Meeting prep

Ask your direct report to come ready to talk about their short and long-term career goals. Some prompts that may be helpful include listing out what is important to them: their values, lifestyle, and passions.

Set the scene (5 minutes)

Before diving straight away into career goals, start with where you are. Get an understanding of what in their role energizes, challenges, and drains your direct report. This may help everyone get more clarity when it's time to talk about short and long-term development.

Discuss goals (20 minutes)

Now it's time to dive into goals. Let your direct report lead this part of the conversation while you are an active listener, taking notes on what their short-term (6mo-2 years) and long-term (2+ years) career goals are.

Identify gaps and opportunities (15 minutes)

Use this time to discuss what projects your direct report can begin working on, and areas your direct report wants to learn more about to get closer to their goals. It's likely their current role doesn't fully contribute to where they want to go next, and that's perfectly normal! Whether they're interested in using a professional development budget to take a public speaking class, or shadowing a sales teammate to understand how product demos work, offer up how you can support them, be it intros to people or access to resources.

Create an action plan (5 minutes)

Based on the conversation, end the meeting by identifying 1-3 actions one or both of you will take to work on before the next meeting.

About the author

Bonusly is the fun and easy employee engagement solution that combines 360-degree recognition, meaningful feedback, and rewards that employees love to keep them engaged and satisfied. Bonusly also makes it easy for managers and leaders to gather, understand, and act on employee feedback with fun, lightweight surveys of all types. Check out Bonusly for yourself.

Career growth is the key to employee retention 🔑 Use this quarterly 1:1 to identify how each of your direct reports wants to grow, and identify stepping stones you both can take to develop and reach their goals.