PGi Blog Resources for UCaaS and Global Collaboration for Business Clients
Believe it or not, it is possible to get employees to look forward to your company’s next all-hands meeting. It’s worth the effort, too: an upbeat, memorable companywide gathering can add tremendous value by infusing your company culture with positivity and transparency. Here’s how you can make that happen.
Distributed All-Hands
These days, it can be difficult to get all your employees in the same room or office for an all-hands meeting. You might have multiple office locations, a multinational team across timezones, or a remote workforce.
At PGi, we can relate. With our headquarters in Alpharetta, GA and offices across the US, Europe, and Asia, we use our enterprise webcast platform to facilitate a distributed all-hands.
Live-stream to employees, regardless of location, to keep everyone in the loop and record the meeting so that if someone is unable to make it they can always catch up!
Give a Strong Unifying Message
Before you design your all-hands slides, ask yourself this question: “What is the one thing you want your staff to remember, even if they forget everything else?” Then, boil that idea down to a sentence, put it on a slide by itself, and keep coming back to that core idea throughout your meeting. For example, if you’re trying to shake up the status quo within your company, consider coming back to an idea like “change is the only constant.” If you want to encourage people to collaborate, try “help your colleagues help you.”
Play a Game
No-cash “betting pools” are an easy way to gamify a big meeting. For example, let’s say you’re planning to reveal an important quarterly metric. Beforehand, you can announce that whoever submits the most accurate guess will get a $50 gift card. Then, reveal the metric and the winner at the same time.
Use Live Polls
Either before or during the meeting, consider polling your employees about something topical or relevant. Some polls can help reinforce company goals and values, while others can help employees get to know each other better. With the right webcast platform, you can conduct a poll in real time.
Here are a few poll question ideas that will make your employees want to weigh in:
- Which of these industry trends do you think will have the biggest impact on our company?
- Which of our competitors poses the biggest challenge?
- If you could change one thing about our workplace, what would it be?
Remove Miscommunication
Internal communication can easily turn into a corporate telephone game. If you successfully involve your employees in the conversation, all-hands meetings can be the right place to address any employee misinterpretations and foster transparency.
Have a Two-Way Conversation
Fun and games aside, the most important thing is to avoid making your all-hands meeting into a lecture. Your employees need to be able to engage in Q&A and discussion with their leaders.
The best all-hands meetings offer employees a chance to engage directly with executives. Dedicate a sufficient part, or 25% of your meeting, to the Q&A session so you can have a real conversation.
Whether you are looking to host a small, department all-hands or a large global all-hands, GlobalMeet can help you deliver your message.
