What is a skip-level meeting?
A skip-level meeting is a scheduled conversation between a leader and the employees who report to one of the leader's managers. The leader is the "skip-level manager": their manager's manager. The meeting skips one level of the chain of command, so a director meets the individual contributors on their managers' teams (their indirect reports, as opposed to their direct reports), or a vice president meets the managers who report to their directors.
It only makes sense where there are at least three levels of management in a line. In a flat organizational structure most people already talk to the leader every week; in a tall one, every extra level filters what reaches the top. The reporting structure decides who meets whom, which is why the meeting follows reporting lines rather than departments. For how those lines add up across a company, see organizational hierarchy; for how an engagement survey reads results along them, see org hierarchy reporting.
Why skip-level meetings matter
The purpose of a skip-level meeting is to shorten the distance between the people who decide and the people who do the work. Five things come out of it when it runs well.
- Hear what does not travel up
Information is filtered at every level it passes. A skip-level conversation hears the work as the people doing it describe it, before it is summarised for a slide.
- See how teams are led
The skip-level manager learns how each of their managers runs a team, which matters because, by Gallup's estimate, managers account for at least 70% of the variance in engagement across business units. See manager effectiveness.
- Find ideas and blockers early
People close to customers and processes spot problems and fixes first. Asking them directly shortens the time between noticing and acting.
- Connect the work to the strategy
Employees hear from a senior leader why priorities are set the way they are, and leaders hear whether that reasoning lands.
- Build trust across levels
A leader who shows up, listens and follows through makes the rest of the hierarchy feel more open, which in turn makes feedback more honest.
None of this replaces the direct manager. The skip-level manager is listening for patterns across teams, while day-to-day support, feedback and development stay with the person each employee reports to.
What our benchmark says about the distance to leadership
On CultureMonkey's benchmark, leadership, involvement and communication rank 14, 13 and 16 of 22 engagement drivers, and each has a moderate or strong link to eNPS. Those are the drivers a skip-level meeting works on directly: hearing from leaders, being asked for input, and information that travels both ways. All three sit near or below the median driver score, which leaves real room for a leader to move them.
Scores on a 0 to 10 scale; the median driver scores 8.09. Source: CultureMonkey employee engagement driver benchmarks.
Who attends, and how often?
The skip-level manager attends with employees from one of their managers' teams. The direct manager does not attend, which is what gives the meeting its value. HR can help schedule and brief, but rarely sits in.
How often depends on how many people sit two levels down. A leader whose managers each run a team of eight, a common span of control, may have forty or more people at skip level, so one-on-ones with everyone every quarter are rarely realistic. Most leaders mix formats.
| Format | Who | How often | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-on-one | Every employee two levels down, one at a time | Once or twice a year each; quarterly for a small org | 30 minutes |
| Small group | Three to eight people from one team, without their manager | Quarterly | 45 to 60 minutes |
| Rotating | A few people from each team every month, so everyone is covered over the year | Monthly | 30 to 45 minutes |
| New leader | Everyone two levels down in the first 90 days | Once, then one of the above | 30 minutes |
Small groups suit a first round, because people speak more freely beside their peers. One-on-ones suit career conversations and people who are quieter in a group.
“Setting up a skip level meeting is pretty normal. And you just call it that, this is a skip level meeting so I can understand what's happening at the higher level leadership. I just want to have exposure here.”
Elizabeth S. EganDirector of Talent Management, Cerence AICultureClub X, Season 5, Episode 2
Watch episodeHow to run a skip-level meeting: 7 steps
These steps are written for the skip-level manager. The first and last are the ones most often skipped, and they are the ones that decide whether the direct manager sees the meeting as help or as a threat.
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1. Tell the direct manager first | Before any invitation goes out, explain to each middle manager why you are holding skip-levels, what you will ask, and that you will share themes with them, not names. The Management Center's sample emails put the aim plainly: to "gather information without undermining your management". |
| 2. Invite with a clear purpose | Say in the invitation that the meeting is a regular practice, not a sign that something is wrong, and that it is non-anonymous: what is said is attributable, and you will only share themes with the manager. Send it to a whole team, not to selected individuals. |
| 3. Prepare from what you already know | Read the team's latest survey results, any open actions and what you heard last time. Note two or three themes to listen for, without deciding the answer in advance. The section on reading the survey before the meeting covers what to look at. |
| 4. Open by setting the rules | Restate why you are there and how the notes will be used. Share one or two things you are working on, so the conversation runs both ways from the first minute. |
| 5. Ask open questions and listen | Speak for no more than a third of the time. Ask about the work, the obstacles and what would help, and follow a good answer with a second question rather than a solution. |
| 6. Agree on one or two follow-ups | Close by reading back what you heard and naming what you will look into. Promise only what you can deliver, and say when people will hear back. |
| 7. Close the loop through the manager | Debrief the direct manager within a few days, agree who owns each follow-up, then report back to the team. See closing the loop below. |
A skip-level meeting agenda template
A 45-minute slot works for a small group; trim the open questions to fit 30 minutes for a one-on-one. Share the agenda with the invitation so nobody walks in guessing.
| Time | Block | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 min | Welcome and purpose | Why skip-levels exist, how notes are used, and that the meeting is non-anonymous. |
| 5 to 10 min | Leader update | One or two priorities and what has changed since the last meeting, including follow-ups from last time. |
| 10 to 30 min | Open questions | The work, the team, support, growth and the company. Mostly listening. |
| 30 to 40 min | Their questions | Anything they want to ask a senior leader. Answer directly or say when you will. |
| 40 to 45 min | Read-back and next steps | What you heard, the one or two things you will look into, and when they will hear back. |
Record themes rather than quotes; those notes are what you take to the debrief with the manager.
30 skip-level meeting questions
Pick five or six per meeting. The first set is for the skip-level manager to ask, grouped by theme; the second is for employees who want to make the most of the time. For questions a direct manager can use week to week, see these one-on-one questions.
Questions for the skip-level manager to ask
About the work
- What part of your work are you proudest of this quarter?
- What takes more of your time than it should?
- If you could change one process tomorrow, which would it be?
- Where do you wait on other teams, and how long for?
- What do customers or colleagues ask for that we do not offer yet?
About the team
- How would you describe the way this team works together?
- When there is a disagreement, how does it usually get resolved?
- Do you get the information you need to do your job, and when you need it?
- What does your team do well that others in the company could learn from?
- Is the workload shared fairly across the team?
About support
- What is one thing your manager does that helps you most?
- What could your manager or I do to make your work easier?
- Do you get feedback often enough to know how you are doing?
- Is there anything you need from me that you are not getting?
About growth
- Where do you want to be in two years, and does this role help you get there?
- What skill would you like to build next?
- Have you had a conversation about your development in the last six months?
- Is there a project elsewhere in the company you would like to work on?
About the company
- How clear is it to you how your work connects to the company's goals?
- What is one decision from leadership you would like explained better?
- What would make you more likely to recommend this company as a place to work?
- What should we stop doing?
Questions for employees to ask the skip-level manager
- What are your top priorities for the next six months, and how does my team fit in?
- What does good work from my team look like from where you sit?
- What is one thing you wish people at my level knew about the business?
- How do you see the company changing in the next year?
- What skills will matter most for someone in my role?
- How do you decide what gets funded or prioritised?
- What did you learn from the last employee survey?
- What is the best way to bring an idea to you between these meetings?
No question asks people to rate their manager. How a manager is doing shows up in the support and team answers, and more reliably in anonymous manager feedback survey questions.
Mistakes to avoid in skip-level meetings
Skip-level programmes usually fail for the same few reasons, and the first two matter most.
- Going around the direct manager
Making decisions, giving instructions or changing priorities for the team in the room. It tells the team their manager does not matter and leaves the manager to deal with the fallout. Note it, then decide with the manager.
- Letting it become a complaint session
Some frustration is useful signal. An hour of grievances about one person is not, and it teaches the team that skip-levels are where you go to escalate. Steer to what would help, and move individual grievances to the right channel.
- Asking people to evaluate their manager
"Rate your manager" in a non-anonymous room puts people in a bind. Ask what helps and what would make work easier; patterns about leadership come through on their own.
- Promising more than you can deliver
A leader who says "I'll fix that" and does not is worse than one who never asked. Commit to looking into one or two things and report back either way.
- Treating it as anonymous
Repeating a comment to the manager with the speaker's name, or trying to work out who wrote a survey comment, ends trust in both the meeting and the survey.
- Holding it once
A single round reads as an inspection. Skip-levels build trust when they are regular and when people see something happen between them.
When something serious comes up, such as harassment, discrimination or a safety risk, it belongs in a formal channel rather than a meeting note. An anonymous route such as anonymous reporting software lets people raise it without being identified.
How to close the loop with the direct manager
The debrief is what turns a skip-level from a listening exercise into something that changes the team's week. It also protects the manager: they hear the themes from you first, not as a rumour.
- Debrief the manager within a week
Share themes and what you agreed to look into. Lead with what is working, then what came up, without names.
- Agree who owns what
Most follow-ups belong to the direct manager. The ones that need your authority, such as a cross-team blocker or a budget question, stay with you.
- Report back to the team
Tell the team what you heard and what is happening, ideally with their manager in the room, so the update comes from both of you.
- Check it at the next round
Open the next skip-level with what changed since the last one. That is how people learn the meetings matter. See closing the employee feedback loop.
If a theme is about the manager themselves, raise it as coaching in your own one-on-one with them, framed around what the team needs. The manager effectiveness metrics guide covers the measures that help that conversation stay specific.
Read the survey before the meeting
A skip-level meeting hears from a few people at a time. An engagement survey hears from everyone, anonymously, and when its results are read by reporting line it tells the skip-level manager where to listen hardest. On our demo calls, HR teams have passed on a request they hear from employees: let the skip-level manager see my feedback, not only my direct manager. Results by reporting line do that in aggregate, without exposing anyone.
CultureMonkey's org hierarchy reads every survey through your reporting lines, so each result is available for a manager's whole organization and for their own team.
A skip-level manager sees their full reporting line by default. Managers with at least 3 direct reports can switch between Total reports, everyone below them, and Direct reports, the managers on their own team.
Strengths and Focus Areas list the highest and lowest drivers for the chosen scope, and Comment Sentiment by Driver shows how comments lean as percentages, never the comment text.
HR admins can open the Lineage Explorer for that leader and compare the managers who report to them on participation, overall score, eNPS and each driver.
Direct and Total are checked separately, driver by driver, against the survey's minimum responses. Below it, scores stay hidden; names and headcounts still show.
The hierarchy comes from the manager field on each employee, from an HRIS integration or an import. The current tree rebuilds every night.
A reorg after launch never moves a survey's results, so last quarter's scores still describe last quarter's teams.
Two framing rules keep the survey and the meeting from undermining each other. First, the survey is anonymous and the meeting is non-anonymous: never ask in the room who wrote a comment, and never read a score aloud as if it belonged to the people in front of you. Second, results open only above anonymity thresholds, so a small team may show Total scores and no Direct ones. Treat a hidden score as the system protecting people, not as a gap to fill by asking around.
Used this way, the survey sets the themes and the skip-level adds the reasons. See how results by reporting line work, or how CultureMonkey supports manager effectiveness across an organization.
Give every leader a read of their whole reporting line before the meeting.
FAQs
What is a skip-level meeting?
A skip-level meeting is a conversation between a senior leader and employees who report to one of that leader's managers, skipping the level in between. It helps the leader hear about the work, the team and what gets in the way directly from the people doing it, and it gives employees access to someone who sets direction.
How often should skip-level meetings happen?
Quarterly suits most teams, either one-on-one or in small groups. In a large organization, rotate so that every employee two levels down meets the skip-level manager at least once or twice a year. A new leader can meet everyone two levels down in their first 90 days.
Should the direct manager know about a skip-level meeting?
Yes. Tell the direct manager before the invitations go out, explain the purpose, and agree that you will share themes rather than names. Afterwards, debrief them first and agree who owns each follow-up. Skip-levels that surprise the manager undermine them.
Are skip-level meetings anonymous?
No. A skip-level meeting is non-anonymous: the leader knows who said what. Say so at the start, agree that only themes go to the direct manager, and point people to the anonymous engagement survey or a formal reporting channel for concerns they would not raise in person.
What should a skip-level manager ask?
Open questions about the work, the team, the support people get, their growth and the company: what takes longer than it should, what one change would help, whether they get feedback often enough, and how their work connects to company goals. Avoid asking people to rate their manager.
What is the difference between a skip-level meeting and a one-on-one?
A one-on-one is between an employee and their direct manager and covers their day-to-day work and development. A skip-level meeting is with the manager's manager, happens less often, and focuses on the team, obstacles and the wider company rather than individual performance.
How do I prepare for a skip-level meeting as an employee?
Bring one or two things that would make your team's work easier, one thing that is going well, and a question about the company's direction. Keep the focus on the work and what would help, and raise concerns about a specific person through HR rather than in the meeting.
How do engagement survey results help a skip-level meeting?
They give the skip-level manager a read before the room. Results for everyone below them show where engagement is lowest, and results for their direct team show how their own managers are doing. Results only open above anonymity thresholds, so they point to themes to listen for, never to individuals.
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