All-Employee Meetings: 2023 Report on How Organizations Approach Them

Jun 22

Overview

This is likely your company's most expensive meeting. Countless hours are spent each week crafting the programming, connecting with executives to define their roles, and attempting to execute an all-employee meeting that's well-received.

Company-wide meetings took on an enhanced importance during the pandemic. This was the only time we could ‘gather’ as an organization – share information, pretend like things were normal. And even with many employees returning to offices, these all-company meetings have remained.

Yet we have a limited understanding of best practices. What makes an all-employee meeting good? How long should they be? Who should lead the programming? These were the questions that kept coming up in our conversations with CEOs and other communications leaders. So we decided to put together a survey to track down answers.

These findings are by no means comprehensive nor was our approach scientific. We relied on our networks, which are more American, corporate, and tech-centric, with job functions primarily in communications … and our findings reflect that. While imperfect, we believe this report provides a helpful snapshot of company-wide meetings – as well as observations about steps your organization can take to improve these gatherings.

Who we surveyed

We had 45 participants complete our 13-question survey. We sourced these participants by posting on communications Slack communities and sending emails to our networks.

The respondents work for companies with a few dozen to tens of thousands of employees (85% had more than 200 employees, 60% had thousands of employees) -- predominantly in corporate settings where employees work both in-office and remotely.

What are the basics of all-employee meetings?

Here are some themes that emerged from our survey …

These meetings are well-attended (and expensive!). Out of the companies surveyed, 81% had over half of their employees show up, while 30% indicated that more than three-quarters of their employees attend.
The majority of all-employee meetings are held on a monthly basis (34%), followed by quarterly meetings (27%). Some companies (13%) conducted weekly meetings. Contrary to our assumption that a weekly cadence was more common among smaller organizations, it was instead a mix of 10-50 person shops and those with 500+ employees.
These meetings are typically an hour (62% of participants), while one-third of companies have slightly longer meetings (61-90 minutes).
Among the majority of those surveyed (61%), communications teams run these meetings (although this is likely skewed by who we asked to participate in this survey, drawing on our communicator networks). In some instances, these meetings are driven by the CEO's office (17%) and the HR/People team (17%). And a handful of participants noted that these meetings are jointly run by the communications function and either the CEO’s office or the HR/People team.
And CEOs are highly involved. Nearly two-thirds of CEOs are very involved in programming -- weighing in on the meeting’s content, their own role, etc. And 30% of CEOs are 'somewhat involved.’
According to respondents, employees generally have positive views of these meetings (among the 25% of respondents who shared feedback on overall employee sentiment).

What programming is landing?

We were interested in what the conveners of these meetings like, as well as what employees and executives find valuable.

Across the board, CEO updates were the most popular aspect of these meetings, among both employees and communicators -- with several respondents noting this is the only time more junior employees get to hear directly from their most senior leader.
Similarly, Q&A sessions with CEOs and members of the leadership team were also popular. These perceived moments of candor made leaders seem more approachable and transparent with employees (at least in Q&As that weren’t perceived as too scripted). One respondent noted how much employees like having their CEO "in the hot seat." And in larger companies, it can be a junior employee’s only time to feel like they can speak directly to their senior leaders.
Respondents shared that celebrating major company milestones was well received. One person described their company’s popular weekly ritual of having an ‘open mic’ where any employee could share a client or personal win – as well as a fun moment from the previous week. In meetings that can sometimes feel formulaic, a well-executed moment of celebration can change the tone of a meeting and make employees feel more connected to the company.
Several respondents noted that customer spotlights and testimonials were popular – providing employees with a better reference point for how their work was improving the lives of others. It’s easy to lose sight of how your work ladders up to a broader purpose or outcome, and these testimonials provide a critical grounding.
Finally, employee recognition – anniversaries, birthdays, big company wins – was a common shared favorite. This becomes more difficult to execute at larger organizations, but in many ways, it is even more important as numbers swell and employees risk feeling less connected to the organization’s mission and leaders.

Turns out there are many shared pain points ...

It’s not all employee recognition highs out there, and we wanted to see where these meetings are falling flat. Here were the common themes:

These meetings aren't interactive enough. Survey participants routinely noted that they wished their meetings were in person, and that they struggled to effectively engage participants from their home screens. There was a sense that their attempts at interaction – breakout rooms, trivia, surveying participants during the meeting – were either stale or just falling short.
Wide-spread platform dissatisfaction. In both our survey and a follow-on meeting with participants to discuss these gatherings, again and again the unsatisfying tech behind these meetings was referenced. The tech is too limiting. The tech isn’t interactive enough. The best, most interactive tech options can’t be easily executed for large companies – so their meeting conveners are limited to a small number of tech platforms. Clearly, there’s room for some disruptors of all-company meeting platforms…
The tension between authenticity and over production. Several respondents expressed concern that their programming was too scripted. Each minute of these meetings had a very clear purpose with pre-agreed upon language – especially in executive Q&A. At the same time, they worried that a lack of scripted content would result in uninteresting updates or more room for unforced errors.
How involved a CEO should be. Should your CEO be front-and-center at every meeting? Does that risk your most senior exec appearing to be narcissistic? Or unwilling to share the stage? Or does that show an involved and caring CEO? Several respondents shared that having their CEO so involved left little room for error, but also ran the risk of preventing other executive team members from playing a more significant role. And what do you do when your CEO wants to be in the spotlight, but isn’t very good at it?
The best approach to CEO Q&A. We heard repeatedly that the Q&A portion of these meetings were pain points. Some respondents shared that employees disliked how canned leaders’ answers were. Additionally, there was no agreed-upon smart approach for handling the process of fielding questions. Submit before the meeting (and risk seeming to stifle hard employee questions)? Vote on questions during the meeting (and risk controversial questions always being upvoted)? Require employees to ask questions – on camera – during the meeting (and risk losing out on quality questions from shy employees)? There were no great examples of how companies are handling this – just general agreement that existing methods were imperfect.
Reaching deskless employees. Among participants who have deskless (or hourly) employees, there was a shared concern that these meetings don’t reach this population. One participant, who noted 90% of their employee population is hourly, wrote they “would love to find a way to engage that group and have it be manageable.” Too often these meetings are at times that don’t work, aren’t compatible with their jobs (e.g., you can’t stream a meeting if you’re seeing patients or delivering products), or don’t feel relevant (they’re more geared toward a corporate population).
Moving to a monthly cadence. Several respondents said they wished their meetings were monthly – particularly those with bi-weekly gatherings. That would provide sufficient time between meetings to find compelling content and organize a more thoughtful gathering (without burning out the people responsible for these meetings!).
Finding the right time for a global population. In our follow-up conversation with leaders about this topic, several shared that they couldn’t find a time that worked for employees across APAC, Europe, and the Americas. Some experimented with varying the times of their meetings by holding the majority of them in the morning at headquarters time – reaching teammates in Europe – and then holding one meeting each year at a more APAC-friendly time. One company would re-do their entire meeting to ensure every employee could hear live from their leaders.

Measuring success

Overall, the majority of participants indicated their employees and executives have generally favorable views of these meetings.

We were interested in how success is measured, and like many aspects of the communications field, it was imperfect. More than half of respondents said they track engagement during their meetings (e.g., looking at the number of comments that come in via Zoom, Teams, or Slack during a meeting), 39% poll employees after the meeting, and 30% opt for occasional surveys about the effectiveness of their meetings.

Recommendations

Based on this survey and our own experience running and advising on all-employee meetings for companies of varying sizes, we devised these recommendations for improving your organization’s gatherings:

Define why you’re doing these meetings – and how they tie into your organization’s overall goals. Are you hosting these gatherings to make employees feel more connected to the company? Is it a way to reinforce organizational goals? Or to increase visibility between junior employees and senior leaders? Is it simply an hour of levity each month? Or to remind employees of the company culture? It’s too easy for these meetings to turn into a check-the-box exercise rather than a purposeful effort to address a company-wide need. Approach major employee communications events like external communications campaigns and develop a plan. If you’re asking the entire company to stop what they’re doing and tune in, you should be able to articulate the purpose – and your desired outcome – of these meetings.
We need to come up with better measures for success. This survey reinforced how expensive these meetings are – with the vast majority of employees attending every gathering. And given just how involved CEOs are in the programming, there’s added pressure to show the value of these meetings. Your approach to measurement will vary based on your company culture and employees’ willingness to participate in surveys, but we recommend tracking the same general themes each meeting (and ensuring they tie into the purpose of your meeting). For some, this might be tracking attendance or the number of Zoom comments. But for companies seeking to gain even more clarity on how well things are working, we recommend sharing a short survey at the end of each meeting asking 3-5 questions about whether employees felt more connected to the company, what they enjoyed and didn’t enjoy about the meeting, and programming they’d like in the future. This doesn’t need to be an involved survey – Google forms are a light lift – and the feedback can provide leaders clarity on what’s working and what they should change.
Keep the programming interesting and fresh. Use these meetings to reinforce company culture, celebrate employees, and serve as a reminder to employees of why they work where they do. Ultimately, you want to put in place programming that drives a sense of connection and excitement. This will look different at each organization – and will need to evolve every year or so to not get too stale.
Re-purposing content to reach deskless employees. For companies with large, distributed workforces – e.g., manufacturing employees working on a production line, field service representatives based at client sites, drivers making deliveries – it’s unrealistic to think company-wide meetings are an effective tool to reach those employees. Rather than hoping that bits of information will trickle down to these employees, savvy organizations make a plan for reaching their deskless workers. One way to do this is to equip front-line managers with the top 2 messages from the all-employee meetings and ask them to relay them verbally during floor or team meetings. For organizations with more budget, prepare content in advance for digital displays or mobile app push notifications that can go live during the all-company meeting.
Monthly meetings (at most) seems to be the right cadence. It gives time to freshen content, offers meeting organizers a break, and makes these gatherings feel special – rather than a required bi-weekly or weekly company meeting. Even monthly will likely be too much for larger companies, but this regular cadence is likely feasible for companies with under 1,000-employees.
Your CEO shouldn’t be the only leader on ‘stage.’ Yes, there are times when your CEO should run the show – especially during tough moments or significant company wins – but to keep things fresh, bring in more faces. These can be broader updates provided by members of the leadership team or more detailed snapshots shared by junior employees. And by putting more people on ‘stage’ during these meetings, you’ll likely get a more diverse array of voices considering how disproportionately white and male CEOs tend to be in the U.S.
Decide in advance how transparent or on the spot you want your executives to be. You can’t unring the bell afterward, so be thoughtful about how much information you share – and get comfortable explaining those lines to employees. For some companies, the risk is too high if they share sensitive information with employees – likely driven by a risk of leaks to the press which could result in competitors catching wind or unfinished products being erroneously marketed. But for other companies, operating with a high level of transparency is essential. Anything short of radical openness will run afoul of their values. Choose a lane and stay in it (and if you decide to revisit it, be clear this isn’t a moving target).
Similarly, decide who is the best bearer of your company’s news. Sometimes it’s not the CEO – either because they’re not great communicators or their statements will be overinterpreted or over parsed by employees. (Example: if your CEO declares that returning to the office is critical, it will likely be interpreted with greater urgency than if your Chief People Officer declares the same.)

Conclusion

Keep doing these meetings. Even if they’re expensive and time consuming. This is your moment to tell your company’s story to a group of people who are invested in your organization’s success.

But freshen up the content, rethink the cadence, evaluate whether your programming is actually landing, start surveying, and bring in more voices. And if you find a good tech platform for hosting these, please give us a call.