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How to Build a Town Hall Framework for Success
In today’s dynamic economic and political landscape, businesses of all sizes must keep their teams informed and engaged. Town hall meetings, also known as AGMs, or all-hands meetings, are a powerful tool for senior leadership to connect with employees, share updates, foster transparency, and encourage meaningful conversations.
When thoughtfully planned, these meetings can make employees feel valued and aligned with your company’s mission and vision. But impactful town halls don’t happen by accident – they require strategic planning, creative storytelling, and a year-long approach to keep teams consistently engaged.
So, how can you stay ahead of the curve and avoid last-minute stress? Whether you’re hosting live, hybrid, or virtual events, we’ve distilled our knowledge and experience having produced many internal communications events for a diverse range of brands across sectors, from Allied Irish Banks and Planet to Cognizant, to Brompton Bicycles. Here’s our guide to crafting an annual town hall strategy that drives results and supports your communication goals.
Step 1: Define the purpose of your town halls
Before diving into logistics, start by clarifying the purpose of your town hall strategy, as well as the purpose and objectives of each internal communications event in your calendar. Ask yourself:
- What are your objectives? Are you focusing on cultural alignment, employee recognition, organisational updates, or all of the above?
- How do town halls support broader company goals? Align each event with your mission, vision, and strategic priorities.
- What format best suits your audience? Based on your team’s location, employee preferences, and resources, consider live, virtual, or hybrid setups.
- How will you keep attendees engaged? Use interactive Q&As, storytelling, and multimedia content to hold attention and make your audience an active participant.
Step 2: Build your
annual town hall calendar
A well-planned annual schedule ensures you cover the right content throughout the year, consistently engaging all of your stakeholders. Once you have decided how many internal events you need across the year, don’t forget to create an agenda for each to ensure you aren’t missing any key content. Your annual calendar could include:
- Kickstart the year: Host a company-wide meeting to share your vision, goals, and OKRs/KPIs for the year ahead.
- Quarterly or bi-annual business check-ins: Provide updates on progress, challenges, and successes and hear back from the team to align goals and maintain transparency and engagement.
- Employee recognition events: Dedicate time to celebrate achievements, work anniversaries, and promotions.
- End-of-year wrap-up: Conclude with a celebratory event featuring departmental and organisational updates, award ceremonies, and a social.
Step 3: Leverage hybrid and virtual solutions
With many companies having an international workforce, hybrid and virtual formats are essential. Indeed, the latest research from Tata Comms Media revealed that 96% of respondents across 300 UK and US-based enterprises said that live streaming empowers them to more effectively communicate with their employees. As such a critical component of any corporate communications strategy, it is important to equip yourself with the right information, technical knowledge, and team to get the live broadcast just right. Here’s what you need to consider for a quality hybrid or virtual experience:
- Professional live production: Internal communications events are no small feat, with multiple logistical and live elements, as well as stakeholders, that need to be brought together seamlessly. Whether in-person, hybrid, or virtual, having a trusted live production team on hand is a valuable extension to your team. They will project manage and bring all of the elements together, as well as solve any last-minute changes or problems. A professional AV team offer vital support for live streaming, technical audio requirements, and visuals, such as display screens. If you have multiple speakers, live streaming engineers will mix camera angles, and seamlessly display or switch to virtual speakers. This will make all the difference when it comes to delivering a polished experience that will keep your audience engaged.
- On-demand access: A production team with professional camera operators can capture and edit the footage of your event and create a branded, edited version for on-demand access, or for individual sessions to be sent out.
Step 4: Utilise engagement tools
Keep your town halls fresh and interactive; consider adding one or two of the following to your events and build these into your agenda:
- Workshops and breakout sessions: Foster collaboration and encourage knowledge sharing. Live debates and skill-building activities add depth to discussions.
- Real-time polls and feedback: Engage your team and gather actionable insights during sessions, making them active participants in the event.
- Storytelling and visual content: Use captivating, professionally produced videos to help tell the brand story and connect emotionally with your audience. Using mixed media in your agenda helps to keep your audience engaged.
Step 5: Immerse your team in the company’s brand
Town halls are a great opportunity to invite your team into an immersive brand experience, whether in-person or online. Consider the following to ensure consistent brand representation:
Event branding: Consider all the physical and virtual touch-points such as the welcome area, lanyards, stage and backdrop, decals, soft touches, branded gifts, virtual graphics, etc.
Custom graphics: Design bespoke visuals, lower thirds, and presentation decks that align with event themes and company branding.
Branded materials: Deliver polished, branded content, that utilises key brand identity elements and is consistent between speakers. Branded animations are an effective way to make complex information or statistics digestible.
Take homes: It can be a nice touch to provide your team with branded gifts such as reusable cups, clothing, or notepads.
Highlight videos and photography: Sending out a highlight video or professional event photography a few days after your event is a great way to keep the conversation flowing and to maintain the celebratory feeling of your end-of-year wrap-up.
Step 6: Evaluate and refine your strategy
Every town hall is an opportunity to learn and improve. After each event:
Gather feedback: Use surveys and polls to understand attendee perspectives.
Analyse metrics: Review engagement statistics to identify strengths and areas for growth.
Hold an internal and external debrief: Plan a debrief with your internal team and your event production team, so you can discuss what went well and what areas you might want to improve on next time. Here’s a handy template you can download to use.
Refine your strategy: Apply insights to make the following internal communications event even more impactful.
London Filmed were a great company to work with on our recent Company Town Hall. [. . .] Ahead of the event, I enjoyed the weekly check ins, and their use of Monday as a management tool. Being added to this, gave me great oversight and just that extra bit of organised communication [. . .] On the day of the event, they put me and the speakers at ease with their clear instructions and informative brief. During the livestream broadcast, I received messages from employees to say it was flawless production for them and they enjoyed watching the meeting without any issues. Can't wait to work with the team again on the next project!
- A&E Networks
Conclusion
A well-executed town hall framework fosters transparency, boosts engagement, and aligns teams with your company’s mission. By planning thoughtfully, embracing innovation, and continuously refining your approach, you can ensure your town halls will leave a lasting impression, build employee loyalty, and help your organisation thrive.
If you have a town hall meeting you’d like a hand with, get in touch with our team to discuss your requirements and objectives.
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