How important is Check-in?

Across all companies, check-in is a buzz word. Everyone keeps emphasizing on its importance in your career growth within the organization. But when it does happen the question is what all should be a part of the agenda so it benefits you in the right stride?

Co-incidentally, I recently encountered my quarterly check-in. Being in recruitment, it was given that the conversation would begin with productivity and a feedback on how to pace it up for the coming quarter. What followed in the conversation is what made me think and understand the relevance of a check in.

The conversation was divided in 3 buckets-my areas of improvement, solutions on how to improve and how support would be extended at every step. The check in was to help me channelize my energy with a positive attitude towards betterment. The feedback was well articulated with careful weight-age given to every word ensuring motivation. It was very encouragingly put across to me that all rests on your enthusiasm, conviction and perseverance. This showed the thought and effort put in the meeting and the seriousness with which it was being followed. It was not being treated as just completing a checklist task. The conversation helped bring clarity and sync between my aspirations and the organizational expectations.

To my surprise, the check-in was nothing like I thought it would be. It was more constructive and meaningful; I came out with solutions and thought clarity on next steps. It was then that it dawned on me, how important this conversation had been. It not only helped me identify the growth path for myself but also inculcated the sense of belonging. True sense of partnership.

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has rightly said “The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.”