Feedback season:how do you book every 1:1 and skip-level with one link?

Having sat on both sides of the table, as a manager and as a direct report, I have a well-rounded view on this topic. As a department leader with multiple direct and indirect reports, I can say the time and preparation each conversation needs is severely underrated, and in many cases, not planned for at all.

Yes, booking these meetings is a chore in itself: finding the right time with each person. What I’d also factor in is the time it takes to go into each conversation well prepared. When you manage a large team alongside all your other commitments and deliverables, that can be a daunting task.

So is there a better way to plan, prepare for and manage these conversations at scale? In this piece: why feedback season takes so long to schedule, what a rushed round costs, a CMI model for running appraisals, a manager toolkit with a prep sheet, how to set up one link for every 1:1 and skip-level, and a planner that shows how much time your round takes, preparation included.

Because every conversation is a separate booking, and they all land in the same few weeks. One manager with eight reports and a round of skip-levels can easily have 20 or more to arrange.

The time adds up across a company. Deloitte once tallied what its performance process took. As Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall wrote in Harvard Business Review in 2015, “completing the forms, holding the meetings, and creating the ratings consumed close to 2 million hours a year.”

There are also more conversations than there used to be. The Chartered Management Institute notes that annual appraisals have largely given way to six-monthly meetings, often alternating with development reviews and backed by regular one-to-ones.

Sources: Harvard Business Review, Reinventing Performance Management · CMI, Conducting a performance appraisal

The conversation itself. When reviews are squeezed in back-to-back, the person on the other side notices, and the feedback lands as a box to tick.

Gallup found that 80% of employees who say they’ve had “meaningful feedback” in the past week are fully engaged. In a separate study of nearly 15,000 employees, only 16% said their last conversation with their manager was “extremely meaningful.”

In my view, the scheduling is the one part of feedback season that should take no thought at all, so the time and attention go on the conversations.

Source: Gallup, A great manager’s most important habit

The CMI’s checklist for conducting a performance appraisal runs from preparation to follow-up. Three of its steps depend on time being booked well. Pick a step to see how it maps.

Source: CMI, Conducting a performance appraisal

The research on feedback keeps coming back to preparation. CIPD’s 2022 evidence review on performance feedback asks organizations to prompt managers to “invest time in better preparing and delivering feedback.” Here’s what the evidence suggests before, during and after each conversation.

Before: what to prepare

1. 1.Start with what’s gone well. In a 2017 CIPD field trial in three UK public bodies, strengths-based conversations raised how useful employees found them for learning and development by 9.7 points.
2. 2.Gather specific examples. CIPD’s review puts it simply: “Deliver specific feedback.” Two or three real moments give the person something to act on.
3. 3.Ask what would help them. The same review suggests asking employees what feedback would help them most, and CMI suggests telling them how to prepare.

During: how to run it

1. 1.Make it two-way. Listen more than you talk, as CMI’s checklist puts it, and ask whether the feedback feels fair and something they can act on.
2. 2.Look forward. CIPD calls it feed-forward: find what helped in the past, then plan how to set up the same conditions again.
3. 3.Cover what people value most. Gallup’s list of what makes feedback land starts with recognition, then collaboration, current goals and strengths. Talk about weaknesses ranks lower, so raise problems within that wider picture.

After: what to agree

1. 1.Close with objectives and a date. CMI suggests agreeing objectives and setting a follow-up date before you finish.
2. 2.Hand over the tracking. CIPD’s review encourages employees to track their own progress against their goals.
3. 3.Keep talking between reviews. Gallup found that 15 to 30 minutes is enough, as long as the conversations happen often.

Use the prep sheet below for each conversation. Print it or save it as a PDF to take into the room.

The habit I’d keep from all of this is writing it down. A short session with a prep sheet turns a slot in the calendar into a conversation with a shape.

Sources: CIPD, Performance feedback: an evidence review · CIPD, Strengths-based performance conversations · Gallup, A great manager’s most important habit · CMI, Conducting a performance appraisal

Each manager sets it up once, in a few minutes, and shares one link with the team.

1. 1.Create a booking page for feedback 1:1s. Set the length and add a Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Webex link.
2. 2.Set your review hours and a daily limit. Meeting hours keep bookings inside the windows you choose, and meeting limits cap how many land in one day.
3. 3.Add a buffer after each review. Time to write notes before the next person arrives.
4. 4.Share the link with your team. Each person books the slot that suits them, and the round fills itself in.
5. 5.Do the same for skip-levels. Skip-level managers share their own booking page with the wider group. For group skip-levels, a sign-up sheet lets people join a session with a few seats each. Find Time shows when a small, fixed group is free (Team and Enterprise plans).

What if you’d rather offer set review slots?

A sign-up sheet works well here. You create the review sessions yourself, give each one a single seat and limit everyone to one session, so each person takes one slot. You can hide names, so the team doesn’t see who picked which time. Leave gaps between sessions as you create them, and check the sheet before the window closes, because Doodle doesn’t notify you as people sign up.

Can HR book reviews for every manager?

HR can set the timetable and share the steps, but each manager connects their own calendar and owns their booking page, so nobody books into someone else’s calendar on their behalf. That keeps every manager in control of their own week.

For me, the simplest version is the best one: one link per manager, sent on the day the review window opens.

Enter your team size and how you like to run reviews. The planner shows how many conversations you have, the time they take, the time you’ll need to prepare for them and how many working days the round needs at your daily limit. Nothing you type is stored or sent.

Where do you start?

1. 1.Pick your review windows. The days and hours you’ll keep free for feedback conversations.
2. 2.Set a daily limit you can sustain. Fewer reviews a day leaves room to listen and write up.
3. 3.Send one link the day the window opens. Everyone books in their own time, and you can see the round fill up.