Effective and frequent communication with team members is a problem commonly faced by managers these days. Remote and hybrid working has added on to the problem. When employees do not see open lines of communication with their manager or do not understand what is expected of them, they tend to quit. One on one meetings are here to fill that gap; these meetings help managers build a strong team and keep them motivated at work.

Leading organizations that identify the significance of communication at workplace have started using one on one meetings software for effective communication between managers and team members.

Importance of one on one meeting

According to Gallup’s comprehensive 2015 study, ‘The State Of The American Manager’, 50% of Americans have left a job “to get away from their manager”.

The survey also says that workers feel like they’re given little guidance for understanding what’s expected of them. Only 12% of workers strongly agreed that their manager helps set work priorities.

One on one meetings can be simply defined as standard scheduled time for managers to check-in with their direct reports. These meetings are important for both managers and direct reports because they ensure that both of them stay on the same page.

1 on 1 meeting with managers helps employees in:

•         Keep track of team goals
•         Discuss action plan with their team
•         Stay aligned with direct reports’ goals
•         Sharing ideas and concerns

Face to face meetings are very useful but they often end up being more disorganized than expected. How can you prevent this and make your one on one more productive?

Also Read: 5 Offbeat Leadership Qualities Leaders Should Possess

Here’s a step-by-step guide for you to have effective one on one meetings with your team and help them stay productive!

Things To Do Before One On One Meeting

Step 1: Schedule It On The Calendar

Setting the right schedule is crucial for everyone in one meeting. You cannot use a one-size fits all approach; the frequency of one-on-one’s depends upon the size of the team, size of the organization and on how experienced your team members are.

Inform the meeting details to your direct reports and stick to it. If this is your first one on one, let your team know about one on ones and how they can help them. As a manager, it is hard to stick to a schedule every month or week, but keep experimenting with the frequency of one on ones until you find the right pulse.

Step 2: Communicate the Agenda

Agenda is very important for every meeting. Communicate the agenda clearly to your direct report. Be sure of what needs to be communicated in the meeting.

Remember not to make the meeting about yourself; always make it about your direct reports. Ask them to come prepared with what they want to discuss in the meeting. This makes employees feel valued and keeps them motivated at work.

Also Read: Do These 8 Things To Improve Employee Engagement

Step 3: Create A Questionnaire

Productive meetings take preparation, so prepare for the meeting ahead with relevant questions for your team members. Remember that this meeting isn’t about their performance issues, so add questions about their working style, their long- term and short-term goals, etc.

Also, come prepared with a list of questions about the improvement of your organization, manager improvement and their own improvement.

During One On One Meetings

Step 4: Make the Discussion Informal

Start the meeting by catching up with your direct report informally. Try to informally ask about their current project and the progress that they are making on it. Before going into the details, make them feel comfortable.

Step 5: Go Through The Agenda and Discuss With Them

Listen to what your direct reports have to say about the meeting agenda. Ask them questions about their career development. This makes employees feel that you are invested in their career growth. It acts as a motivator at work.

Step 6: Create an Action Plan & Make It A Two Way Communication

Actively ask questions and listen to the concerns of your direct reports. Give them suggestions wherever necessary and ask for their opinions. Also, discuss and create an action plan for them. This action plan will help as a guide to achieving their work goals for the next quarter.

Also Read: Why Healthcare Administrators Should Set SMART Goals

Step 7: Document The Details

Document the highlights of the meeting. As a manager, it is hard to keep track of every face to face meeting you have, so document the highlights of each meeting you have with your direct reports. This will help you get started for the next meeting you have with them and you will miss nothing important from the past meeting.

Post The Meeting

Step 8: Follow Up With An Email

Once the meeting is over with your direct reports, send them a wrap-up email with the minutes from the meeting. Highlight the points of action discussed in the meeting. This will act as a point of reference for them for next time.

Step 9: Set Up The Next Meeting 

Following up with your employees is important for effective one on ones. This will help them be on track and also help you stay updated with their progress. It will help them stay engaged and be more productive at work.

Also Read: Employee Performance Reviews: A Guide For New Managers

Step 10: The Process Should be Recurring

For one on one meetings to be useful and effective, set it up as a recurring activity. Prepare a quarterly or half-yearly schedule and set it up on your and your employee’s calendar. Experiment with the frequency of the meetings to check what suits best. You can also use 1 on 1 meeting software to conduct them seamlessly. It will make the process simpler and help keep a track of all your meetings in a single place in a structured and organized manner.

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Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with effective one on one meetings? Request a demo from our experts!

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Covid-19 has changed the way we work today. We all know that! As everything turns virtual, it’s become necessary to have a performance management process in place. If cultivated right, it motivates and aligns employees to the company goals. For those many companies who are still using traditional paper- based processes to track and record performance management, it’s highly difficult to extract or collate data. Now that the world has moved to remote working, why not change with situation and embrace more efficient business processes?

Earlier, annual performance reviews were the indisputable norm, and it used to be dreaded by both the managers and the employees. Today, though, performance management has evolved tremendously, making it more flexible and inclusive. Traditional performance processes work fine when organisations are small or have a very simple review process. But once organisations get bigger, and job roles get more complex, there’s a need for software to enhance the process, or rather, to ease the process.

We would like to elaborate on how real-time performance management software can benefit your organisation. Here are the reasons:

Also read: Know What Features To Look For In A 360 Feedback Software

Easy to use:

Depending on the choice of software, a performance management software can be extremely easy to use. All the things required for a review cycle are in one place. Most of the processes are automated, and once the review information has been submitted – start dates, review templates etc, there’s not much else an HR manager has to do, except oversee the entire process.

Even better, HR managers don’t have to frequently remind employees to complete their reviews. Most software has built-in reminders that will urge employees to complete the review process. The software takes the burden off HR’s shoulders and instead allows them to focus on the outcome of performance reviews.

Integrated features:

If you think that a performance management software focus solely on the review processes alone, you are mistaken. They offer other features as well, such as the ability to share feedback, goals and objectives, an LMS, etc. All these features are often integrated so that when the review process is going on, users can view an employee’s complete profile, such as the feedback they have received, the goals they could complete, to what extent they could complete their goals, or even what new skills they have learned.

Performance management software offers a macro view of an employee’s performance and helps others make informed decisions during the review process.

Well-defined goals:

Imagine a situation, wherein a remote employee is expected to put in his or her 100% effort but is not sure what’s the end result of this. Do you think she or he will be able to put in the right kind of effort? Performance management software enables the company to have clear-cut goals, and make them visible to every employee. Every worker gets to see how their effort can help the company achieve higher-level goals.

When they see how they can make an impact at the individual level, it makes them want to strive harder. Managers can easily keep a track of their team performances remotely and can provide feedback accordingly.

Real-time information:

The best part about real time performance management software is, you can access data anytime, and it helps to make quick and efficient decisions. They provide old as well as new data in one place, for you to compare and understand patterns and identify any gaps or bottlenecks. It becomes easy to track the performance level.

Also read: How Important is Feedback in Today’s World?

Insights on performance:

Performance management software can provide a very insightful look at an employee’s performance. This is not just related to ratings and feedback they have received over the past years. Rather, many performance management software also offers performance analytics that track employee performance in graphical chart format, calculate leadership potential, etc. This way, you can also track how well an employee is performing.

These employee data can help others make informed review decisions when reviewing performance. And they can also help managers make compensation decisions or even promotion decisions.

Efficiency in control

When everything is in one place, a lot can become easier. Conducting the review process through performance management software offers HR managers greater control over the entire process. They can control when the cycle starts and when it ends, how many employees should participate in the cycle, etc. HR managers can also restrict review visibility, call back reviews etc, thereby also maintaining a fair and just review process.

As a manager, you have a ton of other responsibilities, other than just tracking your employees’ performance. So if you wish to be more efficient and handle things with ease, a performance management software is your go-to option.

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Engagedly is offering a suite of products part of its Remote Work Toolkit free to any organisation, until Sept 30th, 2020. 

The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

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Do you want to know how Engagedly can help you with seamless Performance Evaluation? Then request for a live demo.

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While you’re still struggling with choosing the frequency of your performance reviews, there’s a new employee performance management system on the block that is working wonders for many organizations: Social performance management.

Performance management fails in a few organizations for various reasons like having an outdated system, no frequent feedback etc. Most companies are increasing looking at new ways of measuring an employee’s performance. One of those ways is social performance management.

Continue reading “What Is Social Performance Management?”

We are all aware of the way the world has changed in the past 6 months. Work from home has become the norm, and keeping remote employees engaged and motivated is a challenge all organizations face today. Before we leap into the core topic, it’s important for you to understand the employee’s perspective.

75% of the world’s population of employees used to commute to their offices everyday, live a routine of movement and activity. Only about 7% of U.S. workers had the option to regularly work from home (source). However, with the outbreak of Covid-19, that scene has drastically changed. Now employees spend almost everyday at home, working remotely and hardly stepping out in the process. Movement and activity has reduced tremendously, along with face-to-face interactions with colleagues and leaders. From enjoying very active, healthy, and interactive schedule, to a shift in being homebound most of the time; a certain amount of physical, intellectual and emotional inertia is bound to set in. This can slow down organizational growth and in the long run, economical growth. That’s why employee engagement is of utmost importance today.

Also Read: Continuous Performance Management: A Necessity During COVID-19

We often come across interesting articles which convey that engaged employees can help you increase your organizational productivity. But larger organizations, more often than not, are still focusing on their deadlines and on getting the work done. They are forgetting that it is also important for employees to be enthusiastic about what they are doing. One engaged employee can contribute a lot more to organizational productivity than ten disengaged employees.

It is not a change that you can bring about overnight. It is a culture that should be fostered gradually by encouraging employees to participate and communicate more. What if, an application is exclusively dedicated to promoting engagement for your employees? Engagedly is a performance management software that drives a culture of engagement, even if your employees are working remotely.

Here are 5 reasons why you need Engagedly to drive employee engagement.

Continuous feedback

Impact and validity of feedback is very time-bound. If they are not shared immediately, they fail to direct employees in the right direction. Engagedly’s feedback feature normalizes the idea of giving and receiving feedback anytime throughout the year. Employees can request feedback whenever they want to. Engagedly also gives you an option to select the areas on which the feedback should be given.

Also read: 5 Best Tips To Reduce Employee Turnover

This allows all the employees in an organization to improve themselves constantly. This process of continuous feedback keeps employees driven throughout the year and not just before performance reviews; hence promoting employee engagement.

Social forum for ease of communication

Every employee is smart and exceptional in their own way. Having a platform to express their thoughts and opinions is a great motivator. Engagedly’s social feature allows employees to share posts, share ideas, request for help and share knowledge. Engagedly allows you to create interest groups and share documents and other material with colleagues. Encouraging employees to express themselves and interact socially makes your virtual workplace a communication-friendly space and helps employees remain engaged.

Objectives and Goals

With very less chances of personal interactions these days, we have to streamline the process of clear goal setting. Setting clear and distinct goals is very important to complete any task. Employees can create goals for themselves and their direct reports using the Engagedly goals module. As a manager or an HR, it is important to set clear goals for your employees so that everyone works towards a collective goal.

Engagedly also has an option to align individual goals with the organizational goals so that employees know how the success of their individual goals can contribute to the accomplishment of organizational goals. In Engagedly, goals can also be reviewed by managers from time to time to check if their employees are on the right track.

Also read: Customize 360 Feedback Survey Questions According to Departments

Learning and development

Its needless to say that we’ve got to keep learning constantly. Otherwise we’ll not be able remain on the top of our game. No matter how old you are, what you do, keeping yourself up to date with the current industry trends is very important.

Engagedly’s Learning feature helps you create new courses, and for each course an employee completes, they are awarded points by the course creator. When you assign courses to employees for their development, it motivates them because they know you are genuinely interested in developing them and improving their skills. When employees develop their professional skills, it boosts their self-confidence which in turn promotes an engagement culture.

Also read: These Features Can Make A Big Difference In A Goal Setting Software

Recognition and praise

This is an extremely important module, especially for today’s work culture. This can be considered another type of feedback. Receiving praise and recognition for their work is every employee’s dream. Engagedly’s public praise feature allows you to praise any employee publicly for the extra effort that they put in towards achieving a goal.

When employees go above and beyond to accomplish their goals, it is important to recognize their efforts and praise them. This keeps them motivated and engaged.

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Engagedly is offering a suite of products part of its Remote Work Toolkit free to any organisation, until Sept 30th, 2020. 

The Coronavirus has affected the way we work today and for months to come. Unprecedented events require unprecedented measures. We at Engagedly believe it is our responsibility as socially conscious corporate citizens to help equip organisations with additional tools and resources during this time of crisis.

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Want to know more about our software? Request for a FREE demo!

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Most companies work hard to build and sustain a positive performance culture in their workplaces. Different companies have different culture.

Continue reading “Creating A Performance Based Culture At Workplace During A Crisis”

In today’s corporate world, we are quite sure of one thing. It is mandatory to have a performance management process in place. If cultivated right, it motivates employees and aligns them with the company’s goals.

Continue reading “Why You Need A Real Time Performance Management Software”

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Continue reading “Here’s How An HRM Software Can Benefit You”

The outbreak of COVID-19 has changed the way we look at work today. Most businesses have started advising their employees to work from home to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

Continue reading “The Complete Guide To Working From Home”

Have you ever wondered what is the impact of poor employee engagement? After all, it is not the sole reason for why organisations continue to keep running. Because employees are one of the greatest assets of a company and employee engagement does play a big role in keeping organisations running smoothly.

In order to better understand employee engagement, one must first understand what it is to be engaged.

Also read: Choosing The Right Talent Management Software For Your Company

An engaged employee is someone who is active within the organisation, not just in terms of showing up every day, but being visibly seen and recognised for the work and effort they put in. On the other hand, disengaged employees are employees who may be present physically, but mentally, they are not focused on the work.

The number of engaged employees within an organisation can determine how vibrant and successful it is. The number of disengaged employees can highlight serious workplace dysfunction, poor work culture or possibly even a lack of clarity when it comes to roles and skills.

But before we get into fixing poor employee engagement, let us take a look at what employee disengagement does to other employees. The emotions and actions of one can and do have an impact on other employees. The seriousness of it might differ from person to person, but it is worth keeping this proverb in mind, one rotten apple can quickly spoil the bunch.

Impacts Morale & Disrupts Workplace Harmony

Nobody is immune to bad vibes or workplace dysfunction. It’s not always possible to drown out employees who might drop by to chat and instead end up launching into a litany of complaints. Nor is it possible to stop engaging with people simply cause they are disengaged. What can one do if the person who is disengaged happens to be their team-mate or manager? The advice to avoid interacting with them is simply not feasible.

Engaged employees can make an organisation hum. Disengaged employees can throw a spanner in the works. When the harmony in a workplace is disrupted, an employee’s output and productivity can drastically decrease. Employees cannot focus on the work at hand and that in turn has an effect on an organisation’s overall productivity.

When employee engagement gets ignored, employees who are adjacently affected will continue to work until they can no longer manage, and then they will move on. It’s wrong to expect employees to keep adjusting to the quirks of others when no attempt is being made to fix it.

Also Read: Create A Positive Work Culture For Your Employees

The Organisation Stagnates

Engaged employees are constantly innovating and coming up with new ways for the company to move ahead. Disengaged employees do the exact opposite. They are completely cut off from their’s organisation’s values and objectives and have nothing of value to offer. When there are no new ideas or innovations on the horizon, an organisation stagnates and falls behind. It might be worth noting that not all employees start off as disengaged. In fact, some of them might have even been rockstar employees before. However, along the way, something changed. Perhaps they are unhappy with the way the organisation is developing. Or maybe they feel like they are not valued like they were before. It is important to discern the reasons for poor employee engagement before taking precautionary wide-sweeping measures.

Cost Increases While Return Decreases

This is a side-effect of organisation stagnation and disrupted workplaces. Disengaged employees are costly. Not only do they tend to be a drain on a company’s time and resources, but they might also be responsible for driving away other engaged employees. Attrition does cost organisations money. Because significant costs are incurred every time you hire an employee, train them and get them on board, only for them to leave because the organisation culture wasn’t palatable to them. Or because they found it difficult to work with employees who are obstructive or unenthusiastic. Unlike engaged employees who are invested in not only their careers but even the well-being of the company, disengaged employees do not care. They have no interest in the company and they are content to put in the least possible effort, therefore seriously impacting an organisation’s performance.

Employee Engagement Software Can Help

Really good employee engagement software can take what is already there and enhance it further. It is important to note that employee engagement software is highly successful when a workplace has a culture that actively fosters employee participation, employee satisfaction, and employee engagement. It is not a cure-all for an organisation that is already suffering from poor levels of employee engagement. In fact, once an organisation overhauls its practices regarding engagement and motivation, employee engagement software can be tapped into to sustain the momentum.

Employee Engagement Software Benefits

• With employee engagement software, in addition to employees participating in the day-to-day activities, peer recognition is also possible. Having a peer thank you for the information you provided, a creative solution, or handling a problem he or she was struggling with, is also a great way to build engagement and see the company as “ours” to improve rather than as a place to go to work
• Such software also makes it easier for managers to give and receive feedback and recognise employees publicly, is an act which is effective at bolstering employee engagement
• Employees can also log in to their own personal account to receive and provide feedback, recognition or even browse training programs to find the ones they want to take

In conclusion, employee engagement software can really help improve workplace climate, but only if the organisation in question has a culture of employee engagement or is working towards creating a culture of engagement and wants to improve it.

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If you want to know how Engagedly can help in Employee Engagement, request for a live demo and talk to our experts!

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Continue reading “Implementing Employee Engagement Surveys”

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Continue reading “Upgrade From Paper-Based Performance Reviews To Engagedly”

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