Transforming Town Halls: How to Engage Employees and Reach the Next Generation of Workers
The only constant is change.
The pace of change is unforgiving. Workforce demographics are transforming
rapidly as Millennials and Generation Z workers emerge as the majority across
the employee population. The boundaries of product innovation appear
endless, as the pivots companies can pursue are driven by changes in code,
not traditional manufacturing processes.
These factors, among others, are forcing CEOs to adapt and commit to significant strategy shifts. In the 2019 Gartner CEO Survey, 86% of CEO’s expect to change their business model over the next 3 years and 87% expect to change their operating model. Ultimately, all of this change will be for naught if corporate leaders fail to communicate effectively with their organizations, establish strategic alignment, and inspire their teams to faithfully execute the plan.
This whitepaper presents critical insights depicting how leading organizations are leveraging next-generation town hall meetings to ignite corporate engagement and chart a course toward realizing digital transformation.
The Next-Generation of Workers
Today’s workers are constantly under attack. The daily shuffle between meetings, chat, firefighting, and more is head-spinning. Given the ever-growing stream of projects, programs, and pings, it’s no wonder that the average human attention span has fallen below that of a goldfish. To counter this onslaught, organizations have invested significantly in employee communications tools that work alongside a worker’s daily routine, as opposed to stopping them in their tracks and knocking them off course. Additionally, employees have driven a paradigm shift when it comes to how they want to consume information. The consumerization of technology has reset the baseline for what end users consider acceptable in the workplace. According to Forrester Research, employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than read documents or email. Overwhelmingly, it’s clear then that workers want to consume more engaging content, which is similar to what they are doing in their personal lives.
Imagine a sample of workers across your organization. Entry-level, mid-manager, all the way up to the department heads. Regardless of their function or title, the majority of these employees have the same two requirements:
1) they want to experience compelling content and
2) they want to interact with it in “social” ways.
Digital interactivity (e.g., the ability to like and comment) is an extension of our human nature to build and maintain a sense of community. As a matter of fact, a New York Times Consumer Insights survey identified that 78% of people share information online because it lets them stay connected to people they may not otherwise stay in touch with. Therefore, as organizations are globally dispersed more now than ever before, employees have a similar desire to connect with their co-workers virtually to build culture and foster a sense of community. These insights provide a framework for communicating with the next-generation of workers. Deliver compelling video content that facilities real-time engagement.
“We are moving from a world where computing
power was scarce to a place where it now is almost
limitless, and where the true scarce commodity is
increasingly human attention.”
– SAT YA NADELLA, CEO OF MICROSOFT
The intersection of these two approaches enables workers to best absorb and engage with information, while leaving more time for getting the day job done.