I did weekly 1 on 1s with 8 direct reports. I made them all on the same day and I didn't budget them for an hour each. I found it extremely valuable and I left it up to the employee to drive the meeting. If they needed to cancel the 1:1, then that was fine but I never would without rescheduling. It really reinforces that people are #1.
This is all Manager Tools basics. I think it's the best set of guidelines they offer. (The Hard Thing about Hard Things also emphasizes weekly 1:1s as does Managing Humans.)
Even if it takes 50% of your time, this is like coding for a dev - it's your primary job and you can't skip it. Andy Grove had a rule of thumb on how much time to spend on what in his book High Output Management. Summary here: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/high-output-management/
More than that when you consider the To Dos and followups. That’s why it’s hard to stay active as an individual contributor when you have a large team.
If you don’t invest the time in advance, you pay it more with fighting fires later.
