It 100% depends on the manager and how they use these meetings.

I use them to catch up with the team. To give them undivided attention. And primarily to allow them to vent in a closed setting. When neither of us has much to say, we end them early. Sometimes they last 5 minutes, other days 45.

I’ve done experiments where we’d do 1on1s for a while then stop doing them. Inevitably, in the next retro, at least 1 person would complain about us cancelling 1on1s.

Like everything in corporate business, they are as useful as you make them.