By Darian Germain
Throughout the pandemic, employees have had a lot of questions for their leadership. Are we allowed in the office? How long will I have to work from home? Is it safe to return to the office? What is our COVID-19 safety plan? Are we still profitable? Are layoffs a possibility?
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought leaders into the spotlight like never before, as they are now under increased pressure to keep employees informed while simultaneously keeping their business running in the new normal.
To maintain transparency and keep employees in the loop many organizations have turned to town hall meetings. A town hall meeting is a critical opportunity for leaders to inform employees, make announcements, and address important issues. Sharing corporate information through a two-way platform, like video, helps democratize the event and provide a level of transparency that helps to inspire and empower people.
When it comes to keeping employees aligned, holding a remote town hall meeting is critical, especially when you can’t come together in person. Whether you are new to town hall meetings or you have been relying on them for years, here are a few tips to ensure your next town hall gets the recognition it deserves:
Select the right technology
With many video technologies on the market, it’s important to select one that best matches your organizational needs. Some questions to ask yourself include: Do we want interactive features that enable employees to respond and engage in the meeting? Do we need sophisticated reporting? Also, the size of your audience will play a large role. For some organizations, particularly smaller ones, it might be suitable to rely on Zoom or Google Meet. For larger organizations, they will need a solution that is scalable to live stream to audiences of tens of thousands—something that definitely won’t work in Zoom or Google Meet.
Take advantage of analytics and reporting
If you aren’t learning anything from your webinar, how can be sure that your message got out to your viewers? Video analytics and reporting have come a long way in the last decade, with the ability to now measure things including how the audience is reacting to the information presented. There is also the opportunity to measure the back-end performance, so you can understand how live streams are delivered to users across internal networks.
Customize where possible
Modern video technologies provide endless customization options for your next town hall meeting. These include custom UIs, polling and sentiment voting icons, and branding elements. These elements provide a level of sophistication which is unattainable in basic video technology.
Consider help from an expert
Lastly, if you are running a premium event, you might want to enlist the help of professional video managed service providers. These experts provide white-glove, end-to-end live event services, creating premium-quality video that can be streamed to tens of thousands of viewers in very high-definition resolutions – from 1080p to 4k+.