Good check-in meeting questions are relevant and evocative. Tactical yes/no questions and status updates are best handled as they arise in the course of day-to-day work. In the check-in meeting, you should dive deeper into challenges, opportunities, and successes. For meeting structure and discussion points, download APQC’s free check-in meeting templates for employees and managers.

With the shift to remote and hybrid work, the number of meetings is on the rise. Employees are growing frustrated by disruptive, aimless, and overly long meetings. Don’t let check-ins become yet another one of these time-sucking annoyances. Instead, use the templates above and the guidance below for a more productive approach.   

How Should You Schedule Check-in Meetings?

APQC recommends scheduling employee/manager check-ins as 30-minute meetings that recur weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. It’s wise to start with weekly, then move to bi-weekly or monthly as needed. When employees and managers have good rapport, they often need just 15 minutes or less to catch up. Still, it’s helpful to keep a 30-minute time block in case more in-depth discussion is needed.

Include a generic agenda in the meeting invite itself, such as the “accomplishments, progress, and challenges” rubric outlined in APQC’s templates. Add relevant links such as performance goals documentation and tracking tools. Even if both sides know where this stuff is, adding it to the invite makes it easier to pull up in the meeting. 

How Do You Conduct a Check-in Meeting?

There are three keys to conducting an effective check-in meeting.

#1: Prepare

Review notes from last check-in meeting and ensure you’ve completed any follow-up actions you were supposed to take (and if you didn’t complete the actions, identify the roadblocks that prevented you from doing do). Pull up any relevant materials you might want to share and discuss, such as project documents or performance tracking tools, and close out anything that’s not relevant to the meeting.

#2: Ask Evocative Questions

Ask questions that are non-accusatory and elicit more than a one-word answer. For example:

• Instead of “How’s it going?” try “What work do you have in front of you?” 
• Instead of “Why didn’t you get this done?” try “What are some barriers that prevented this from getting done?”
• Instead of “What do you want to do next?” try “What are some skills you’d like to build or experiences you’d like to gain?”
• Instead of “What do you think you’re doing wrong?” try “Where do you see opportunities to improve?”
• Instead of “What do you think I’m doing wrong?” try “How can I make expectations clearer and best respect your time?”

#3: Show Value

It’s important to demonstrate that check-in meetings are time well spent. This isn’t a once-and-done affair, but rather something you’ll need to build over time through the following habits.

• Do listen and be open to changing your assumptions. 
• Don’t have both sides of the conversation in your head before the meeting even begins.
• Do stick to pre-set, clearly communicated, and mutually agreed-upon performance goals and expectations. 
• Don’t surprise employees with shifting priorities and new expectations at each meeting. 
• Do share updates on company-wide changes, especially those that may impact the employee and his or her goals.
• Don’t be secretive or blindly hope the employee will be able to “keep it up” though big changes in the internal or external environment.
• Do focus on the employee and his or her biggest goals and challenges.
• Don’t multitask or spend too much time on non-work-related chit-chat. 

Why do Manager Check-in Meetings Go Badly? 

When employees look distracted and disengaged, miss (or ask to reschedule) check-ins over and over, and—most importantly—start missing their milestones, that’s a sign that the meetings aren’t working. This can happen for a few reasons, but the most common are lack of value and lack of rapport. 

The lack of value problem can be fixed, at least in part, by following the do’s and avoiding the don’ts outlined above. Additionally, managers facing this problem often need to push more and dig deeper into the employee’s challenges. If an employee keeps talking about a challenge and their manager fails to offer realistic ideas or follow up, of course they’ll lose faith in these meetings—and their manager. Managers should use their broader understanding of the team and organization to look for solutions the employee may not be able to see. 

You can build rapport in the check-in meeting itself (by consistently showing value), but you also need to work on this problem outside the check-in meeting. Ashley White, Executive Director of HR at APQC, offered two tactics.

1. Have more informal “touch-base” moments with the employee. Stop by, send a quick direct message, and interact more with team and project chats to get a better sense of what’s happening with your employee and remind them that you’re there to help. Not all these touch-base moments need to be work-focused. In fact, sharing more of yourself and touching base on the employees’ hobbies and interests is a great way to build rapport. 
2. Have a formal meeting to walk though goals and priorities. Ask a lot of questions, and don’t assume that the employee understands what they should be working on or how they should get it done. Use visual tools, such as screen sharing or a whiteboard, and pause often to check for understanding. 

Let’s Make Check-in Meetings Better

Check-ins are an important tool for managers to build rapport, adapt to changes and challenges, and ultimately empower their team members. APQC’s check-in meeting templates for employees and managers can help both sides feel more prepared for these meetings.
 

Listen to the podcast How Do You Conduct a Check In Meeting.