As the year winds down, an increasing number of companies will recap their years via some form of a company meeting. For many, these “all-hands meetings” take the shape of a town hall event. One thing we’ve learned is that if you’re looking to create a memorable and motivating experience, then you need to create an environment that is engaging and inspirational. No matter how hard you try, not every employee will look forward to attending your company’s town hall meeting. Many employees walk in with a bad taste in their mouth when any event contains “meeting” in the title – and it’s hard to blame them in today’s corporate climate! Years of bad meetings that don’t start on time, irrelevant topics, and even toxic company cultures can jeopardize employee engagement.
5 Successful Company Gathering Ideas
Town hall meetings allow your company the opportunity to create a branded meeting that isn’t as stiff as a traditional boardroom meeting. They should be lively and engaging, so they help build a sense of community amongst all employees and brings a bit of liveliness into the office.
Create an Interactive Environment
If you aren’t renting out space for your town hall meeting, change up the layout to keep your employees on their toes. With a change of venue or a new environment in the same room, they won’t fall into their typical rut because their mind will be forced to recognize new walkways and furniture arrangements. Your modern workspace should allow your employees to experience something new every single time they walk into a town hall meeting.
Now for the most challenging part! During your branded meeting, you need to keep everyone entertained from beginning to end. As soon as they walk in the door, give your employees an experience they won’t forget that differentiates your town hall meeting from a typical meeting. Door entry experiences for interactive meetings could include giving our props that align with your meeting theme or passing out tickets for food and drinks.
Think Outside the Box
To create engaging meetings, think outside of the box in regards to how conversations will be started. Don’t simply ask questions and hope for a full discussion to develop – if you do, be forewarned that a live ‘suggestion box’ will likely ensue. Instead, the leadership team should prompt audience members by using the following internal communication strategies to begin the initial discussion.
- Breakout Sessions
- Games
- FAQ Sessions
- Live Polls
- Q&A Sessions
Face-to-face interactions are not always ideal or possible. These same tactics lend themselves incredibly well to virtual town hall meetings. Especially if you’re dealing with logistical issues, like different time zones or other in-person event restrictions.
When your next town hall concludes, you should expect to see many smiles on your employee’s faces – that’s your first clue that your ideas worked! Hopefully, they look forward to more of these interactive meetings in the future. With the right branded meeting, you could even see employee productivity improve over the coming weeks. Don’t forget to follow up internally to see how you can make them even better!
When you’re to gather the meeting content and equipment you need to create engaging meetings, Bluewater will provide the audio visual services required to capture, engage, and entertain your attendees from beginning to end. Contact us for more information!
But with the right meeting agenda, appropriate level of sense of humor, in-depth discussions, and a fun environment, even your most reluctant employees will enjoy your next gathering.
Kick-Off With a Fun Theme
Here at Bluewater, our town hall meeting theme is “put points on the board,” a sports theme that features humor in the form of a fake sportscast with 2 announcers. We present our discussion in a fun, light-hearted way to keep our team members entertained and engaged. If your employees aren’t mentally present, you aren’t going to achieve any of the goals your town hall was scheduled to accomplish.
Refine Town Hall Agenda
Despite having a good time at our meetings, we make sure to bring in the necessary topics. Our sales goals, business updates, financials, market share, and other important topics are always part of our discussions. However, we provide the right balance of seriousness and humor to keep the day moving. We don’t want to make the town hall feel long for anyone, including ourselves. We strive to have a good time with our employees and solidify our team bond by team-building while still getting the job done.
When we have discussions, we focus on a few in-depth topics. We’ve found that scratching the surface on many topics doesn’t create a memorable town hall meeting. Our most engaging meetings occur when we dive deep into a handful of topics that allow all of our employees to join in the discussion.
Leverage Video Conferencing Technology
As an expert AV company, we use videos along with our very own meeting technology to drive our messages home. When your company incorporates video into your branded meeting, you need to make sure the video is short and action-packed. Just remember: while the use of video in town hall meetings is incredibly powerful, it shouldn’t be drawn out as long content filled with takeaways – no matter how valuable – will make it hard for your team to remember. Keep your videos short, sweet, and simple.
Create an Interactive Environment
If you aren’t renting out space for your town hall meeting, change up the layout to keep your employees on their toes. With a change of venue or a new environment in the same room, they won’t fall into their typical rut because their mind will be forced to recognize new walkways and furniture arrangements. Your modern workspace should allow your employees to experience something new every single time they walk into a town hall meeting.
Now for the most challenging part! During your branded meeting, you need to keep everyone entertained from beginning to end. As soon as they walk in the door, give your employees an experience they won’t forget that differentiates your town hall meeting from a typical meeting. Door entry experiences for interactive meetings could include giving our props that align with your meeting theme or passing out tickets for food and drinks.
Think Outside the Box
To create engaging meetings, think outside of the box in regards to how conversations will be started. Don’t simply ask questions and hope for a full discussion to develop – if you do, be forewarned that a live ‘suggestion box’ will likely ensue. Instead, the leadership team should prompt audience members by using the following internal communication strategies to begin the initial discussion.
- Breakout Sessions
- Games
- FAQ Sessions
- Live Polls
- Q&A Sessions
Face-to-face interactions are not always ideal or possible. These same tactics lend themselves incredibly well to virtual town hall meetings. Especially if you’re dealing with logistical issues, like different time zones or other in-person event restrictions.
When your next town hall concludes, you should expect to see many smiles on your employee’s faces – that’s your first clue that your ideas worked! Hopefully, they look forward to more of these interactive meetings in the future. With the right branded meeting, you could even see employee productivity improve over the coming weeks. Don’t forget to follow up internally to see how you can make them even better!
When you’re to gather the meeting content and equipment you need to create engaging meetings, Bluewater will provide the audio visual services required to capture, engage, and entertain your attendees from beginning to end. Contact us for more information!
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
