Leveraging Hybrid One-on-Ones for Better Connections

One of the most difficult challenges to overcome in a hybrid or remote work environment is the lack of social connection between team members—and worse, the often insufficient time that managers spend individually with their reports. Spending too little time one-on-one with your team members can have career-hindering effects: there’s not enough time for many of the conversations that lead to better work outcomes, such as giving feedback, career development discussions, and social time to build trust.
 
One-on-ones are the best tool at your disposal for ensuring that those vital conversations happen and that your team feels connected, even when you aren’t working together in an office every day. They’re incredibly valuable no matter what a team’s work setup is, but even more so when working in hybrid and remote teams: they might be the only time that an engineer gets to spend alone with their manager, putting a lot of importance on this single meeting type.
 
In this talk we’ll discuss why one-on-ones are so vital for teams that aren’t co-located, and how to leverage them to build strong relationships and a healthy team. We’ll also cover topics such as:

  • The big benefits of virtual one-on-ones over their in-person counterparts 
  • How to structure hybrid one-on-ones to make the most out of the setup
  • Why and how to use a shared agenda
  • Common one-on-one issues, and how to troubleshoot them
  • How to leverage one-on-ones to foster stronger relationships with peers

You’ll leave with many practical steps to successfully run your hybrid and remote one-on-ones, and learn how to use them to keep the team connected while working apart.


Speaker

Alexandra Sunderland

Senior Engineering Manager @fellowapp

Alexandra Sunderland is an engineering leader with over a decade of experience working in both hybrid and remote roles, at companies ranging from 10-person startups to public corporations. She is currently a Senior Engineering Manager at Fellow.app, where she is helping to build the future of work. She prides herself on building emotionally-intelligent processes for teams, and sharing her knowledge of management through conference talks and written works. Alexandra is also the author of the book "Remote Engineering Management", the guide for empathetic and people-first management in a remote world.

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Date

Tuesday Dec 6 / 11:20AM PST ( 50 minutes )

Topics

Hybrid Work Strategies People and Culture Remote People Skills

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