Online Town Hall Meeting
A town hall meeting refers to a company-wide business meeting in which the management seeks engagements with their employees. The main purpose of this event is to inform the employees by updating them about important topics. To make this a two-way communcation, it’s in important that the audience can engage with the management by means of giving feedback, asking questions or entering in discussions. Next to that, a town hall meeting is also intended to align the team on the company’s goals and values.
The advantage of organising a hybrid or online town hall meeting is that it allows you to gather employees that are working across different areas. Want to know more about what elements contribute to the success of an online town hall meeting? Find out below!
Get your team members on the same page
When organising an online town hall meeting, your audience expects to be informed about certain topics.
Make sure that you prepare a well-structured presentation with focus on the common objective for the company and everyone in it.
Once your content has been prepared, you shoud think carefully about the format of your session.
Depending on the interaction and size of your audience, you might want to choose a different option. Thola supports all kinds of formats:
Video conferencing
When you have a rather small audience where you want to allow these individuals to use their micro and camera, you should go for a video conferencing meeting. This also gives you the opportunity to actively engage with your audience. Microsoft Teams is our go-to communication platform for this, but we can also integrate with Zoom, Google Meet and others.
Live stream
In the scenario where your audience is rather extended and you don’t need them to use their microphone or camera to engage but you still want to include live interaction between the speakers, a live stream is recommended. This means presenting your session from a studio and broadcasting this live into the Thola platform by using Vimeo, YouTube or other video sharing platforms.
Pre-recorded session
A final option is to pre-record your session. This enables you to carefully prepare the content and eliminates unexpected turns. However, keep in mind that engagement with the audience will need to be organised in a different way.
Seek engagement with your employees
Focus on interaction
Interaction plays an important role during an online town hall meeting. When choosing for a video conference or live stream, you can already involve your audience by including a live Q&A part where they can aks questions by using their microphone or via the chat. Even with a pre-recorded session, you can still engage with your employees by integrating a chatbox or interactive tools such as for example Slido or Mentimeter. Also after the plenary session, you can give your audience a voice by creating seperate break-out rooms to start discussions about specific topics. Another option is to include a virtual whiteboard to which your attendees can leave their feedback or ideas.
Include time to celebrate
Highlight your achievements
No matter how big or small they are, an online town hall meeting is the ideal setting to celebrate your company’s successes. To highlight certain achievements you can create a virtual wall of fame to give certain teams or employees the credit they deserve. Next to that, you can actually open a bottle in our virtual bar while chatting with your colleagues. The cherry on top would be to send an aperobox to your employees’ home addresses.
Our references
Are you planning an online town hall meeting soon?
Check out our client reference below to find more inspiration for your upcoming event!
