5 tips to improve your next townhall meeting

Corporate townhall meetings or ‘all-hands meetings’ are extremely popular for good reason. They are more than just a company meeting – they bring together people from all different departments, give employees a chance to hear directly from leaders about strategic initiatives, build trust between employees and leaders, and open up the floor for questions and idea sharing.

That’s when they’re done right.

Here are five tips to help ensure you get these results!
 
1️⃣ Address what employees want to know.
Too often leaders/CEOs focus on what they want to tell employees, ignoring or sidestepping employees’ concerns. That mistake widens the gap between the corporate center and managers and employees.
 
Find out what is on the minds of your people and aim to address those issues during your townhall.
 
2️⃣ Ask employees for questions.
Managers should be counted on to suggest topics before the meeting based on what their teams are saying. Use these questions to set the agenda.
 
In addition, getting questions in advance also gives the CEO and communications team time to prepare answers.
 
3️⃣  Answer questions.
Responding to questions is key to engaging employees during the townhall. It turns a PowerPoint monologue into a two-way conversation. Employees always want to understand the reasons behind decisions and changes.
 
Leave enough time to answer questions. And consider taking a break for Q&A in the middle of the townhall instead of the end, when the meeting is nearly over, and attention is waning.
 
After the event, follow up on unanswered questions, either privately or with all staff.
 
4️⃣  Keep it between 30 and 60 minutes.
TED Talks are 18 minutes for a reason. After an hour, the audience starts to stop listening and even your top executives can be tired. Under an hour is respectful of employees’ time, whose schedules can change often. It’s more effective to hold shorter, more frequent townhalls.
 
Break up the engagement with different speakers. CEOs often dominate, adding to the audience’s fatigue.
 
5️⃣  Use the event to build trust.
According to Ernst & Young’s 2023 Empathy and Business Survey, at least 85% of employees say mutual empathy between leaders and workers raises morale.
 
Townhalls are a great way to build connection and trust. They create an opportunity that most employees don’t have, to get to know their senior leaders' personality and values. If possible, add time at the end for informal engagements – tea/coffee and snacks – which can provide an additional opportunity for leaders to hear directly from their people and vice versa. When it comes to their leaders, employees want and need a feeling of intimacy — the ability to see them and connect with their leaders. And that builds trust in leaders and their strategy.

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