Sometimes your 1-1s will be devoted to informal feedback and coaching. It’s good to hold these kinds of meetings at a regular interval, especially for your early-career employees. Quarterly is frequent enough to give the topic attention without it feeling like all you talk about is career development. Many companies force specific individual goal-setting processes on everyone, so you can use this time to review progress toward goals, whether they are formal or personal.
If you have an employee with performance issues, feedback meetings should happen more frequently, and if you’re thinking of firing someone I advise you to document these feedback meetings. That documentation will include the issues you discussed and the expectations that you set with the person, in writing and sent to the person (usually via email).
As much as possible, when someone does something that needs immediate corrective feedback (insulting a colleague, missing a critical meeting, using inappropriate language), don’t wait for the 1-1 to provide that feedback. If you see or hear about a direct report doing something you want to correct, try to approach that person soon after. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to bring it up, and the less effective the feedback will be. The same goes for praise! When something goes well, don’t save up your praise — give it freely in the moment.