The effectiveness of 1-on-1's on the employee engagement

The research briefing regarding the client’s question: Please provide the effectiveness of 1-on-1's on the employee engagement.

INSIGHTS

• If one-on-ones are used to clearly communicate the company's culture and values, employees are 51X more likely to be fully engaged.

• If one-on-one meetings are used to explain the strategy, objective and job duties to your employees, at least 61% of them will go far and beyond the call of duty.

• In a survey conducted by Verizon, 87% of the respondents said that they prefer a face-to-face meeting.

FINDINGS

Hello! Thanks for your question on the effectiveness of one-on-one conversation on the employee engagement.

The short version is that the effectiveness of one-on-one meetings depends on the content of the conversation with the employees. If one-on-ones are used to clearly communicate the company's culture and values, employees are 51X more likely to be fully engaged. In addition to this, if one-on-one meetings are used to explain the strategy, objective and job duties to your employees, at least 61% of them will go far and beyond the call of duty. 

To provide this answer, I relied on data, reports and surveys published by various sources.  Below you will find a deep dive of my research / findings along with all the details for how I came to this answer.      

ENGAGED EMPLOYEES

One-on-one conversation, along with praise from the superior manager and a "chance to lead the project" is seen by the employees as an equal or even more efficient motivation than any other financial incentive. In a survey conducted by McKinsey&Company, 63% of respondents rated "attention from the leader" as "extremely" or "very effective" motivation. One-on-one conversation is stated as one of the key tools to show the leadership attention in another report as well.

At the same time, in an online guide published by the website Linda, owned by LinkedIn, one-on-one conversation is described as an important tool to communicate the company's culture and values. The report also noted that those employees who clearly understand the company's culture and values are 51X "more likely to be fully engaged". 

ABOVE & BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

Hays, a specialist recruitment company, published a report on the staff engagement. Experts from this organization concluded that one-on-one with superior manager help employees to understand company's mission, values and get a clear sense of their duties. As a result of it, they concluded that the following percentage of employees goes above & beyond the call duty if the certain conditions are met:

1) 61% - when they understand objectives and strategy

2) 65%- when they have a clear sense of how they help company achieve its mission and goals

3) 67% - when they understand how their role "contributes to the organization's success"

The above metrics can be achieved, and the employees can be more engaged, if one-on-one meetings are used as a tool to communicate an important piece of information.

BENEFIT OPTIONS AND FACE-TO-FACE-MEETINGS

One-on-one conversation is also effective when explaining the benefit options to employees. At least 61% of the employees prefer one-on-one consultations as a way to engage with employers about the benefit options. 

Although the benefits of one-to-one meetings with employees are reported by numerous sources, there was a limited availability of concrete statistics and data, except the one that I already cited. So I dug deeper, and found an additional interesting data.

In a survey conducted by Verizon, 87% of the respondents said that they prefer a face-to-face meeting, while at least 61% of the respondents concluded that face-to-face meetings are more productive. 

SUMMARY

To conclude, if one-on-ones are used as a tool to communicate the company's culture and values, employees are 51X more likely to be fully engaged. Also, if one-on-ones are used as a tool to explain the strategy, objective and job duties to the employees, at least 61% of them will go far and beyond the call of duty. 

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The research brief was originally published in 2017 on the Wonder’s website.