How One-on-One Meetings with Managers Impact Employee Job Satisfaction: Research Results
Illia RiabtsevWe all know how important one-on-one meetings are for managers and their teams, right?
But how do we know it? Are there any studies showing the impact of these meetings on key metrics like productivity or job satisfaction?
About the Author
My name is Illia Riabtsev. I'm currently a Director of Software Product Development at Oracle, but in my background I also have experience building my own products and creating development teams from scratch.
Two years ago, I decided to formalize my management knowledge and started a master's program. When it came to writing thesis, I chose to review studies on how one-on-one meetings between employees and their managers affect key performance metrics. To my surprise, there was very little quantitative research on this "common knowledge" topic. For example, there's the State of One-on-Ones Report from 2019 (Hypercontext), but that study is more about how managers conduct these meetings rather than their effectiveness. There are also articles on making meetings as efficient as possible (like those from HBR) or about their importance (Culture Amp), but they don’t reference actual research on the effectiveness of these meetings.
This seemed like a good opportunity to contribute, and that’s exactly what I set out to do for my thesis. Maybe some of you even took part in the survey I published a few months ago. Now that my thesis defense is over, I’m ready to share the findings and insights.
I'll do my best to explain the essence of a 50-page paper in a straightforward and digestible way.
Research Objective
In this study, I explored how one-on-one meetings impact employee job satisfaction.
Why focus on job satisfaction? Because there's plenty of evidence that satisfaction has a significant effect on key metrics like productivity, engagement, and employee retention.
I wanted to find out if there was a reliable connection between the frequency of these meetings and job satisfaction. To do that, I created a survey, which included questions not only about the regularity of the meetings but also about qualitative aspects—like how much employees feel heard by their managers and how relevant the discussions are for their career growth.
The data was collected through my professional network. My long-time friends from the Stratoplan Management School helped a lot by sharing the survey with their alumni. In total, I received 54 responses. It’s not a huge number, but the participants were mostly from the IT sector, and represented companies of different sizes. Half of the respondents were managers, and half were individual contributors, so the sample provided some insights.
Like any scientific research, I analyzed not just correlations (for instance, whether people with more frequent meetings generally report higher job satisfaction) but also the reliability (to determine if the results were statistically significant or just random).
Key Findings
So, is there a connection between regularity of one-on-one meetings and job satisfaction? The answer is it does not seem so. In my sample, there was no statistically significant correlation identified.
If you look at the data, there’s a small peak related to the response "As often as necessary for a project or task."
Bi-weekly and weekly regularities showed almost no difference, while the "No meetings at all" response showed a dip in satisfaction slightly below average. However, it's important to note the reliability of this data was quite low. There was a 41% chance that this pattern was just random coincidence.
If that were the only takeaway, this article wouldn't be worth your time. But as I mentioned earlier, the survey also included questions about the qualitative aspects of these meetings, and some of those characteristics showed a very significant link with job satisfaction.
Here are the most statistically significant findings—those with the smallest probability of being random:
- Employees feel heard:
- Feedback helps professional growth:
- Increased motivation after meetings:
The probability of these observations being random is extremely low, with significance levels greater than 99.9% (p-value < 0.001).
A few other factors also demonstrated a reliable link to job satisfaction, though with slightly lower significance (p-value < 0.05):
- Career growth discussions (99.7% reliability):
- Clarity of work objectives (99.2% reliability):
- Effective problem-solving (98% reliability):
On the flip side, there are meeting characteristics that have a negative correlation with job satisfaction:
- Manager dominates the discussion (99% reliability):
- Frequent cancellations or rescheduling (98% reliability):
Interestingly, formal aspects like having an agenda prepared in advance did show a trend of increased satisfaction, but the results were closer to random chance (p-value around 0.7).
Conclusions
One-on-one meetings can indeed impact an employee's job satisfaction.
However, this impact is not primarily about formal or organizational aspects like meeting regularity or agenda preparation. Instead, it lies in how meaningful these meetings are for the employee—whether they address important issues and help solve real challenges. Signs of disrespect, like the manager dominating the conversation or frequently canceling or rescheduling meetings, can have a negative impact on job satisfaction.
Sometimes, research helps to confirm what might seem obvious at first glance.
So, dear managers, give your attention to your employees during one-on-one meetings. Discuss topics that are important to them. Simply having meetings scheduled and an agenda prepared isn't enough if the employee doesn't feel heard, or if the discussion isn't meaningful to them.
Thanks for reading all the way through.
I'll leave a link to the LinkedIn post below.
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments there. Do you find this kind of research helpful? How well do these findings align with your own experiences and intuition?
Feel free to connect with me if we aren't already in each other's networks. Let’s stay in touch!