How To Plan An Effective All-Hands Meeting
How To Plan An Effective All-Hands Meeting
Pro-tips for gathering everyone at your company (a "must" at least once per year), plus access to a free All-Hands Agenda Template.
Last week, we discussed “The Cadence”, answering why, when, and how often to host team retreats based on your company’s goals and team size.
This week, we’re exploring the All-Hands.
For most companies, these offsites are the only time each year when all your employees gather in-person.
Not only are you investing a substantial amount of time (everyone’s salaried time over 3-5 days) and money (roughly $2k-$3k per-person) on behalf of your company, but your reputation as an employer and company culture are on the line.
Plan and execute a successful All-Hands, and you’ll increase employee engagement, retention, and alignment.
Miss the mark, and you may fracture relationships across departments, run the risk of losing top-performers, or cause pain to valued team members if you don’t create an inclusive environment.
Below, we’ll cover some “pro-tips” for planning an effective All-Hands meeting.
You can also download our All-Hands Agenda Template and…
Join our free Team Retreat Planning slack community to discuss agenda building, budgeting, venue inspiration, and more in real-time with hundreds of other people leaders.
Of course, we hope you visit offsite.com whenever you plan your next All-Hands!
Your time is valuable, so let’s get into it…
Define Your Objectives
Before you embark on planning your All-Hands Meeting, it's essential to define clear objectives. These objectives will serve as the north star throughout the planning process, shaping the content and structure of your meeting.
You may need to guide your CEO, C-suite, and other company leadership through the following prompts and brainstorms to make sure you’re aligned on objectives for the All-Hands Meeting before you begin booking venues, structuring an agenda, etc.
Examples of great objectives for All-Hands Meetings include:
Disseminating important company updates (such as 2024 plans, upcoming product launches, or big lofty goals to rally behind),
Fostering a sense of unity and alignment among your team,
Offering your team transformational personal and professional development opportunities,
Increasing awareness of company-wide mission, vision, and values,
Increasing trust and intimacy among employees, especially cross-department,
Celebrating milestones as a company, such as growth milestones, meeting OKRs, new funding, etc
Your meeting's objectives should be in alignment with your organization's broader mission and strategic objectives. They should also be specific and measurable.
Instead of something vague like "Improve team morale," aim for something like "Increase our employer net promoter score by 20%." This clarity makes it easier to gauge your meeting's success (and get CFO approval faster for next year’s All-Hands!).
Send A Pre-Offsite Feedback Form To Attendees
How can you engage your team months before an offsite and ensure their experience both during and after the offsite will be valuable?
Use pre-offsite feedback forms to take care of logistics like dietary preferences, travel sensitivities, and even swag sizes.
Examples of logistics-based questions include:
Do you have any dietary sensitivities?
Do you require any accessibility or special needs? (consider Mothers' Rooms, ADA needs, ASL interpreters, service animals, etc)
Are there any blackout dates for which you can't travel to our offsite?
Those things are important, but as a CEO...I personally find value in some of the employee engagement metrics we're able to track through pre and post-offsite feedback forms as well.
Here are a few examples of pre and post-offsite feedback form prompts to consider when planning your next team retreat:
"connected to colleagues" questions
On a scale of 1-10, how connected do you feel to your direct team members?
On a scale of 1-10, how connected do you feel to your direct supervisor?
On a scale of 1-10, how connected do you feel to your executive team?
"company outlook" questions
On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you by your company’s future?
On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend your company as a great place to work to others?
On a scale of 1-10 how do you feel about your company's commitment to its core values?
"career development" questions
On a scale of 1-10 how do you feel about your future at your company?
On a scale of 1-10 how dedicated to you feel your company is to your development?
On a scale of 1-10, do you feel you have opportunities for advancement at your company?
You might also prompt your team (pre-offsite) on sessions they'd like to cover during the offsite, such as:
pressing problems in the company,
learning and development (and/or professional skill development) items there'd be interest in, and of course...
what kinds of fun activities they may want to plan ("do you prefer more active and outdoorsy experiences or relaxing activities?").
In your post-offsite feedback forms, you can ask for reviews (1-10 or open-ended prompts) on the sessions you organized and apply that feedback to future retreats.
If you use tools like 15Five, Lattice, or Culture Amp, you can even incorporate these prompts into your normal reporting motion.
Book An Inspiring and Cost-Effective Offsite Venue
Choosing the perfect venue for your All-Hands Meeting is a pivotal decision that can profoundly influence the event's success.
The venue you select serves as the backdrop for your gathering, shaping the ambiance and engagement levels for your attendees.
To secure an inspiring and cost-effective venue, it's essential to consider factors such as location, ambiance, size, flexibility, and available amenities (such as meeting space, Wi-Fi speed, and activities).
While Offsite provides end-to-end offsite planning services to hundreds of remote and hybrid companies (like Buffer, Webflow, Hampton, 15Five, Linear, Metabase, LinkSquares, Rattle, Airbyte, and many more), we’ve also developed an Airbnb-style marketplace where you can discover the perfect venue for your offsite.
We’ve partnered with hundreds of boutique hotel, resort, and venue options around the world, which you can search for free once you make an account at offsite.com.
We streamline the booking process, helping you send requests for proposals (RFPs) out automatically to our hotel partners, processing their proposals for you within 24-48 hours in a majority of instances, and clarifying contract terms while saving you 20% or more on room blocks, meeting space, AV, and more.
You can compare venues, invite your colleagues and/or managers to view venues and profiles with you, and ultimately book your offsite venue directly through the platform. Finally, expert assistance is only an email away if you want help making the best choice to meet your company’s specific needs for your upcoming All-Hands.
Create An Engaging and Detailed Agenda
Take your objectives, as well as relevant feedback from your team, and craft an agenda that balances key work sessions, fun team-building time, and “flex time” to relax.
Because your All-Hands Meeting is a work trip, I’d recommend scheduling your strategic planning sessions, brainstorms, problem-solving time, trainings, and other “sessions” before deciding on meals, fun activities, and other logistics.
Below, I’ve linked to our All-Hands Agenda Template for a 100-ish person offsite, but I’d recommend checking it out for any team size up to 500 employees.
Three types of sessions I’d recommend for almost any All-Hands Meeting would be a “State of the Union”, customer chats, and hot seats.
State of the Union - a 30-60 minute overview from the CEO of the upcoming quarter/year’s company-wide objectives.
Customer Panels - If possible, inviting key customers, investors, or partners to your offsites can be a great way for them to meet members of your team, while bringing your team closer to the people and organizations they are positively impacting on a daily basis.
Hot Seats - breakout groups lasting 45 minutes each to work through a pressing problem you, your team, or your company is facing. Brainstorm creative ways to capitalize on an exciting opportunity. The facilitator shall provide the following notes to explain the instructions for the activity.
We are trying to solve for X, and have 45 minutes total for these Hot Seats.
The first 15 minutes of each Hot Seat is for Context. One person per group, will share what is going wrong and what has been tried already to solve the problem. Others in the group can ask clarifying questions to get as much context as possible.
The middle 15 minutes of each Hot Seat is for Brainstorming. This is where everyone comes up with potential solutions to the problem(s).
The final 15 minutes of each Hot Seat is for Synthesis and Next Steps. One person per group writes the most actionable brainstorms and creates a step-by-step action plan for leveraging the ideas shared with them during the session.
If time allows, one person from each group will share their team’s takeaways with the rest of the company (2 minutes or less) before we take a break.
As you might expect, the team at Offsite has dozens of these “sessions” in our library, so based on the objectives your company’s All-Hands Meeting, we can provide more custom recommendations.
Other random “pro-tips” for agenda creation, which you’ll find in the template above, include:
Travel In and Travel Out Time - We recommend most companies budget for “Travel In” and “Travel Out” days because travel may be unpredictable (ie flight delays) and/or anxiety-inducing for those who do not travel often.
Optional group workouts - Group workouts can be led by employees to save money, or local vendors can be hired to lead classes. They are a great way to start each day energized.
Activities don’t have to break the bank - Volunteering is an activity type we recommend to many Offsite clients as it is both cost-effective and great for building camaraderie. We can tie volunteer outings back to company values and/or connect the benefitting cause to the offsite destination (such as a beach clean-up in Miami, FL). We also love Company-Wide Talent Shows because they not only keeps costs down when planning a team retreat, but allows your colleagues to showcase their unique skills and passions if they choose to do so.
Schedule “flex time” - adequate breaks of various lengths can serve as additional time for work sessions if you are running over from a previous activity, or it can be used for co-working, rest, calling family, and more.
Use table questions at meals - conversation starters can prompt your team to develop deeper, more meaningful connections with their colleagues. Some example questions include:
What are you proud of but never have an excuse to talk about?
What is the best purchase you’ve made for less than $20?
What is one thing you think is holding you back at work?
Serve healthy food - keep your team’s energy high throughout a gauntlet of sessions, activities, social interactions, and more. Not only will your team be at your All-Hands Meeting, but many will continue answering client emails, taking sales calls, and handling other matters, so serving healthier food options is critical.
End each day on a high note - Everyone should leave your All-Hands Meetings more connected to colleagues, more engaged with their work, and more aligned on company strategy. I’m all for healthy conflict, debate, and high candor interactions, but an agenda should allow for those moments to occur in the middle of the day followed by a party, exciting activity, or moment of celebration to encourage a positive environment.
Again, I’m missing a lot of “pro-tips”, but you can always email me at jared@offsite.com for more 😎.
Encourage “Pre-Work” Among Company Leaders
Once your agenda is locked in, have company leadership prepare their presentations in advance (ie “pre-work”), with approval from the CEO so that the company leadership is aligned on the strategic priorities being presented to the organization.
Additionally, this “pre-work” will make the final week-of and day-of logistics easier to manage. As the offsite planner, you’ll have more insight on basics (like AV needs or other event materials that will be required) as well as impact (you’ll be able to reference pre-offsite feedback forms and see if messages from company leadership will resonate with your employees).
Offering a deck designer for those sharing slides would be an additional bonus. Offsite can introduce you to deck designers if you’re in need!
“Pre-work” for you as the offsite planner will include, but is not limited to:
preparing communications to the team - starting months in advance of your offsite to communicate dates, travel policies, employee handbook materials (ie “this is a work trip - please behave”), a copy of the agenda, accommodations, etc.
preparing and keeping a detailed budget - this can be an entire article, but for now, please reference our budget template and budgeting webinar.
triple-checking with all vendors - call your hotel, photographer, videographer, swag provider, activity providers, caterers, and others at least one week before the offsite (and potentially the day before your offsite as well) to ensure everyone knows exactly where to be, at what time, and what the costs are.
During The All-Hands Meeting
In a perfect world, most of the logistics will sort themselves out ahead of your All-Hands Meeting. If you want to fully participate in your All-Hands Meeting as an attendee, consider hiring a company like Offsite or working with a “day-of” coordinator at minimum (like a wedding planner!).
However, your main objective during the All-Hands Meeting will likely be to ensure everything runs smoothly. Your other objective will be to leave a lasting, positive impression on attendees.
Here are some tasks to keep in mind during the All-Hands Meeting:
Venue Coordination - some collaboration with your hotel and/or meeting space provider may be necessary to ensure all gathering spots are set up to your liking.
Technical Setup - you will likely oversee AV equipment and connectivity, working with your hotel and/or meeting space provider (possibly third party providers as well) to minimize the risk of technical glitches during the work sessions of your All-Hands Meeting.
Attendee Experience - you will largely be responsible for enhancing the overall participant experience. This includes providing resources, materials, and communications to keep attendees engaged and safe throughout the offsite.
Troubleshooting - during the All-Hands Meeting, you will act as the troubleshooter, ready to address any unforeseen issues or concerns that may arise. Quick problem resolution is vital to maintain the event's flow and minimize disruptions. Take the pressure off your shoulders, though. If you’re “chill” in handling unforeseen circumstances, your colleagues will be chill, too.
Many People Leaders find the weeks leading up to the All-Hands Meeting to be stressful, especially if you don’t have outsourced support. However, your colleagues will thank you tremendously for your efforts, and your company leadership should value and acknowledge your work as well. You did it!!!
After The All-Hands (Follow-Ups, Employer Marketing, and Post-Offsite Feedback Forms)
Your offsite isn’t over until everyone gets home safely.
Even after the conclusion of your All-Hands Meeting, there is more work to be done.
First, follow-up with your team!
Thank your employees for attending your offsite. A simple "thank you" goes a long way in making your team feel appreciated and valued. Let them know that their presence and participation were integral to the meeting's success.
Additionally, most team members likely left their families to be with you for a few days, endured stressful travel situations, and sacrificed or restructured their day-to-day work to be available for the All-Hands Meeting.
A follow-up email or message is an effective way to convey this appreciation and can include key takeaways and highlights from the meeting.
Follow-up with all your vendors to thank them and reconcile bills. This will not only conclude your budgeting effort, but it will make offsite planning easier in the future and reflect positively on your company to pay all vendors on-time.
Send post-offsite feedback forms to gauge the meeting's effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. These forms allow attendees to share their thoughts, concerns, and suggestions.
Many of your pre-offsite feedback form questions should also be asked in the post-offsite feedback forms to see if the All-Hands Meeting had a positive, negative, or indifferent impact on things like your employer net promoter score.
The answers to your post-offsite feedback forms can provide invaluable insights into what worked well and what could be enhanced in future meetings. Encourage honest feedback and assure participants that their input is valuable.
Finally, consider and leverage the employer marketing opportunities from having everyone together in-person. For example, you can order company swag and take photos to promote on your website and social media. A videographer can capture the excitement of your offsite to showcase how exciting it might be to work at your company. These are valuable assets to leverage in recruiting efforts.
With your team on a post-offsite high, ask them to leave reviews on Glassdoor, post about new job openings on their social media accounts, or otherwise support the company’s efforts to recruit top talent.
Want More?
I could write for days on how to plan an effective All-Hands Meeting, or really any type of offsite.
Every company is different, and so the team at Offsite is committed to being a resource for you as you work to ensure your team(s) remain agile and ready to tackle whatever problems and opportunities come your way.
Email me anytime at jared@offsite.com, or visit offsite.com for client case studies to see how other companies are planning their offsite cadence.
If you haven’t already, subscribe to The Offsite Blog below for agenda templates, budgeting spreadsheets, and more thought leadership like this post around offsite planning, remote work, increasing employee engagement, and more.
And of course, if you’re ready to plan your 2024 All-Hands Meeting, make a free account at offsite.com to search our curated marketplace with hundreds of amazing offsite venues, 20%+ savings on room blocks, meeting space, and more.
Plus, we offer end-to-end offsite planning services if you want a “done for you” experience. See why companies like Buffer, Webflow, 15Five, Linear, Metabase, Hampton, and others trust Offsite for their team retreats.
Thanks for reading!
-Jared
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