I've usually had 30 minutes scheduled for these (weekly or biweekly), both as manager and employee. >50% of the time it's "we talked about everything already on signal yesterday, so we can skip it this week? yes" but sometimes it's useful for discussing a new product idea or addressing a specific roadblock (resources from other departments, usually, or sometimes concerns re: a vendor). I tend to do things more async but unscheduled, though -- send an email or a message which doesn't require immediate followup but sometime in the next ~week.

I think 30m biweekly is more optimal. If I ever had an actually junior direct report I'd be more inclined to be more formal, available, or frequent on these, or someone who I knew to have difficulty raising issues in other settings. I've never actually had a 0-2 year experience direct report, though, as I actively try to avoid direct reports generally but particularly early-career people.

I find AARs on projects (successful and unsuccessful) to be far more useful than most of the cargo-cult-management tools. Also, having dashboards on status of various things and current blockers kept updated, ideally automatically through tools used in the workflow itself, and a clear directory of who to contact for what component.