It’s a practice I’ve induced my managers into since JPL. And they’re hugely emotionally helpful since I don’t normally have a team that I work with to bounce things off of at lunch or happy hour anymore.
Kudos to you Elliott. Sounds like you’d be a decent manager to work with.
As a dev seeking manager time, I wanted/needed information. Diagrams, access, contacts, meetings. There was no onboarding and nothing but a codebase for a massive system. This was more like every other week, though.
As a peer, I ran interference with a lot of the junior devs to make sure they had the info they need, to push for the info they didn't, and to get them hooked up with the people who had it. The lack of information enabled a lot of isolation and feelings of imposter syndrome, and the weekly chats gave my peers a forum to vent.
Being remote, communication & culture require a lot more attention and effort.
It really depends - I've had direct reports that have had plenty to cover on a weekly basis, and others that don't really have anything new -- the point of the weekly 1:1's is that they have dedicated time whatever they want or need from me - and it's their time to use as they see fit. If they want to skip that week because there's nothing new on their side, that's fine (but not every week), and if they are done in 10 minutes that's fine too. Other people have wanted closer to 2 hours a week of 1:1 time. It really comes down to the individual.