If you’re spending more than 30 minutes prepping for your regular one-on-one, you’re doubling your work. And if you have more than one direct report, you’ll run out of time for everything else on your to-do list.
Winging it isn’t the right answer either. There’s a solid middle ground where managers feel prepared and use their time wisely, freeing up time to get to the crucial action items that inevitably result from a one-on-one well spent.
These seven templates can help managers find that elusive sweet spot. Lattice has templates for regular check-ins, career development, performance feedback, wellbeing, and roadblock removal.
Download the content for free and paste directly into your next one-on-one. You can thank us later.
Manager Templates for One-on-One Meetings
One-on-One Agenda Template
Lattice’s one-on-one agenda template is perfect for a comprehensive weekly or bi-weekly check-in covering current work, career goals, and job satisfaction, with ready-to-use questions across six categories. The employee-led agenda format creates space for two-way feedback while ensuring managers cover critical topics.
- Benefits of this template:
- Questions cover employee priorities, development, and satisfaction without missing critical topics across recurring meetings.
- Agenda balances manager- and employee-led discussion to create psychological safety where both voices matter equally.
- What this template covers:
- Must-ask questions for managers: Weekly focus, priorities, roadblocks, and open topics
- Manager suggestions: Questions about management effectiveness, work support, and meeting improvement
- Career development: Questions exploring advancement, learning, project interests, and professional development
- Goals discussion: Prompts for quarterly priorities and one-year to 20-year career aspirations
- Company improvement: Space for team collaboration ideas, product feedback, and organizational suggestions
- Job satisfaction: Questions about happiness, work-life balance, and experience improvement
Remote One-on-One Questions Template
Lattice’s remote one-on-one questions template includes ten targeted questions addressing isolation, communication gaps, work-life boundaries, and technical needs specific to distributed teams. It covers everything from maintaining work friendships to hardware setup challenges.
- Benefits of this template:
- Meeting agenda surfaces burnout and disconnection early through direct questions about energy, stress, and work friendships.
- Allocates dedicated time to logistical challenges (hardware, software, scheduling) before they impact productivity.
- What this template covers:
- Connection check: Maintaining team dynamics and work relationships during remote work
- Remote challenges: New obstacles faced while working from home versus an office environment
- Clarity discussion: Whether team members feel clear on priorities and goals
- Energy assessment: Direct questions about feelings, energy levels, and stress
- Boundary check: Whether team members take breaks during the workday
- Caregiving support: Schedule accommodations for parents and caregivers
- Technical setup: Hardware, software, and tools needed for effective remote work
- Communication: Daily communication issues and preferred contact methods
- Project blockers: Tasks impacted by remote work
- Career development: Professional growth opportunities for distributed workers
Wellbeing One-on-One Template
Lattice’s wellbeing one-on-one template provides focused questions for dedicated well-being conversations covering physical health, emotional wellbeing, workplace stress, social connections, and values alignment. It respects privacy boundaries while uncovering where support is needed.
- Benefits of this template:
- Separates wellbeing from performance so high-performing team members feel safe being honest about struggles.
- Structure respects privacy while uncovering where support is needed, to build trust where it matters most.
- What this template covers:
- Physical wellbeing: Feeling physically, work-life balance, health support satisfaction, benefit awareness
- Emotional wellbeing: Comfort discussing mental health, work stress frequency, after-hours rumination, mental health benefits
- Workplace wellbeing: Tools and resources, knowing who to talk to when stressed, motivation levels
- Social wellbeing: Workplace support networks, feeling valued by team, isolation, team connection ideas
- Societal wellbeing: Role's positive contribution, values alignment, ESG initiative awareness
Constructive Feedback Agenda Template
Lattice’s constructive feedback agenda template provides a six-step framework for delivering difficult feedback with language examples for each step. It guides managers from opening through specific examples, impact discussion, response, solutions, and follow-up planning.
- Benefits of this template:
- Step-by-step structure reduces anxiety by clarifying what happens next.
- Focus on observable behaviors prevents vague feedback that doesn't lead to improvement.
- What this template covers:
- Step 1: State intent — clearly name this as a constructive feedback conversation.
- Step 2: Specific observations — describe specific behaviors observed directly.
- Step 3: Describe reactions — explain impact and consequences on team, projects, or outcomes.
- Step 4: Let them respond — create space for employee perspective with open-ended questions.
- Step 5: Offer solutions — come prepared with supportive solutions and resources.
- Step 6: Summarize — restate key points, document in writing, make it a focus area for ongoing 1:1s.
Salary Negotiation Template
Lattice’s salary negotiation template is a six-section guide with conversational scripts about pay, covering salary band explanations, pay disparities, merit increases, and next steps. It offers realistic, ready-to-use language for sensitive money conversations.
- Benefits of this template:
- Ready-to-use language reduces manager anxiety during sensitive money conversations.
- Covers multiple scenarios (feeling underpaid, merit raises, pay disparities) so managers are prepared.
- What this template covers:
- Initial response: Scripts for acknowledging employees’ concerns without being dismissive and scheduling follow-up
- Taking the plunge: Language for opening deeper discussion and creating psychological safety
- Salary bands: Scripts explaining how ranges work, where employee falls, what promotion-level pay looks like
- Pay disparities: Language for responding to unfair pay gaps and advocating for equity with HR
- Gathering proof points: Scripts for enlisting employee help documenting merit and accomplishments
- Next steps: Language explaining review process, timeline expectations, HR involvement preferences
Career Development Conversation Template
Lattice’s career development conversation template is a three-part question framework and action planning worksheet for quarterly career conversations. It covers reflection on employee strengths, current role satisfaction, and future growth planning with commitment tracking.
- Benefits of this template:
- Separates big-picture career discussions from weekly status updates so development gets dedicated attention.
- Worksheet captures manager and employee commitments with timeline and check-in dates for accountability.
- What this template covers:
- Reflection questions: Top strengths, biggest challenges, growth since joining, proudest accomplishments, recognition satisfaction
- Current role: Favorite aspects, parts to transition, challenging assignments, strength alignment with daily work
- Growth planning: Success definitions for 1-2 years, new responsibilities, work frequency preferences, business areas to learn, tools or training interests
- Action worksheet: Structured space for manager commitments, employee commitments, timeline, next check-in date
- Note-taking space: Area for managers to capture observations for future reference
New Hire Onboarding Survey Template
Lattice’s new hire onboarding survey template includes a comprehensive 30-day onboarding survey with Likert scale questions covering early experience, first day logistics, training, manager support, and engagement. It helps identify onboarding gaps early — when they're easy to fix.
- Benefits of this template:
- 30-day timing catches problems when they're simple to fix instead of waiting for 90-day reviews.
- Likert scale format provides quantifiable data for tracking onboarding improvements over time.
- What this template covers:
- Early experience: Team welcome efforts, manager and HR availability before start date, onboarding process clarity, address FAQs
- First day: Manager readiness, workspace and technology preparation, clarity on what to do, paperwork ease, software setup, HR availability
- Training: Understanding mission and values, policy clarity, workshop relevance, comfort asking questions, presenter knowledge, team introductions, tool training
- Manager relationship: Manager availability, direction quality, communication frequency, professional growth support, recommendation likelihood
- Engagement: Company pride, job satisfaction, two-year outlook, friendship development, interview-to-reality match, productivity, welcome experience
✨ Disclaimer: This content was developed with the help of artificial intelligence, though reviewed, edited, and approved by (real) humans.
