What’s the right frequency for an employee check-in?

If you're not checking in with your people regularly, you're missing out on vital information. Blockers. Friction. Exemplary performance. These are the things you'll miss or overlook. The best way to capture the easily-missed, especially with remote working, is an employee check-in. But how often should you check-in? We share the right frequency to run an employee check-in.

If you’ve been coasting along without regular feedback, you might be in for a rude awakening. When it comes to checking in with employees, staying informed is only one part of it. Employees who work in larger companies as well as smaller teams suffer.

Why weekly check-ins are most effective

If you aren’t checking in every week, you’re missing out on a ton of actionable insight. Weekly is the best overall employee check-in frequency for all sorts of reasons. First off, the work week is something we all deal with in one form or another. Even if your schedule isn't a strict Monday-Friday, you still push through to your days off.

So doing check-in updates on a weekly basis lines up perfectly with that. It’s the way of dividing up time that’ll feel the most natural. And, if everyone's on a weekly schedule, managers can stagger their team's updates so they never get in the way.

Download your fully editable Employee Check-in Template at the end of this article.

Employee check-in frequency options

The simple fact is, only doing feedback on an annual basis doesn't work. And yet, they continue to be a mainstay in a lot of organisations. In fact, CEB research has shown that 95% of managers aren't satisfied with how their company runs performance reviews. Regular employee check-ins can bridge the gap. But the question remains, what's the right frequency?

Given the choice, we'd choose weekly check-ins every time. Maybe our name gave it away, huh? But no two businesses are exactly alike, even in the same sector. What works in ninety-nine company cultures might not fit the hundredth. That's why we give managers full control over the employee check-in frequency they use. So, with that in mind, let's go over your options:

Ad-hoc

No set schedule. Useful for dealing with issues on the fly. Even if you pick a set schedule, ad-hoc check-ins can still be really useful.

Daily

Not something we'd recommend, but it's an option if you need constant updates. If employees check in at the end of each work day, managers can respond to updates in the morning so employees are greeted with fresh feedback.

Weekly (the recommended employee check-in frequency)

The ideal employee check-in frequency as far as we're concerned. It's regular enough that feedback is always timely. But what's equally as important is that it's not so regular as to become a nuisance.

Fortnightly

If weekly check-ins seem a little much, try every other week. That way, employees can still touch base a couple of times a month. And, if something comes up, there are always ad-hoc updates.

Monthly

This is about as infrequent as we'd recommend going with an employee check-in. But waiting a month may limit how effective feedback is in practice. Employees have to go weeks without feedback. And, at that point, the inciting incidents won't be clear in their head. Even if they nod and smile like they get it, they clearly haven't learned as much as they would otherwise. To make matters worse, a monthly check-in frequency means employees hold onto grievances. And if your staff are struggling with disengagement, a whole month might be too long to wait.

Too little or too much feedback damages trust

There are plenty of reasons why feedback needs to be timely to be effective. For starters, roughly two-thirds of employees want more frequent feedback. Instant feedback helps employees to adapt their behaviour in the moment. This helps to make learning an active experience rather than a passive one.

In the words of the University of Edinburgh's Dai Hounsell: '[Feedback] plays a decisive role in learning and development. [...] We learn faster, and much more effectively, when we have a clear sense of how well we are doing and what we might need in order to improve.'

Employee check-ins underpin performance management

One last piece of advice for the road. Don't forget, a check-in should only be part of your continuous performance management process. Support it with other tools and channels, from annual reviews to 360-feedback. Your feedback is only as good as the effort you put in, which is why it should be multi-layered.

There's another major reason to have staff check-ins at work. Professional development. Many businesses (too many, if you ask us) still rely on annual performance reviews. But regularly checking in with employees offers a more granular way of providing feedback. So, if you want to keep relying on annual feedback, it’s your funeral!

A weekly employee check-in is the foundation of more modern performance management practices. Download your fully editable Employee Check-in Template here 👇