Skip Level Meetings – A key to building strong working relationships.

Purpose

The true purpose behind a skip-level meeting is to determine an organization’s effectiveness through honest employee assessments. To ensure a company is receiving accurate feedback, a culture of trust must be established. Employees must be assured that their comments will remain anonymous. Managers must know that information will not be used in a punitive way. Without that level of honest transparency, skip-level meetings cannot achieve their purpose. Starting an agenda with a clear restatement of these assurances is an excellent way to set the tone for the meeting.

How to Prepare for a Skip-Level Meeting

Skip-level meetings start with an agenda. Using a skip-level meeting agenda template can make it much easier. Part of the agenda should include the purpose of the meeting and what general topics such as company or career growth will be addressed.

Plan

For managers, what does upper management want to learn from the skip-level meetings? Sometimes, organizations want to assess managerial effectiveness or operational weaknesses. Other possibilities are looking at company alignment or employee engagement. Whatever the objective, the agenda needs to reflect these goals.

Taking the time to create an agenda that can be given to the employee before the meeting can make for a more relaxed meeting. An agenda with well-defined topics allows employees to reflect on their answers and develop questions of their own. If the agenda is delivered ahead of the meeting, managers and employees can collaborate to refine the agenda to meet their respective needs. The give and take of this type of one-on-one meeting contributes to a positive corporate culture.