A skip-level meeting is a one-on-one meeting where upper managers meet directly with employees, bypassing the employee’s direct manager. The goal is to connect across organizational levels, discuss employee growth, company strategy, and share feedback. [source]
When done properly, skip-level meetings are beneficial. They are not intended to undermine managers but to improve communication flow, support managers, and build better relationships across the organization. [source]
Both employees and senior leaders should contribute to a shared agenda for skip-level meetings. This collaborative approach ensures meetings are impactful and relevant. [source]
Most skip-level meetings are 30 to 45 minutes long and occur on a bi-monthly or monthly basis. [source]
Skip-level meetings improve communication flow, support managers, build relationships, provide more ways to exchange feedback, and give employees a psychologically safe environment to share ideas. [source]
Employees should treat the meeting as a learning opportunity, seek alignment with leadership, prepare questions and talking points, and use the time to understand company priorities and share their own. [source]
Leaders should focus on building relationships, gathering feedback, uncovering blockers, and fostering a comfortable environment for open discussion. They should talk less and listen more. [source]
Examples include: What mentorship opportunities are available? What skills is our team lacking? How can I support others? What big changes are coming? What’s worrying senior leadership? [source]
Key agenda items: Clarify strategy and goals, discuss professional goals, assess role satisfaction, and identify things to start, stop, or continue as a company. [source]
Spinach AI helps run the agenda, takes accurate meeting notes, automates tasks, and works in your existing tools, making skip-level meetings more productive and actionable. [source]
You can find a collection of meeting agenda templates, including for skip-level meetings, at Spinach AI's agenda templates page.
Spinach AI provides tools for shared agendas, automated note-taking, and performance feedback, making one-on-one and skip-level meetings more structured and actionable. [source]
Bonus questions include: What is everyone neglecting to share with me? What could we do to improve team performance? Who deserves a shout-out? Is there anything I should re-explain to your team? [source]
Spinach AI helps managers run meetings by automating agenda management, note-taking, and follow-up tasks, ensuring meetings are productive and outcomes are tracked. [source]
Spinach AI offers free agenda templates, goal examples, and guides for one-on-one meetings to help users prepare and run effective meetings. [source]
Spinach AI streamlines performance feedback by automating meeting notes and action items, making it easier to track progress and share feedback quickly. [source]
Spinach AI helps teams hit their goals by automating meeting documentation, tracking action items, and integrating with tools like Jira and Salesforce for seamless workflow management. [source]
By automating note-taking and agenda management, Spinach AI allows participants to focus on open, honest communication, fostering a psychologically safe environment. [source]
Feedback should be shared openly and honestly, focusing on company strategy, professional goals, and team alignment, rather than on direct managers. [source]
Spinach AI integrates with tools like Slack, Jira, and Salesforce, automating meeting documentation and action items to improve cross-functional collaboration. [source]
Spinach AI automates note-taking, action item tracking, and post-meeting follow-ups, allowing users to focus on discussions and strategic work. [source]
Spinach AI supports product managers, engineering, project management, marketing, HR, customer success, sales, finance, and more, with tailored features for each role. [source]
Spinach AI offers an AI Meeting Assistant, automated note-taking, workflow optimization, AI-powered insights, seamless integrations, and tailored solutions for different roles. [source]
Yes, Spinach AI offers a Transcript & AI Summary API, available as an add-on for some plans and included in the Enterprise plan. [source]
Spinach AI is SOC 2 Type 2 certified (audited by EY), GDPR compliant, and HIPAA compliant. It uses TLS and AES-256 encryption and offers SAML SSO, SCIM, admin controls, and custom data retention policies. [source]
Spinach AI can be set up almost instantly. Users sign up with Google or Microsoft, connect their calendars, and start using the platform immediately. Premium users receive onboarding support. [source]
Spinach AI solves pain points such as manual note-taking, administrative task overload, workflow inefficiency, extracting insights from feedback, and cross-team collaboration challenges. [source]
Spinach AI stands out with tailored features for different roles, advanced AI-powered insights, seamless integrations, and customizable solutions for teams. Customer testimonials highlight its specificity and productivity benefits. [source]
Notable customers include Infinite Ranges, AlfaDocs, Authvia, EDB, Do It Consulting Group, and Careviso, representing industries such as sales, technology, consulting, and healthcare technology. [source]
Industries include sales, customer success, technology, revenue operations, consulting, and healthcare technology, as highlighted in case studies and testimonials. [source]
Customers consistently praise Spinach AI for its ease of use, seamless integrations, and productivity improvements. Testimonials from Careviso, Do It Consulting Group, and Authvia highlight these strengths. [source]
Spinach AI offers tailored solutions for sales, product managers, customer success, HR, engineering, agile coaches, and finance teams, addressing their unique pain points with specific features. [source]
Spinach AI increases productivity, streamlines workflows, enhances collaboration, enables data-driven decisions, and improves customer engagement, driving business growth. [source]
Case studies include Infinite Ranges (sales cycles), AlfaDocs (customer engagement), Authvia (workflow efficiency), EDB (project handling), and Do It Consulting Group (team communication). [source]
Spinach AI never uses user data for training, maintains strict privacy standards, and offers custom data retention policies. [source]
Spinach AI integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, Salesforce, and more for seamless workflow automation. [source]
Spinach AI automatically captures and tracks action items during meetings, ensuring follow-through and accountability. [source]
Spinach AI uses advanced AI analysis to identify trends, pain points, and opportunities from user interviews and feedback, enabling data-driven decisions. [source]
Spinach AI is intuitive, requires no complex IT setup, and offers instant onboarding. Customers highlight its natural workflow and seamless integrations. [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).
A skip-level meeting is a one-on-one session where upper managers meet directly with employees, bypassing the employee’s direct manager. The goal is to connect across multiple levels of the organization, allowing employees to gain insight into company goals and strategies, while senior leaders create a space for career progression discussions and feedback sharing. [Source]
When conducted properly, skip-level meetings are highly beneficial. They are not intended to gather feedback about direct managers, but to improve communication flow, support managers, and build stronger relationships between senior leaders and employees. [Source]
Skip-level meetings improve communication across all levels, support managers, build better relationships, provide more feedback channels, and give employees a psychologically safe environment to share ideas and feel heard. [Source]
Both employees and senior leaders should contribute to a shared agenda for skip-level meetings. This collaborative approach ensures the meeting is productive and relevant to both parties. Most skip-level meetings last 30 to 45 minutes and occur bi-monthly or monthly. [Source]
Employees should treat skip-level meetings as opportunities to learn about leadership perspectives, seek alignment with company priorities, prepare questions and talking points, and use the time to reflect on their career journey and future goals. [Source]
Employees can ask about mentorship opportunities, team skill gaps, ways to support others, company progress, upcoming changes, team improvements, leadership concerns, and how to get more involved in workplace culture. [Source]
Leaders should approach skip-level meetings with curiosity, aiming to strengthen relationships, gather frontline insights, foster a comfortable environment, and focus on listening more than talking. Preparation includes setting the right context and being open to feedback. [Source]
Managers can ask about employees' professional goals, job satisfaction, recent highlights, cross-functional collaboration, workplace culture improvements, and what they would change if they were in leadership roles. [Source]
Bonus questions include asking what is being neglected to share, how company actions impact personal life, ways to improve team performance, who deserves recognition, and if there are questions that would help in daily work. [Source]
A recommended agenda includes: clarifying strategy and goals, discussing professional goals for the next 6-12 months, assessing role satisfaction, and identifying what the company should start, stop, or continue doing. [Source]
Spinach AI helps managers run better meetings by providing shared agendas, automated note-taking, and actionable insights, making skip-level meetings more productive and ensuring key points are captured and followed up. [Source]
Tips include preparing questions in advance, fostering psychological safety, focusing on alignment, using the time to learn and share, and leveraging tools like Spinach AI for agenda management and note-taking. [Source]
Most skip-level meetings are scheduled for 30 to 45 minutes on a bi-monthly or monthly basis, ensuring regular but not overly frequent touchpoints between senior leaders and employees. [Source]
Employees can overcome nervousness by viewing the meeting as a learning opportunity, preparing questions, seeking alignment, and remembering that senior leaders are there to provide guidance and support. [Source]
Psychological safety is crucial in skip-level meetings, as it encourages employees to share ideas, feedback, and concerns openly without fear of negative consequences. Leaders should foster this environment for effective dialogue. [Source]
Leaders should avoid using skip-level meetings to gather feedback about direct managers and instead focus on company strategy, employee growth, and open communication. This maintains trust and supports managers. [Source]
Common mistakes include not setting up the meeting properly, using it to undermine managers, failing to foster psychological safety, and not preparing a shared agenda. [Source]
Spinach AI offers a library of meeting agenda templates, including those for skip-level meetings, to help structure conversations, ensure important topics are covered, and make meetings more productive. [Source]
You can explore Spinach AI's library of agenda templates and meeting guides for various types of meetings, including skip-level and one-on-ones, at Spinach AI Agenda Templates.
Spinach AI provides automated note-taking, action item tracking, meeting summaries, AI-powered insights, and seamless integrations with tools like Zoom, Slack, Jira, Salesforce, and more. It also offers customizable solutions for different teams and roles. [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 meeting platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex), communication tools (Slack), calendar services (Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar), project management tools (Jira, Trello, Asana, ClickUp, Linear, Monday.com, Notion, Confluence), CRM tools (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Attio), HRIS and directory sync (BambooHR, Rippling, Workday, OKTA, SCIM), automation tools (Zapier), and ERP systems (NetSuite, SAP). [Source]
Yes, Spinach AI provides 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 comprehensive technical documentation, including printed and digital instructions, online help files, technical documentation, and user manuals. These resources are accessible via the Help Center. [Source]
Spinach AI streamlines administrative tasks, automates meeting recaps and CRM updates, and integrates with popular tools to ensure smooth communication and collaboration across teams. [Source]
Key capabilities include automated note-taking, action item tracking, AI-powered insights, customizable solutions for different teams, enhanced collaboration, and improved customer engagement. These features empower teams to work smarter and achieve better outcomes. [Source]
Spinach AI offers tailored features for product managers (PRD generation), sales teams (CRM integrations), customer success (onboarding automation), engineering (sprint planning), HR (hiring insights), and marketing (campaign planning), addressing unique challenges for each persona. [Source]
Customers have praised Spinach AI for being easy to install, intuitive, and seamlessly integrating into workflows. Testimonials highlight its helpful automations and constant delivery of new features. [Source]
The Starter plan is free and includes unlimited meeting recording, transcription, and basic AI summaries. [Source]
The Pro plan is a pay-as-you-go model starting at $2.90 per meeting hour. It is designed for unlimited users and includes advanced AI features. [Source]
The Business plan costs $19 per user per month when billed annually (34% discount) or $29 per user per month when billed monthly. It includes unlimited meetings and advanced AI features. [Source]
The Enterprise plan is a custom offering for organizations needing advanced security, control, and customization. Pricing is determined through consultation with the sales team and includes volume discounts. [Source]
Yes, Spinach AI offers flexible billing options, including monthly and annual cycles, to suit different organizational needs. [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 to safeguard data. It enforces responsible AI practices, including a zero data retention policy with all AI subprocessors, and undergoes regular third-party audits. [Source]
Yes, Spinach AI is compliant with both GDPR and HIPAA, meeting the standards for protecting sensitive personal and health information. [Source]
Spinach AI is designed for product managers, sales teams, customer success, engineering, HR, recruiting, and marketing teams. It is trusted by organizations 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 by automating and streamlining meeting-related tasks. [Source]
Yes. For example, Kushal Birje (EDB) noted Spinach AI changed how their team handles meetings and projects, while Dan Robidoux (Careviso) called it a "silent cornerstone" for daily work. Jason Oliver (Product Director) praised its specificity for product management. [Source]
Spinach AI is designed for rapid implementation. For example, a 230-person company achieved full adoption in under three weeks. Free account setup and onboarding programs are available. [Source]
Spinach AI offers a Help Center, onboarding programs for Business and Enterprise plans, dedicated customer success managers, priority support, and the ability to schedule meetings with the sales team for demos and inquiries. [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 specific roles, which Descript does not specialize in. [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, enhancing productivity and collaboration. [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]
Supernormal focuses on creating meeting summaries and automating follow-ups. Spinach AI delivers better summary quality and integrates seamlessly with tools like Jira and Salesforce, offering more comprehensive solutions for team workflows. [Source]
Trint specializes in transcription and video captioning. Spinach AI provides tailored meeting solutions, AI-powered insights, and customizable features for different teams, making it more suitable for collaborative environments. [Source]
Sonix offers automated transcription and translation services. Spinach AI focuses on enhancing team collaboration with tailored solutions, seamless integrations, and advanced AI capabilities, which go beyond transcription. [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).
Skip-level meetings are a goldmine for employee feedback. Here are four skip-level meeting questions to add to your agenda.
Hiba Amin
Skip-level meetings are often short and infrequent, but pack a punch in terms of impact on both senior management and individual contributors. These meetings aren’t meant to undermine managers in between, but rather to connect those working across multiple levels of the organization to discuss an employee’s growth, company strategy, and share feedback.
Before we get to our skip-level meeting agenda template, here are a few things you might be wondering about, including:
You can also jump to the skip-level meeting template.
Let’s get started!
A skip-level meeting is a one-on-one meeting where upper managers meet directly with employees, bypassing the employee’s direct manager, essentially “skipping” a level of management to connect directly with employees. (Get it? 😏)
The goal of a skip-level meeting is twofold:
The best skip-level meetings happen when both employees and senior leaders contribute to a shared agenda. And in terms of timing, most skip-level meetings are 30 to 45 minutes on a bi-monthly or monthly basis. While the meetings might be shorter than a typical one-on-one, the impact is tremendous (when done well).
When done properly, no, they’re actually great. As mentioned, skip-level meetings are not a time to get feedback from employees on their direct managers. That kind of feedback should be brought up between the direct report and manager directly.
Skip-level meetings are intended for senior leaders to share high-level strategy and connect with employees they might not connect with regularly otherwise. It’s an opportunity for senior leaders to build better relationships and connections across the organization. Fabian Camargo, Engineering Management Coach puts it best:
Definitely for! Skip-levels when done well are great to improve the communication flow, support managers, and improve the skip-level relationship. There are a few gotchas like not setting them up properly, or undermining the manager, but worth the risk.
— The Managing Dev (@managingdev) March 1, 2021
I’m a manager & the co-founder often meets with my team. My team shared with me that they were afraid of him as “boss man” so I suggested they meet with him to see how great he really is.
— marquis matson 💃🏼 (@MarquisMatson) March 1, 2021
I found that they became more connected to the mission & the brand overall after that 😍
One of the objectives of this meeting is to improve alignment across the organization. Camargo shares that:
“Skip-levels can be helpful to make sure the messages are consistent between the employee, manager, and the skip-level manager.”
Fabian Camargo, Engineering Management Coach
This meeting is also a means for reducing top-down communication within an organization, giving employees ample opportunity to voice concerns, ideas, and anything else that’s top of mind. After all, when did a game of broken telephone end with the same initial message successfully? Never.
I appreciate skip-level meetings. It offers us a chance to get a future-vision of the business from execs. For example, AI is becoming increasingly relevant in our industry. Skip-level meetings allow me to get more insight into how we plan on applying AI in our service!
— Devin 📈 (@DevinPickell) March 1, 2021
If you’re in the employee seat during a skip-level meeting, here are some ways in which you can prepare:
Speaking to the last point, if you’re not sure what questions to ask, you can pick from our list!
Want more? Check out these 121 one-on-one questions!
Approach this meeting with a curiosity around how you can help strengthen the relationship between the employee and their manager, as well as the relationship between the employee and the company.
This is your opportunity to gather useful information on how things are going, straight from the front-line. During this time, do your best to learn how engaged your employees are, and how this is impacting effectiveness – in other words, get the information that isn’t always readily accessible to leaders.
Be thoughtful around how employees might feel, and aware that he/she might have difficulty sharing opinions and being vulnerable with you. It’s your job to make sure you foster that environment both by setting the pretext for your one-on-one before and during your meeting.
I’ve generally set them up with the intention of:
— A Dad Life (@klkrause) March 1, 2021
– Getting to know each other
– Allowing the employee drive the agenda
– Always keeping them open and honest
I do my best to make them feel comfortable from the start … which usually means trying to find something relatable.
One thing to remind yourself is that, while you’re a leader within the organization, you’re not their direct manager. Don’t treat this as a typical one-on-one meeting. Instead, here are some other ways you can approach this meeting:
For employees, prepare and do your absolute best to be yourself.
— Ross Taylor 🍁 (@TheRossTaylor) March 1, 2021
For leaders, talk less. Listen more. Be incredibly transparent.
If you’re struggling to add questions to the agenda, use these four essential agenda items to fuel your conversations:
Next, here are some things you can do now that you've read this article:
helps managers run better
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