2. Support employee development: This is the perfect forum to discuss career aspirations, identify skill gaps, and map out development goals. A manager’s key role is to help their employees grow, and this meeting is where that work happens.

3. Align on priorities and goals: Managers must ensure employees’ work is directly connected to team and company objectives. This helps employees connect their daily tasks to wider company goals. Here, you can review progress on key goals, remove any obstacles, and make sure everyone is pulling in the same direction.

4. Build trust and open communication:  This is dedicated time for direct report. As a manager, by listening actively and showing genuine interest, you build the psychological safety needed for all your employees to be open and honest about their challenges.

 

Using a structured 1 on 1 meeting template ensures you consistently hit these key goals. It acts as a prompt, reminding any manager to move beyond tactical updates and engage in the strategic conversations that foster growth and high performance.

There is no single “correct” way to run a one-on-one. The best format depends on your team, culture, and the individual employee. Some meetings are a tactical 30-minute check-in, others are a 60-minute deep dive into career development. The key is intentionality. While many generic templates exist, a great 1 to 1 meeting template provides a flexible framework you can easily adapt and use. Feel free to use our template to create other templates based on these principles and the specificities of your teams.How often should one-on-one meetings be held?

For most teams, a weekly or bi-weekly cadence is ideal. Weekly meetings are great for fast-moving projects, like a new product launch, or when onboarding new team members. Bi-weekly works well for more established roles. Monthly is often too infrequent, allowing issues to build up. However, consistency is more important than duration. A regular, focused 30-minute meeting is far more valuable than sporadic 90-minute meetings.

 

What should be included in a one-on-one meeting agenda?

The best practice is a collaborative agenda. Your 1-1 meeting template should have sections for both parties to add discussion points beforehand. This fosters ownership, and ensures the time is spent on what both parties think matters most. A great agenda will include topics like these:

 

• The Check-In: Start     with a     human note. Ask how the employee’s week is going personally and professionally, to build rapport.
• Their Topics: Let the employee lead. Ask them to share things like wins, challenges, and key discussion points first. This is empowering.
• Progress on Goals: Review progress against KPIs or OKRs. Discuss what’s going well and what support you need to provide.
• Your Topics: This is where you can provide feedback, share important updates, and align on upcoming priorities.
• Future Focus: Discuss career development and learning opportunities. This shows you’re invested in their future development.

Our printable 1 on 1 meeting template includes prompts for all these areas, making it easy to build a comprehensive and effective agenda every time.

 

A great template is only half the battle. The quality of the conversation itself is what truly drives results. As a manager, your role is to  facilitate an open, honest, and productive discussion. This means listening more than you talking. Your goal is to create an environment where your direct reports want to share their real challenges and ideas without fear of judgment.

So, how can you encourage open communication? It starts with your mindset. View the meeting as their time, not yours. Be curious and supportive. Ditch simple “yes/no” questions and embrace open-ended ones. Instead of “Is the project on track?”, try to ask “What progress have you made, and what roadblocks are you encountering?”.

Here are some tips to make your conversations even more powerful:

 

• Ask powerful, open-ended questions: Use questions that encourage reflection. Good examples include: “What’s on your mind this week?”, “What support do you want from me  right now?”, “If you could change one thing about how our team works, what would it be?”.
• Practice active listening: Don’t just wait for your turn to speak. Listen to understand, not just to reply. Summarise what you’ve heard to confirm your understanding (“So, what I’m hearing is...”). Give them your full attention during this conversation.
• Give balanced and specific feedback: Feedback should be a core part of every one-on-one. Use the “Situation-Behaviour-Impact” (SBI)     model to provide concrete, actionable feedback, both positive and constructive.
• Be a coach, not a problem-solver: When an employee brings you a challenge, resist the urge to immediately fix it. Instead, ask coaching questions like, “What have you already     tried?”. This will help build their problem-solving skills.
  
  

Using our free 1 on 1 meeting template helps structure this discussion, ensuring you have the prompts you need to ask the right questions and foster a truly open dialogue.

The conversation was great. You both leave the meeting feeling aligned. What happens next? This is where many one-on-one meetings fail. Without a clear system for follow-up and accountability, even the best discussions can amount to nothing. The meeting itself is just the beginning, the real work happens in the days and week that follow.

This is another area where a dedicated 1 to 1 meeting template is invaluable. It provides a written record of the discussion, and, most importantly, a clear list of actionable items. The final part of any effective one-on-one should be dedicated to summarising key takeaways, and agreeing on next steps. Who is doing what, and by when? Documenting these points is non-negotiable.

Here are the best practices for follow-up and action items post-meeting:

 

• Document everything: Use your template to jot down key discussion points, decisions, and  agreed-upon action items.
• Assign clear ownership and deadlines: Every action item must have a single owner (the employee or the manager), and a realistic due date. Vague actions are useless.
• Share the notes: After the meeting, share the completed template or a summary of notes with your employee to ensure you’re both on the same page.
• Review previous actions: The very first step of your next one-on-one should be to check and review the action items from the last one. This regular check on progress is vital. It closes the loop, and sets a clear focus for the new week.

 

By turning your one-on-ones into a continuous cycle of discussion, action, and review, you create a powerful engine for performance and development. Our template is designed to make this process the best way to manage your team members and make progress on the key drivers of success.

 

• A customisable, printable agenda structure, with sections for employee and manager talking points.
• Prompts and example questions to guide conversations around performance, goals, and career development.
• A dedicated section for providing and receiving constructive feedback in a structured way.
• An integrated action item tracker to document next steps, owners, and deadlines, ensuring clear follow-through.