Manager growth

Employee onboarding using 1:1 Meeting templates and Objectives

Many companies approach an employee’s on-boarding by having new joiners participate in some form of 30-60-90 day review. This article outlines the best way to leverage the 1:1 Meeting notes and Objectives features to best facilitate these and avoid having to set up numerous Performance Review cycles with only one participant.

Table of Contents

Using 1:1 meeting templates

Managers find it helpful to have a set of expectations, or a workflow, to run through when on-boarding a new team member. Setting up a 1:1 Meeting template will help to support them doing this and doing it well. It will also save them a lot of time and ensures that your on-boarding process has consistency across teams.

  • Consider including talking points to introduce them to their teammates, the projects that are currently being worked on, office protocols and schedules, best restrooms, anything that can help them get acclimated and feel as though they belong as quickly as possible.
  • We have a inspiration for questions here: 24 questions to ask in your next 1:1 meeting

Below is an example template in action:

Creating Objectives

You might also consider adding that they two create an on-boarding objective that they both track progress of over their trial/introductory period. Include this step as a talking point in your on-boarding 1:1 Meeting note template to ensure that it sets a clear expectation.

  • Tracking progress of a goal you set together along the way is much more proactive as an approach to 90 day reviews because the objective clearly outlines what it will take to be successful in that on-boarding period.

Below is a first 90 day objective action plan example:

Benefits to Performance Management

The benefit to having an objective to track progress of is that there is now a container to keep a tally of ongoing feedback and accomplishments that can be reviewed at the end of the introductory period.

Reflecting within the first 90 days

At the end of the introductory period, you might have another 1:1 template for the two of them to complete that summarizes the experience and sets the foundation of the feedback relationship that they’ll have moving forward.

Talking points such as: what went well, areas for continued growth, aspirations for their employment there, etc.

To gain even further insights into the new employees on-boarding, have them solicit feedback from those they worked with by using our Request Feedback feature. To ensure this is consistent, why not create a template for them to utilize as part of the process. This can then be another talking point added to the 90 day reflection 1:1 Meeting template.

This on-boarding objective and the relevant on-boarding 1:1 Meeting notes will add a layer of extra feedback that will support the manager and employee during their first formal Performance Review and/or 360 later on in the year.

Discover more resources

changing company values with Reddit

Don’t be afraid to change your company values

A company value should reflect your identity, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be timeless. Our friends at Reddit share their tips on how companies can best grow and evolve.

receiving feedback

Be bold: How to get feedback and make it work for you

Asking for feedback might be scary at first but it’s worth the effort. Use these pointers to get the feedback you need and make it work for you.

We improved the messaging feature: Mentions, filtering, design and more

Messaging was the first feature we implemented into SI. The feature itself stood the test of time well, and we’re quite proud that modern companies such as Buffer are using a feature that we designed and implemented over 4 years ago. But the user interface was starting to look dated, so we’ve just rolled out…

Small improvements we’ve made so far: Our mid-year product updates

This year has been flying by, and the Small Improvements team has been busy. Here’s a rundown of the most important improvements we’ve made so far in 2022.

New user directory tab, plus a “weighted objectives” helper

We’re proud to announce two minor improvements today: New Gridview tab in the user directory We’ve added a new tab to the user directory that allows for easier filtering by categories such as department, location and role. At the same time, this tab puts a lot more emphasis on the user’s profile picture, helping you…

How to give (and receive) more thoughtful feedback

We as human beings tend to view Feedback as negative. But it’s all a matter of framing. Here are 5 tips on how to give and receive more thoughtful Feedback.

Unlock your company’s full potential