A Guide to 1-on-1s on Candor

Overview of 1-on-1s

1-on-1s helps you create a collaborative 1-on-1 meeting agenda with a teammate. You can use it to add agenda topics and check them off once they’ve been discussed.

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Teams use 1-on-1s to:

🎯 Create alignment with teammates on work projects, goals, and performance

🧭 Track 1-on-1 topics over time, documenting what’s been discussed and what’s still outstanding to talk about

💬 Use Candor’s prompt templates to talk about feedback, coaching, and more

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Why use 1-on-1s with your team?

🔂 Never lose track of discussion items — if you don’t talk about it in the planned 1-on-1, it’ll automatically be added to the next agenda

📥 Create a shared sense of ownership for the 1-on-1 agenda, where both teammates contribute topics to discuss

🚀 Make 1-on-1s a more productive use of time, where you have a plan of what to talk about

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Setting up 1-on-1s

To set up the 1-on-1s mission, follow these steps:

1. Set up a Team Space. Make sure you have a Team Space set up. If you don’t, you’ll need to set that up first, which you can do here.

2. Click on 1-on-1s Dashboard. Click on the 1-on-1s dashboard, which can be found on the left side of your Feed page or on the top of your Team Space page.

3. Select a teammate to do 1-on-1s with. Choose which teammate you’d like to do 1-on-1s with. If you don’t have any teammates on Candor yet, you can invite them from this screen.

4. Set a time for your meeting. We’ll remind you 2 days before your meeting to add to the agenda and create a new agenda for you after the meeting has happened.

5. Launch 1-on-1s. If you have more than 4 teammates and haven’t upgraded your account, you’ll need to add a credit card to do so. If you have less than 4 teammates, you can click “Launch 1-on-1s” which will start the agenda and notify your teammate.

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Inviting teammates to do 1-on-1s

You’ll need to invite teammates to Candor so that they can create 1-on-1 agendas, too.

The easiest way to invite teammates to Candor is by clicking on the ‘Invite’ icon on the left side of your Feed, next to your Team Space name.

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You’ll then be prompted to input your teammates’ emails or copy a link to send them. If you copy the link, you can paste it in Slack/Teams or in an email, prompting your teammates to sign up.

With either of these methods, your teammates will automatically be added to your Team Space and be able to do 1-on-1s with you or with other teammates.

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How add to the 1-on-1 agenda

Once you’ve set up your first 1-on-1, your teammate will need to accept your invite before you can start adding agenda items. Once they accept, you can add agenda items before each 1-on-1 meeting.

First, navigate to the 1-on-1s dashboard by clicking on 1-on-1 on the left part of the Feed:

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Or, by navigating to your Team Space page and clicking the “1-on-1” card in the top section of the page.

Once you are in the dashboard, you will see your agendas with different teammates. Click on the agenda you’d like to add topics to.

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Then, click “Add agenda item” where you’ll be prompted to either choose a prompt from our library or create your own.

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If you aren’t sure how to bring up certain topics, or where to start, we recommend taking a look at our prompt library to get some inspiration.

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If you’d like to create your own custom agenda item, click “Create my own item” and input the topic and related details. You’ll also have the option to make the topic recurring, which would add the topic to every 1-on-1 agenda item automatically.

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How to view your 1-on-1 agenda

To see all 1-on-1 agendas, open the 1-on-1s dashboard. You can do so by clicking “1-on-1” on the left side of your Feed or by clicking the 1-on-1 card in your Team Space on the top of the page.

You will see all agendas you have set up in the dashboard. By clicking on a card, you will open that individual agenda and be able to check off items on the agenda as they are discussed.

1-on-1 agendas are private to you and your teammate, so only the two of you will see the agenda and its contents.

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Notifications for 1-on-1s

Reminders for adding to your 1-on-1 agenda

We will send a reminder via email to add to your 1-on-1 agenda 48 hours before the scheduled meeting time.

Notification for agenda item added or completed

We’ll send a notification via email when your teammate adds and agenda item or checks one off the agenda.

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Further Reading

To get the most out of 1-on-1s, we have a few tips and tricks:

• Cancel your 1-on-1 if you don’t have at least 2 agenda items. One of the most common complaints about 1-on-1s is that they aren’t a good use of time. A great way to avoid that is to cancel the meeting if you don’t have more than 2 items on your agenda the morning of the meeting.
• Cover different topics on the right cadence. You don’t need to cover all topic categories during every meeting. Here’s what we suggest:
  • Check-in: every meeting you should ask how your teammate is doing at work and outside of work. Try to spend at least 5 minutes here getting a pulse on how they are feeling.
  • Goals: checking in on top priorities and seeing where you can help and unblock your teammate might make sense during every 1-on-1 meeting.
  • Feedback: this probably makes sense between a monthly and quarterly basis. Make sure that you’re not only sharing feedback, but also asking for it.
  • Development and Growth: try to incorporate questions about career aspirations every 6 months or so.
  • Collaboration: ask about collaboration between quarterly and every 6 months to check in on how your teammate feels about the team’s cohesiveness and how effectively you’re collaborating together.
• Add items that aren’t time sensitive to your 1-on-1 agenda throughout the week instead of pinging your teammate on Slack. Avoid distracting your teammate constantly by adding discussion topics to your 1-on-1 vs. disrupting their workflow by pinging them on your team’s chat app.

Related resources

• Candor’s Guide to Effective 1-on-1 Meetings
• The Ultimate Guide to One-on-one questions