As the entire nation still struggles with the uncertain global pandemic, it is important to encourage your employees well. Here town hall meetings serve as a significant function: they enable industry leaders to gather in one place to discuss their business goals and objectives or hear from the community on the topic of interest.
After the spread of the virus, better engaging and meaningful strategies were needed to foster community to stay connected while keeping the social distancing guidelines in mind.
The advent of mandated remote meetings became relevantly popular during the covid-19 crisis. With the fast-evolving digital world, many organizations, governments, and other businesses have started exploring different ways to collaborate and communicate with the members of the group. With this virtual town hall meetings and remote collaborations took over the traditional meetings.
Hosting a virtual town hall meeting helps leaders to inform their business ideas to the remote employees. These online meetings turn out to become a valuable way for attendees to understand their leader’s intention, generate a sense of community, and reinforce the organization’s values, targets, culture and most importantly its goals.
In this post, we are going to be talking about various ways to create your town hall meeting and virtual event more engaging and effective! Time to get started!
What are Virtual Town Hall Meetings?
Virtual town hall meetings are essentially online company-wide events which provide updates to the employees from the respective representatives/leaders. There are certain news points with which every employee must be aware, virtual town hall meetings help to accomplish the same. Thus virtual town hall meetings help to build up trust among the community and bring confidence to the organization.
Some Engaging Ways for Your Town Hall Meeting
The employees must feel connected to the company or the organization for whom they are working. The feeling of inclusion is what keeps the employees engaged throughout their span of employment. Thus in order to understand more about keeping your employees connected, and thus eventually keeping them engaged with the organization, let us look at some points that will help us achieve the same. The key thing to keep in mind is to keep the environment as interactive and appealing as possible, the employees must feel comfortable during the span of the event.
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Keep your Hardworking Employees Motivated
Employees who have accomplished a major goal for the company deserve some word of appreciation. These ‘winners’ when kept motivated bring more to the company. Apart from appreciation from colleagues, a shout-out, or some congratulations, you may also present your winners with rewards for their performance. A simple acknowledgment goes a long way because it develops a sense of inclusion within the employee’s minds. When the employee gets recognized for their exceptional performance the value of the organisation from their perspective increases. Introduce healthy competition and nomination for and by colleagues to make your meetings diverse and interactive.
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Have a clear idea of the Aim of the Meeting
beforehand. Having a goal/aim/agenda is significant for any meeting, as the content of the meeting is going to be dependent on that. Not having a clear agenda may hinder the productivity of the meetings. Have a clear-cut idea of the agenda and share it with the attendees, once everyone is on the same page carry forward the meeting to further content. Apart from being on the same page, having a clear-cut agenda stated beforehand also helps the attendees determine their expectations and time to structure and present their perspectives.
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Run a Quick test of All your Technology
One of the most challenging tasks while hosting a virtual town hall meeting is to have technical difficulties or not having enough knowledge about various tech features. So before you carry forward your meeting, ensure that all your devices are working efficiently such as your audio/video mic, ask someone to teach you how to share a screen if you do not know how to use it, and you have enough bandwidth to host or join the meeting. Running a quick tech test will save you from all the hassle that might occur during the event. You ask a few guests or keynote speakers to join the meeting in advance to check the video and audio quality.
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Make Use of Professional Moderators
Having a moderator at your event can really uplift your meeting as they can really lighten up your attendee’s mood and build some enthusiasm in them. There are times when even the finest keynote speaker is not able to hook the audience’s attention for a longer period. A professional moderator has the advanced in-calls control which empowers them to monitor the overall activity taken place during the event. For example, they can mute or unmute all the guests in case there is any background noise taking place. Apart from that, a moderator can also lock or unlock the meeting, remove suspicious attendees from the meeting, and stop participants’ presentations for security reasons.
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Have a Leader with Clear Intentions
A meeting leader is the face of your town hall meeting. They play a crucial role in keeping the entire meeting on track. Their major roles are starting off with the meeting, introducing the participants about the meeting agenda, transitioning between the potential speakers, taking care of all the feedback and Q&As provided by the attendees, and the conclusion of the meeting.
An enthusiastic meeting leader works closely with the presentators to make sure the content goes parallel to the meeting’s main motive and gives speakers a clear reminder about the time allotted to them speaking during the event.
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Keep it Real and Simple
Nobody likes long presentations to watch or too much business jargon in one single go! At such difficult times, when sitting in our own houses is the only option, distraction can make your event a complete waste of time and energy. And when you come across a very complicated topic it is pretty clear that the audience will lose interest! So to avoid that try to make your town hall meeting as simple and real as possible.
Over to You
Virtual town hall meetings play a critical part in every business’s lives. It helps in maintaining connections and reinforcing your organization’s culture. The meeting’s only purpose is to motivate and excite the employees about their company’s goals and future plans. This also helps them celebrate their achievements and establishments. With the correct event tools and tactics, you can easily take your next virtual town hall towards the ladder of success while also keeping your remote employees engaged from beginning to end. Hope these engagement tips were effective for your organization! Happy hosting!
