As a communications director, my stomach aches every time I hear these two words: Town Hall. It seems most executives I’ve worked with over the years think that town halls are the answer to connecting to employees. It’s often a “to-do” item; a checklist box. But town halls have the tendency to be one-sided lectures. To makes these sessions engaging a relevant for the organization, try these eight tips in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.
1. Play music. Music is something we all can appreciate, and it has been proven to lighten as well as improve the mood. By playing music at the beginning of the town hall meeting, your employees will come in feeling relaxed, refreshed and ready to learn more about the current state of the company. Take it a step further and make it collaborative by giving the song selection responsibility to a different employee each time.
2. Keep the sessions smaller, and emphasize the importance of face-to-face communication with leadership. The audience will be even more engaged if the sessions are smaller, so you might want to schedule several different town hall opportunities and invite employees to sign up for a time that works best for their schedule.
3. Incorporate a meal into the meeting. Serving food and encouraging corporate leaders to sit at tables with other employees will improve engagement. Some employees might be too intimidated to speak up during a question-and-answer session, and they might feel more comfortable asking a question in a more casual atmosphere over a turkey wrap.
4. Use pictures and videos to capture the attention of the audience … and keep it. Visual elements will be more interesting to the audience, and will make your meeting more successful. Consider revamping your entire slideshow template to be more colorful and visual.
5. Present awards at the meeting. Choose different awards for each town hall, and be sure to recognize a diverse range of employees. The prize doesn’t need to be expensive, and instead, it can be something simple, fun or even goofy. The key is to create excitement around the awards program.
6. Make it more interesting by hosting an interview. Ask a member of the communications team to interview a new employee each month. This could be a member of senior management, a new employee or someone who went above and beyond this month. Make sure the interview is informative and encourage the interviewee’s personality to shine through.
7. Encourage feedback via a follow-up survey. Maybe employees had questions they didn’t have a chance to ask, or maybe they want to share their positive feedback about the new awards program that you implemented after reading point five in this post. Give everyone an opportunity to provide this feedback by sending a quick follow-up survey to all employees after the town hall meeting.
8. Post questions and answers. If you held a Q&A session during the town hall, capture the answers and post onto your intranet site where all employees can view.
Source: In addition to managing the marketing at CultureIQ, Jamie Nichol always makes sure the team has enough chocolate and cheese to carry them through the week.
