alt Hacker NewsThis is also why having a good manager is key; I worked as an engineering manager and kept a near weekly 1-1 with my engineers, not per se to socialize, but to allow them to ask questions about the tasks, implementation comments, etc. but the environment I created allowed them to talk other stuff. All my associates appreciated this mix of technical talk, but also fun discussions, etc. I am sure it help them to stay a bit more involved and sane. You can check recommendations on LinkedIn for confirmation ;-), but my whole team was remote.
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I had 1on1s every 2 weeks and it was always annoying. Partially, because I didn't feel like "opening up" to this team lead and didn't feel like he was on my side or had my back at all. In the end I should be proven right, due to something he did when I left the company and also right before I left, which was one of the reasons I left. Turned out my gut feeling was right, to distrust this guy. He probably just went through the motions of what he had read somewhere of how to be a team lead, instead of really being in it.
Maybe my managers have always sucked or I'm terrible at sharing info or not very chatty with people at work but I've personally always found weekly 1-1's to end up being fairly useless.
May just be a person by person thing though, not saying what you have is bad per say.
Very rarely did anything actually get discussed of any meaning. Ive always found them to end up just being another annoying meeting in my calendar.
I work remotely, my manager for the last 4 years had a 1:1 on the books every Friday. We met a total of 7 times, 4 of those were to give me my annual review and tell me my bonus.
I do this with my team. We spend more than half of our weekly 30 minute 1-on-1s talking about anything but work. That isn't written down anywhere, it's just a natural consequence of us being interested in each others' lives, and prioritizing that over "getting back" 20 minutes to do more work.
We also have a team-wide monthly "happy hour" where we bring one discussion point each, usually an interesting article. They're a lot of fun, and I appreciate my colleagues in a much more rich way than I would have otherwise.
It's so obviously important that we maintain semblance of community through live conversation in remote workplaces. I spend more time "with" my remote colleagues than I do with anyone else in my life, including my wife. The human brain does not separate cleanly into "colleagues" and "friends".