Here’s Why You Need to Host Virtual Town Hall Meetings Today and in the Future

Virtual town hall meetings have gone from a rare occurrence to a vital part of keeping an organization’s employees engaged.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s upending how companies operate, including impacting all enterprise’s communication channels. And the already tricky task of making sure employees are informed and engaged is even more challenging now that workforces are remote.

How do you keep employees up-to-date in a work-from-home environment? How do you support and build your organization’s culture?

Virtual town hall meetings are a significant step toward solving the challenge of company-wide communication and culture during these unprecedented times.

Below, we highlight the primary reasons you should leverage virtual town halls to keep your employees engaged and informed.

Why your Need Virtual Town Hall Meetings 

First, let’s define virtual town halls.

Virtual town hall meetings are live events streamed in real-time, company-wide, using multicast distribution. Virtual town halls often feature an organization’s executives delivering updates and hosting Q&A sessions for employees.

Town halls, also called all-hands meetings, aren’t new. Companies hosted them before the pandemic to keep employees up-to-date and connect employees to the enterprise.

But now, virtual town hall meetings are even more critical.

According to LinkedIn’s 2020 Global Talent Trends Report, retaining and recruiting talent are organizations’ top human resource goals. The report also states the main reasons people join or leave a company is because of its culture and lack of advancement.

That means enterprises need to take advantage of all available tools to support their culture and highlight employees’ opportunities.

What’s one of those tools? Virtual town hall meetings.

Hosting an engaging virtual town hall can give workers a sense of ownership over the organization. Such an event can showcase advancement opportunities for employees. And it can make employees feel connected to their colleagues, despite working remotely.

Now let’s highlight three key ways to host an engaging virtual town hall.

First, plan your meeting time for when it’s accommodating for most of your employees. If you have workers spread across many time zones, pick the time that’s best for as many of them as possible. A colleague isn’t likely to be engaged if you force them to join an all-hands meeting at 4 a.m. their time.

Secondly, make sure you include time for employee recognition. Business updates are necessary, but people like to know their employer appreciates their efforts.

And third, choose the right technology for live streaming your town hall. Having your live event lag, buffer, or fail is a guaranteed way to host a low-engagement virtual town hall.

Virtual Town Halls: Essential to Today’s Enterprise

It’s now necessary for organizations to host regular virtual town hall meetings.

These live events, streamed in real-time, keep employees engaged and informed. Plus, they give workers a more active role in the company’s culture.

COVID-19’s forced this shift in internal communications, but it’s likely to remain permanent. Many companies are shifting to distributed workforces, even when the pandemic subsides.

Live streaming company-wide virtual town halls allow organizations to connect with employees. And these all-hands meetings keep workers updated on the latest with the enterprise.

Virtual town hall meetings were mostly unheard of a year ago. Now they’re a powerful tool in the employee communication toolbox.