Town hall meetings are often billed as a platform for connection and collaboration. But when they rely on a one-way communication style, they fall short of these aspirations.
There’s a time and place for a one-way format. For instance, it lends itself well to situations where leadership must send a message efficiently, like in an email announcing changes or acknowledging a crisis.
Yet, while a one-way, downward communication style enables you to share information fast, it rarely produces an engaged, receptive audience in a town hall. This creates a crack in a platform that’s supposed to get everyone involved and excited to drive results.
This is where two-way communication comes in. This format engages employees and energises town halls. It encourages the former to actively participate, share their feedback, and feel that their voices are valued.
Let’s look further into how these two communication styles compare—and how the two-way format can turn your town halls into a dynamic platform for connection and collaboration.
Why one-way communication fails in town halls
Researchers found that it’s important for employees to have the opportunity to influence decisions on improving the workplace. One-way communication in town halls fails to give employees that opportunity.
Left unchecked, this approach can lead to negative consequences, such as:
- Disengaged employees: When employees are expected to sit through one-way, presentation-heavy town halls with no chances to contribute, they tune out
- Missed insights: One-way communication silences voices, causing leaders to miss out on ground-level perspectives that could bolster organisational success
- Eroded trust: When leadership dominates the agenda without addressing employee concerns, it erodes trust as employees feel unheard and undervalued
82% of employees trust a company that allows them to give input and feedback to management—even if their opinion differs.
– 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report
Why two-way communication works for town halls
Two-way communication goes beyond communicating information. When applied to town halls, it creates space for employees to ask questions, share feedback, and engage meaningfully.
This can then lead to transformation in various areas, such as:
- Stronger employee engagement: When employees feel included in the conversation, they’re more likely to engage more deeply with their work
- Psychological safety and innovation: Employees are more likely to share bold or unconventional ideas when they feel psychologically safe, which in turn shortens learning curves and increases collaboration
- Better decision-making: Employee input and feedback can help shape business operations, strategies, projects, and initiatives, which can result in more effective implementation
Companies that actively incorporate employee feedback into decision-making are 23% more likely to be more profitable than their low-engagement peers.
– Gallup
6 strategies to transition from one-way to two-way communication
Two-way communication sets you up to achieve your town hall aspirations. But making the shift to two-way communication requires deliberate planning and the right tools. Here’s how to get started:
1. Collect questions in advance
Inviting employees to submit questions before the town hall signals that their voices matter. By surfacing the most common concerns, it ensures the agenda addresses what employees care about most.
Let’s say you’re conducting a town hall to discuss organisational changes. Pre-submission gives leadership time to prepare thoughtful explanations on how these changes can affect employees’ roles. They can include some details in their presentations and flesh out their responses to similar concerns during the live Q&A.
✅ Try this: Send out a QR code where employees can submit questions a week before the town hall meeting. Identify common themes and use them to shape the agenda, ensuring the meeting is relevant and engaging.
Sample pre-meeting Q&A in Pigeonhole Live
2. Conduct asynchronous Q&A
Use asynchronous Q&A to keep the conversation going. Let employees ask questions anytime, ensuring their voices are heard even if they can’t join live. It’s an easy way for leadership to create meaningful dialogue and connect from employees for leadership to continuously connect with their employees.
In a busy environment like a healthcare facility, asynchronous Q&A helps surface real-time feedback, issues, and suggestions in between quarterly town halls meetings. Leadership can respond as immediately as they can to submissions. This allows them to integrate employee insights into everyday decisions.
✅ Try this: Set up a Q&A for a specific time period. Staff can then submit questions anytime within the prescribed period, giving a voice to those who may be on rotating shifts or unable to attend the town hall due to the critical nature of their job.
Sample asynchronous Q&A in Pigeonhole Live
3. Kick off with a mood poll or icebreaker
Start with an interactive poll or icebreaker that sets a positive tone. This helps employees feel comfortable and engaged from the start.
For example, a tech company preparing for a product launch begins their town hall by polling employees on their confidence in meeting deadlines. The responses, displayed in a live word cloud, can help leadership identify and address areas of uncertainty before diving into updates.
✅ Try this: Use a quick poll to gauge employees’ moods or sentiments towards a crucial aspect of your town hall agenda. Display the results in a word cloud to get a sense of the room. Leadership can then address any immediate issues or concerns during the Q&A.
Sample poll responses visualised in a word cloud in Pigeonhole Live
4. Use live Q&A with upvoting
Dedicate meaningful time to live Q&A sessions. Tools like Pigeonhole Live allow employees to upvote questions, ensuring the most pressing issues are addressed first.
Let’s say you’re hosting a town hall about a sensitive topic, such as organisational restructuring. You can use upvoting to prioritise the questions that resonate most. By addressing the top concerns in detail, leadership can demonstrate transparency and ease anxieties about the transition.
✅ Try this: Create a Q&A session on Pigeonhole Live. You can leave the Q&A open, letting the employees submit and upvote questions anonymously anytime during the town hall. Besides question prioritisation, this creates a safe space for employees to raise concerns based on the information they’re hearing.
Sample question upvoting in Pigeonhole Live
5. Follow up with post-event surveys
Town halls shouldn’t end when the meeting does. Send out surveys to gather feedback on the relevance of topics covered and the effectiveness of engagement methods. Ask employees to also rate the effectiveness of the meeting and suggest improvements.
This feedback loop demonstrates leadership commitment to continuous improvement and openness to employee perspectives.
✅ Try this: Put together a short survey on Pigeonhole Live. Push it out to employees during the town hall, increasing your chances of getting more responses than sending a post-event survey email.
Sample feedback survey in Pigeonhole Live
6. Diversify voices in the room
A great way to encourage two-way communication is by inviting multiple speakers, including department heads, team leads, or even junior employees. Seeing someone they closely work with can make employees feel more open to what the speakers will say. They may also willingly share input or feedback with someone they’re already comfortable with.
For instance, a manufacturing firm regularly includes safety updates from team leaders in their town halls. Employees appreciate hearing directly from their peers, even asking relevant questions in the Q&A. This ultimately creates a sense of shared ownership in workplace initiatives.
✅ Try this: Start with a welcome message from a senior executive, then invite department heads to provide updates. Follow this by spotlighting quieter voices—such as a project lead sharing a recent success or an employee from a smaller team discussing their role in a big initiative.
Sample town hall agenda in Pigeonhole Live
Transform your town halls into a powerful, two-way platform
Town halls should be more than information dumps. They should be dynamic conversations that make employees feel more connected to the organisation. When they’re given the chance to influence decisions, they’re inspired to collaborate and stay invested in the company’s progress.
As such, two-way communication is no longer optional. It’s essential for fostering an engaged, motivated workforce.
Next time you plan a town hall, consider the strategies shared above to ensure your employees feel involved and included. It might just be the key to making your meetings more effective—and your company more successful.
Turn your town halls into dynamic conversations
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