A 2021 Gallup survey found that 84% of employees who had received meaningful feedback in the past week identified as engaged, compared to just 22% who hadn’t received such feedback.

We recently spoke with Jim Harter, chief scientist of workplace management and wellbeing at Gallup, about the organization’s latest research showing that younger workers tend to be more disengaged than their older peers, a problem that can be exacerbated by these early-career employees not knowing how to ask for feedback from their managers. Harter argues that the onus should be on managers to provide that feedback proactively: “If I was going to put it in a nutshell, what [good managers] do differently is have at least one meaningful conversation once a week with each employee,” he said.

During our conversation, Harter pointed to four different topics that can make those 1:1s feel meaningful to employees. Below is a checklist to use in your own meetings—you don’t need to hit every topic every time, but use this as a guide to ensure your check-ins go beyond business as usual to give workers the feedback that helps them feel connected.