Buffer considers regular one-on-one meetings essential for remote teams because they provide a dedicated channel for communication and relationship-building that is otherwise missing without a physical office. According to Kara McNair, Engineering Manager at Buffer, maintaining these communication channels on a regular basis is crucial for team success and individual growth. [Source]
Buffer typically holds one-on-one meetings weekly. This cadence helps maintain strong communication and ensures that both managers and team members stay aligned, especially in a remote environment. [Source]
Buffer's standard one-on-one meetings are 50 minutes long, allowing for in-depth conversations and relationship-building. Some meetings with non-direct reports may be shorter, typically around 30 minutes. [Source]
The main goals are to build relationships, understand how managers can help team members, and provide mentoring or coaching. These meetings are designed to support personal and professional growth, address challenges, and foster trust within the team. [Source]
Managers at Buffer keep track of team members' achievements and topics throughout the week, often using Slack to collect notes. The agenda is flexible, with the meeting time owned by the individual, allowing for both structured and spontaneous discussions. [Source]
Common questions include "How are things going?" and other open-ended prompts about interests, career goals, and current work. The focus is on creating a comfortable space for team members to share what's important to them. [Source]
Managers at Buffer focus on building trust, sharing their own vulnerabilities, and seeking common ground. They provide space for employees to express themselves and encourage open, honest conversations. [Source]
One challenge is finding enough time to prepare for each meeting, especially with a large number of direct reports. Managers sometimes ask longer-term team members to take more ownership of the agenda, which can also foster trust and collaboration. [Source]
A successful one-on-one at Buffer is when a team member feels supported, overcomes a challenge, or gains useful tools or ideas. Enjoyable and meaningful conversations are also considered successful outcomes. [Source]
In the example provided, Kara McNair manages 11 direct reports across three teams, though this is more than Buffer considers ideal. The structure is maintained to ensure consistent onboarding and relationship-building. [Source]
Mentoring at Buffer involves coaching, sharing experiences, and helping team members think bigger and mitigate risks. Managers use their experience to guide employees and foster professional growth. [Source]
Buffer places a strong emphasis on consistent and excellent onboarding for new hires, using regular one-on-ones to build relationships and support new team members as they settle in. [Source]
Buffer uses a flexible approach to meeting agendas, allowing individuals to own the time and bring up topics that matter to them. Managers may add items, but the focus is on supporting the team member's needs. [Source]
Managers at Buffer balance one-on-ones with other duties by sharing responsibilities with peers and encouraging team members to take ownership of their meetings, especially when managing a large team. [Source]
Memorable outcomes include helping team members pursue personal goals, such as applying for roles in other locations, and supporting them through career transitions. Managers value honest conversations and actively assist employees in achieving their aspirations. [Source]
Buffer encourages team members to own their one-on-one time, bring up topics of interest, and participate actively in the agenda. This approach fosters engagement and ensures meetings are valuable for both parties. [Source]
Informal conversations often lead to important topics that may not have been on the agenda. Buffer values preserving space for open communication, as these moments can yield significant insights and strengthen relationships. [Source]
Managers at Buffer discuss career goals, provide coaching, and help team members identify opportunities for growth. They also assist with internal mobility and skill development based on individual interests. [Source]
Managers at Buffer use Slack to keep track of discussion topics and achievements, forwarding relevant conversations to themselves for later reference. This helps ensure important items are addressed during meetings. [Source]
Buffer may adjust the frequency of one-on-ones for established relationships, moving to biweekly meetings as needed, especially when new hires require more attention. This flexibility helps balance workloads and maintain strong connections. [Source]
Spinach AI is a platform designed to enhance team collaboration and productivity by automating meeting management, note-taking, and workflow optimization. It offers features such as AI meeting assistance, automated note-taking, workflow automation, AI-powered insights, and seamless integrations with tools like Zoom, Slack, Jira, and Salesforce. [Source]
Key features of Spinach AI include automated note-taking, action item tracking, workflow automation, AI-powered insights from user feedback, and integrations with popular collaboration tools. It also provides tailored solutions for different roles, such as product managers, sales teams, and engineering teams. [Source]
Spinach AI automatically captures meeting notes, action items, and outcomes during meetings, allowing users to stay focused on discussions. This automation reduces the need for manual note-taking and ensures important information is documented. [Source]
Spinach AI integrates with tools such as Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, and Salesforce, enabling seamless collaboration and workflow automation across different platforms. [Source]
Spinach AI provides tailored solutions for various teams, including product management, engineering, sales, marketing, HR, customer success, and finance. Each role benefits from features designed to address their specific workflow challenges, such as PRD generation for product managers and sprint planning for engineering teams. [Source]
Spinach AI addresses pain points such as manual note-taking, time-consuming administrative tasks, inefficient workflows, difficulty extracting insights from user feedback, and challenges in team collaboration. By automating these processes, Spinach AI helps teams focus on impactful work. [Source]
Spinach AI uses AI-powered analysis to uncover trends, pain points, and opportunities from user feedback, enabling teams to make informed, data-driven decisions. [Source]
Customers consistently praise Spinach AI for its ease of use and seamless integration into existing workflows. For example, Dan Robidoux, Tech Lead at Careviso, described Spinach as "so natural and easy to use," and Belén Medina from Do It Consulting Group said, "Spinach is the best thing that’s happened to our team." [Source]
Spinach AI differentiates itself by offering tailored features for specific roles, advanced AI-powered insights, and seamless integrations with popular tools. Customers like Jason Oliver, Product Director, highlight Spinach AI's unmatched specificity for product management processes, while others appreciate its ability to automate administrative tasks and enhance productivity. [Source]
Spinach AI is designed for a wide range of professionals, including product managers, engineering teams, project managers, marketing teams, HR and recruiting, customer success, sales, and finance teams. Any organization seeking to improve productivity, collaboration, and workflow automation can benefit from Spinach AI. [Source]
Spinach AI helps businesses increase productivity, streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, enable data-driven decisions, and improve customer engagement. By automating routine tasks, teams can focus on strategic work and achieve better outcomes. [Source]
Spinach AI offers persona-specific solutions: sales professionals benefit from automated CRM updates, product managers get tools for PRD generation and insights, customer success teams automate onboarding and follow-ups, and engineering teams streamline sprint planning and retrospectives. [Source]
Spinach AI's vision is to enhance team collaboration and productivity by automating key processes. Its mission is to address operational challenges and improve efficiency across industries through artificial intelligence. [Source]
Spinach AI helps teams run more effective meetings by automating agendas, capturing accurate notes, and tracking action items. This ensures meetings are productive, outcomes are documented, and follow-ups are not missed. [Source]
Customers such as Jason Oliver (Product Director), Ron Meyer (Alliance Executive), and Sergio (Customer Success Manager) have shared positive experiences, highlighting Spinach AI's specificity, ability to automate sales cycles, and support for brainstorming and follow-ups. [Source]
Spinach AI integrates with remote collaboration tools and automates meeting documentation, making it easier for distributed teams to stay aligned, communicate effectively, and track progress regardless of location. [Source]
Spinach AI can help manage a variety of meetings, including daily stand-ups, team check-ins, brainstorming sessions, project status updates, and one-on-one meetings, by automating note-taking and action item tracking. [Source]
Spinach.ai is enterprise-ready, offering robust security and compliance with SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and HIPAA certifications. The Enterprise plan provides advanced features essential for large organizations, including SAML SSO, custom data retention, a dedicated API, compliance monitoring, and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).
Buffer conducts remote one-on-one meetings weekly, typically lasting 50 minutes. Engineering Manager Kara McNair manages 11 direct reports across three teams, focusing on relationship-building, understanding individual goals, and mentoring. Meetings are designed to foster trust, support personal growth, and maintain consistent communication in a distributed team. Source
The main goals are building relationships, understanding how managers can help their team members, and providing mentoring or coaching. These meetings help employees feel supported, encourage open communication, and enable managers to align tasks with individual interests and growth. Source
Managers at Buffer track team member achievements throughout the week, often using Slack to collect topics for discussion. Agendas are flexible, allowing individuals to own their meeting time. Praise is shared publicly, while concerns are added privately before meetings to avoid surprises. Source
The biggest challenge is finding time to prepare properly, especially with new hires. Managers sometimes ask longer-term team members to take more ownership of their meetings, which helps build trust and relationships. Source
Managers focus on building genuine relationships, asking questions about interests, and sharing their own vulnerabilities. They provide space for employees to express themselves and connect on a human level. Source
Common questions include "How are things going?" and inquiries about personal interests or career goals. Managers adapt topics based on what employees want to discuss, whether it's work, career, or personal matters. Source
A successful one-on-one is when an employee feels supported, receives help with a challenge, or gains useful tools and ideas. Enjoyable conversations are also considered good outcomes. Source
Buffer prioritizes consistent and excellent onboarding, balancing manager responsibilities to avoid burnout and ensure new hires feel supported. Relationship-building is a key focus during the initial months. Source
One-on-ones are held weekly and usually last 50 minutes. Some meetings with non-direct reports are 30 minutes, and established relationships may shift to biweekly meetings. Source
Managers forward Slack conversations to private DMs to themselves, tracking topics and achievements for discussion in one-on-ones. This helps ensure recognition and relevant agenda items. Source
Memorable outcomes include helping employees pursue personal goals, such as moving to a new office location, and supporting them through challenges. Managers value honest communication and actively assist in career development. Source
Managers balance trade-offs between one-on-ones, project management, and other responsibilities by collaborating with peers and encouraging team members to take ownership of their meetings. Source
The 'lottery factor' refers to risk when only a few people know critical systems. Buffer encourages cross-training and task swapping to reduce this risk and ensure sustainable team operations. Source
Managers use one-on-ones to coach employees, help them identify risks, and encourage broader thinking. They model question-asking and provide advice to help employees grow professionally. Source
Spinach AI provides a massive (& free) collection of meeting agenda templates, performance review tools, and features to help managers run better meetings, hit goals, and share feedback faster. Source
Managers can use Spinach AI to automate note-taking, track action items, and generate meeting insights, making one-on-ones more productive and less administratively burdensome. Source
For additional insights, check out Spinach AI's Q&A with Matt Himel, head of BD and Partnerships at Drop Technologies, and other resources on the Spinach AI blog. Source
Spinach AI provides automated note-taking, AI-powered insights, seamless integrations with tools like Zoom, Slack, Jira, Salesforce, and customizable solutions for different teams. These features enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and improve communication across remote and distributed teams. Source
Yes, Spinach AI automatically captures meeting notes, action items, and outcomes, allowing users to focus on discussions without distractions. Source
Spinach AI integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack, Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, Jira, Trello, Asana, ClickUp, Linear, Monday.com, Notion, Confluence, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Attio, BambooHR, Rippling, Workday, OKTA, SCIM, Zapier, NetSuite, and SAP. Source
Yes, Spinach AI offers a Transcript & AI Summary API, available across all plans. The API allows users to access transcripts and AI-generated summaries for enhanced integration and automation. Source
Spinach AI offers printed and digital instructions, online help files, technical documentation, and user manuals. These resources are available in the Help Center for troubleshooting and learning. Source
Spinach AI is certified for SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and HIPAA, ensuring adherence to industry-leading security and privacy standards. Source
Spinach AI uses best-in-class encryption, access controls, and intrusion detection software. It enforces responsible AI practices, including a zero data retention policy with AI subprocessors, and undergoes regular third-party audits. Source
The Starter plan is free and includes unlimited meeting recording, transcription, and basic AI summaries. Source
The Pro plan is pay-as-you-go, starting at $2.90 per meeting hour. It is designed for unlimited users and includes advanced AI features. Source
The Business plan is a per-user plan with unlimited meetings and advanced AI. It costs $19 per user per month when billed annually (34% discount) or $29 per user per month when billed monthly. Source
The Enterprise plan is custom, designed for organizations needing advanced security, control, and customization. Pricing is determined through consultation with the sales team and volume discounts are available. Source
Descript is known for audio and video editing, transcription, and screen recording. Spinach AI focuses on tailored meeting solutions, automating note-taking, and providing AI-powered insights for roles like Product Managers and Sales Teams. Source
Fireflies.ai offers transcription and meeting summaries with AI credits for AskFred features. Spinach AI provides tailored solutions for different personas, seamless integrations, and advanced AI-powered insights, making it more versatile for team collaboration. Source
Otter.ai specializes in fast transcription services. Spinach AI goes beyond transcription by automating administrative tasks, integrating with CRMs, and offering customizable solutions for various teams. Source
Meetgeek provides meeting summaries and insights for remote teams. Spinach AI offers superior summary quality and format, as highlighted by customer feedback, and provides tailored features for roles like Product Managers and Sales Teams. Source
Spinach AI is designed for Product Managers, Sales Teams, Customer Success Teams, Engineering Teams, HR and Recruiting Teams, and Marketing Teams. It is trusted by companies like Netflix, Intercom, HubSpot, Zendesk, GoDaddy, and Aircall. Source
Customers can expect time savings, improved workflow efficiency, enhanced decision-making, increased productivity, better customer engagement, and cost efficiency. Spinach AI automates administrative tasks and provides actionable insights. Source
Spinach AI is designed for rapid implementation. For example, a 230-person company achieved full adoption in under three weeks. Free account setup, onboarding programs, and dedicated customer success managers are available. Source
Customers praise Spinach AI for its intuitive interface and seamless integration. Testimonials include Josh Guttman (CRO at Altrio), Dan Robidoux (Tech Lead at Careviso), Jason Oliver (Product Director), and Antoine Moreau (Director of Partnerships North America). Source
Success stories include Kushal Birje (Senior Director of Revenue Operations at EDB), Dan Robidoux (Tech Lead at Careviso), Belén Medina (Do It Consulting Group), and Jason Oliver (Product Director). These customers report improved workflows, better communication, and enhanced team alignment. Source
Spinach AI offers a Help Center, onboarding programs for Business and Enterprise plans, dedicated customer success managers, priority support for paid plans, and sales team assistance via Calendly. Source
Spinach AI enforces a zero data retention policy with AI subprocessors, never uses customer data for AI model training, and regularly reviews vendor agreements for compliance. Source
Spinach.ai is enterprise-ready, offering robust security and compliance with SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and HIPAA certifications. The Enterprise plan provides advanced features essential for large organizations, including SAML SSO, custom data retention, a dedicated API, compliance monitoring, and a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).
We know that amazing managers do one-on-ones with their team. But we’re always wondering how they actually go about it.…
Paige Magarrey
We know that amazing managers do one-on-ones with their team. But we’re always wondering how they actually go about it. Because one-on-ones are such a personal thing, we know that every manager has their own unique spin on them. That’s why we’re always looking to talk to cool companies about how they do one-on-ones with their team.
This week, we’re talking to Buffer! Not only is Buffer a super cool social media management platform – it’s also an entirely remote workforce, with employees working in 15 countries (and 11 time zones!).
That’s why we were especially excited to talk to Kara McNair, Engineering Manager at Buffer, about how she has meaningful one-on-ones with her entirely-remote team.
We sat down with Kara to talk about the purpose of one-on-ones, how she prepares, memorable conversations and more.
Kara’s 1:1 basics:
I have personally gotten so used to one-to-ones that it no longer occurred to me that one wouldn’t do them, so it’s really valuable to be asked this because it’s a great reflection prompt for why they are important.
(Also, I’ve just noticed you’re using “one-on-ones” and I go with “one-to-ones” – in calendar invites, I tend to use either 1:1 or 1<>1. I think “on” implies a hierarchy, where “to,” “:,” and “<>” feel a bit more collaborative.)
To me, there are three primary reasons to do regular one-to-ones:
I want my direct reports to really understand that my job is to help them be successful and to meet their own goals and dreams. By spending time learning about what matters to them and showing them that I really care about that, they trust me enough to tell me when things aren’t going well for them and giving me the chance to help them.
A codicil to that: sometimes people encounter opportunities that are phenomenally better for them than where they currently are. There are a ton of reasons why that can happen, but I want to be the kind of manager that someone can approach and say, “Hey, my dream job was posted and I am going for it.”
And I can say, truthfully, “Well, yup, I see that. I cannot compete with that, and I care more about you living your best life than anything else, so how can I help?” That tends to breed a healthy situation for the whole team to view each other as whole people, and we can celebrate people “leveling up” on their personal plans.
This is related to the above, but it also is more tactical. If I have a teammate who is shouldering a lot of server/API work but is really interested in learning more front-end (e.g. React) tech, and has been trying to find time on her own to learn that, if I know that, I can prompt her and the rest of the team to swap and trade task assignments to keep everyone challenged and motivated.
There’s a side benefit for me in that the more each team member learns more about more of the system, the more we reduce our “lottery factor.” It also helps us more effectively sustainably balance on-call and support functions!
This is not a thing that I actively seek out because I think I prefer coaching to teaching. But at the same time, I’ve been at this a while, I’ve developed a pretty good “Ooh, here be dragons” sensor and I can help folks learn how to identify and mitigate risks that they might not know about yet.
Aside from risks, an area I have found that my experience helps folks with is “thinking bigger.” I’m a big-time “looker-aheader” (my boss even said I’m a ✨ at this ). By modelling asking certain types of question-asking, I gather that I help others discover a broader perspective. Some of that is just coaching, but some of it is advice/mentoring too. I love all of it, because when I see people get that “Ohhhh! AHA” moment, I know I’ve saved them pain and grief in future.
"I have personally gotten so used to one-to-ones that it no longer occurred to me that one wouldn’t do them." – @karamcnair of @buffer Share on XAs of the end of August, I have 11 direct reports across three teams. That’s really more than we believe to be ideal for a manager, but for a variety of reasons, it makes sense for us to keep this structure for now. In the last four months, I have had six new hires join and we want to make sure that their onboarding/relationship-building is consistent and excellent! What this means is that I balance trade-offs with other responsibilities (project management, interviewing, etc.) with my peers and teammates to make sure that I don’t burn out but we also don’t shortchange Buffer’s priorities
Weekly! That’s been my standard for years, but in a remote team, where you can’t just chat waiting while the coffee machine has blue-screened and is rebooting, it’s really important to maintain these communication/relationship channels on a regular basis.
Right now, with so many new direct reports, I am exploring shortening some of my “established relationship” 1:1s or moving to biweekly for a few – at least until the new folks feel settled and all these relationships are stable
"In a remote team, where you can’t just chat waiting while the coffee machine has blue-screened and is rebooting, it’s really important to maintain these communication/relationship channels on a regular basis." – @karamcnair of @buffer Share on XMy preference is an hour. I have a few regular syncs with non-direct reports for whom it is still really important that we get on the same page with regularly, and we tend to do those weekly, for 30 minutes. Folks who I can go deep with but things are less urgent can be an hour biweekly. It’s amazing how much time we spend chatting in a remote workplace! Amazing and so valuable!
One of the things I care a lot about is making sure that I keep track of things my team members have done throughout the week and that I recognize them in our chats. I actually forward Slack convos to my private DM to myself to keep track of things I want to chat about.
I am less organized/more free form than a lot of other managers. My position is that the 1:1 time is owned by the individual and I am here for them. If there are things I need to tell them that don’t need to be “urgent,” I will add them to our agenda (but in a kind way, because I don’t want to blindside folks who might see document updates out of time). That’s part of why I build a private list in Slack rather than updating our shared doc in real-time. Praise can go public in shared doc but any concerns get added shortly before our chat.
I have several people who love to chat and really want to make sure we meet every week, but when we run out of topics will prompt to end the call. Others are more “useless-meeting” sensitive and would prefer not to chat if we have no bullet points on the agenda.
I have found that even if we’re running out of stuff to talk about, preserving space for communication tends to be really fruitful! I’ve regularly found that when our call has gotten awkwardly silent near the end, and we’re kind of dancing around ending it, one of the two of us will suddenly remember something that we really wanted to talk about, but because it wasn’t “purposeful,” it didn’t get on an agenda. I love when these pop up.
It’s a bit lame, but “how are things going?” I also ask them about other interests and seek common ground there.
A team member expressed a love of food/cooking recently on Slack, so we spend time chatting about that. Another bought an off-road motorcycle recently and we talked about how interesting the motorcycle safety course we both took was. This is their time and I trust them to use it effectively. Some days they want to talk career. Some days they want to talk current work. Some days they’re so busy and engaged in current work tasks that they don’t want to spend a lot of time away from that work. Some days, they want to connect on a human level.
"Some days they want to talk career. Some days they want to talk current work. Some days they don’t want to spend a lot of time away from that work. Some days, they want to connect on a human level." – @karamcnair of @buffer on her 1:1s Share on XThat’s a really hard question for me because it suggests a sense of methodological planning that I simply don’t do. I like my teammates. All of ‘em. I like to help and I want them to be happy. I ask questions and try to understand what matters to them. I look for shared experiences (see above about motorcycling ) and share my own vulnerabilities. I provide space for them to tell me who they are 🙂.
Right now, I would say that it’s finding the time to prepare for them properly. I’ve had to do a bit of triage and spend more time focusing on my newer teammates and explicitly ask my longer-term folk to own more of that than they otherwise might. One really amazing side-effect of that, though, is that they appreciate the chance to help me out. Sharing challenges and asking for help (where appropriate, of course) is a great way to build trust and relationships.
That’s really hard to come up with! Partly because some of the most memorable ones were relatively private and I’m obviously not going to violate trust and share them here.
This is not at Buffer, but I do recall one person telling me that they had applied for a role at an office of ours in another country because they wanted to move for personal/family reasons. They said that they hadn’t gotten it but that they really still wanted to move and were warning me that they were going to continue to try to move because it was the right thing for their life.
I think they were surprised when I thanked them for being honest with me and then started laying out a plan for how we could make that happen – finding other roles within our company at the same desired office location and getting them coaching on how to show their value through the interview process. I also told them I’d chat with our directors about making sure the folks hiring had access to their (excellent) work samples and internal references. I like to help.
This question has me wondering what even defines a successful one-on-one (although maybe that’s the point of it). For me personally, if someone tells me that I helped them get through a challenge, or helped them feel better about something that was bothering them, that’s successful. If they don’t explicitly tell me but they now have some tools or ideas that they feel would be useful, that’s successful. Those might be the same thing.
A really successful one-on-one is when I’ve helped someone – ideally confirmed by them letting me know that, but that’s not necessary. A good one-on-one is when we’ve had an enjoyable conversation.
(PS: I just saw this on Twitter and it sums up my feelings better than anything I said did!)
Thanks to Kara for letting us dive into the world of remote one-on-ones at Buffer! For more company insights, check out our Q&A with Matt Himel, head of BD and Partnerships at Drop Technologies.
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