Google re:Work says frequent one-on-ones improve monday.com managers' performance

The most useful 1:1 on monday.com is not a morale ritual. It is the place where a manager finds out a project is slipping, a teammate is overloaded, or a priority has quietly drifted before the deadline makes the problem obvious.

Google re:Work’s case for frequent one-on-ones is practical, not sentimental. Higher-scoring managers are more likely to meet often with team members, because those conversations make it easier to spot issues early and create space for feedback and guidance. In a fast-moving SaaS company, that matters because a problem rarely announces itself in a dashboard first. Someone may not say in a group meeting that scope is fuzzy, a launch date feels unrealistic, or another team has started creating friction, but those concerns usually surface in a focused 1:1.

Why the meeting is a signal, not a formality

At monday.com, the stakes are different for each function, but the management habit is the same. Product managers use 1:1s to hear whether a roadmap item is blocked or whether a deadline needs to move. Engineering leaders use them to catch overloaded teams, technical uncertainty, and cross-functional dependencies before they become incident reports. Sales managers can use the same time to check deal blockers, pipeline hygiene, and whether a rep still feels confident about a territory.

The same meeting also gives individual contributors a place to push information upward. A teammate can ask for context on a business decision, flag friction with another team, or raise a career conversation that would never fit cleanly into a standup or all-hands. That is why the best 1:1s are not about surveillance. They are about building a reliable channel for signal in a company that is shipping AI products, selling into enterprises, and coordinating across functions at speed.

The cadence Google and Gallup both point to

Google re:Work recommends a regular cadence, generally every week or two, with meetings lasting roughly 30 to 60 minutes. Google says it has spent nearly 20 years studying what makes people managers and teams effective through Project Oxygen, feedback surveys, and thousands of interviews, which is why its guidance treats the 1:1 as a core management practice rather than an optional check-in.

Gallup reaches a similar conclusion from a different angle. It says once- or twice-a-year reviews cannot replace weekly feedback on individual performance, team collaboration, and customer value. Gallup recommends one meaningful conversation per week with each employee, often 15 to 30 minutes long, focused on goals, customers, wellbeing, and recognition. The exact length can vary, but the message is consistent: the value comes from frequency and follow-through, not from a ceremonial calendar invite.

For managers at monday.com, that means the rhythm matters more than the script. A good 1:1 does not need to be long to be useful, but it does need to happen often enough that small issues do not harden into missed targets, burnout, or surprise escalations.

A useful structure for monday.com managers

A strong one-on-one can stay simple if it is disciplined. The most useful flow is straightforward: review priorities, discuss blockers, ask what needs to change, and leave time for coaching or career development. That sequence works because it keeps the conversation tied to execution while still making room for the human side of the job.

• Start with the work that matters most this week and check whether priorities have shifted.
• Ask directly what is blocked, what is unclear, and what is taking longer than expected.
• Press on workload and energy, because overload often shows up before quality slips.
• End with next steps, so both people leave knowing who owns what.
• Reserve time for development, because a 1:1 that only covers urgent tasks becomes a triage meeting.

The more senior the leader, the more important this becomes as a detection system. Senior managers are farther from day-to-day execution, which makes their 1:1s one of the few places where they can hear unfiltered risks before they reach customers or leadership reviews. That is especially valuable in a company like monday.com, where product, engineering, and sales all depend on tight coordination.

What the numbers say about feedback

Gallup’s data makes the business case hard to ignore. It says 80% of employees who received meaningful feedback in the past week were fully engaged. It also found that U.S. employee engagement hit an 11-year low of 30% in 2024 before edging up by one point in the second quarter of 2025. Those are not abstract engagement metrics; they are signals that leadership habits still shape whether people show up with focus or just clear their task list.

The payoff reaches beyond mood. Gallup says highly engaged organizations see 18% higher productivity, 23% higher profitability, 78% lower absenteeism, and 21% lower turnover in high-turnover organizations. That puts regular feedback in the same category as operational discipline: it affects output, retention, and the cost of replacing people who leave. For a public company like monday.com, where execution and retention both show up in results, that is not soft management theory. It is performance infrastructure.

Why this fits monday.com’s culture

monday.com’s culture messaging says everyone’s opinion is valued and that employees should bring ideas to their manager or team and expect to be heard. A regular 1:1 is where that promise becomes real. If the company wants open dialogue, the manager’s calendar has to create the space for it, especially when the work spans product launches, enterprise deals, and fast-moving internal changes.

That is the deeper lesson in Google re:Work’s guidance and Gallup’s numbers: good management is not mainly about watching more closely. It is about noticing sooner, asking better questions, and turning weekly conversations into a system for catching risk before it turns into missed delivery.