Use an agenda template to plan updates, celebrate wins, run better Q&A, and keep every employee aligned and engaged, whether they’re remote or in the room.
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All-hands meetings bring your entire company together, but without a clear agenda, they can quickly feel unfocused or unproductive. A structured template makes it easier to plan, run, and follow up on these important gatherings. In this article, you'll learn what to include in your agenda, how to plan effectively, and how to keep every employee engaged, no matter where they work.
An all-hands meeting, also known as a staff meeting or town hall, is a company-wide gathering where leadership shares business updates, celebrates wins, and aligns every employee around shared goals. Unlike team-specific meetings, all-hands meetings give everyone in the organization a chance to hear directly from leadership, ask questions, and feel connected to the bigger picture.
Most companies hold all-hands meetings monthly or quarterly, depending on their size and the pace of priority shifts.
Well-run all-hands meetings are more than just a company update; they're a powerful way to build a connected and motivated team. Here's why they're worth the investment:
They build transparency. All-hands meetings give leadership a regular opportunity to share company performance, strategic priorities, and upcoming changes with the entire team.
They strengthen alignment. When everyone hears the same message at the same time, it's easier to connect daily work to broader company goals and objectives.
They boost engagement. Recognizing achievements, spotlighting teams, and opening the floor for questions shows employees that their contributions and voices matter.
They foster culture. Especially for remote or distributed teams, all-hands meetings create a shared experience that reinforces your company's values and identity.
A strong all-hands meeting agenda keeps things organized and ensures you cover what matters most.
Opening and icebreaker. Start with a quick welcome and a light icebreaker to set the tone and get people engaged from the start.
Business updates and key metrics. Share high-level company performance, progress toward goals, and any important announcements from leadership.
Project and team updates. Highlight key initiatives, milestones, or deliverables from across the organization so everyone knows what other teams are working on.
Employee recognition and celebrations. Dedicate time to shout out individual or team achievements, work anniversaries, or other wins worth celebrating.
Q&A or "Ask Me Anything" session. Give employees a chance to ask leadership questions, either live or submitted in advance.
Action items and next steps. Close by summarizing key takeaways, assigning follow-up tasks, and letting everyone know what to expect before the next meeting.
Planning your all-hands meeting is just as important as running it. A clear agenda, assigned speakers, and a prep timeline help make sure nothing gets missed. Use the all-company meeting agenda template above and the following tips to keep your next meeting on track:
Break your meeting out into key themes. Make sure your meeting has a clear agenda by breaking it up into categories such as results and strategies, highlights from the past quarter, project updates, or new initiatives. Also, leave room to celebrate achievements.
Appoint a moderator and speaker for each theme. Then, let them know what they're responsible for and how much time they have to speak in advance of the meeting.
Set a timeline for your meeting prep. You've got your meeting on the books, but do you also have a due date for setting the agenda? Or wrapping up slides? Make sure everyone involved in planning knows what prep work they're responsible for and by when.
Share your agenda and ask for Q&A questions in advance. Before your meeting, share an overview of the agenda and ask your employees to submit any questions. That way, you'll all enter the meeting with a shared understanding of what you should take away.
After you've developed a template for planning all company meetings, reuse it each time to set up the process quickly and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Go even further by setting it up in Asana, and make your meeting planning a collaborative effort.
Not sure how to divide your time? Here's a sample agenda for a 60-minute all-hands meeting you can adapt to your team's needs.
Welcome and icebreaker
Time: 5 min
Owner: Moderator
Business updates and key metrics
Time: 10 min
Owner: CEO or executive leader
Project and team updates
Time: 15 min
Owner: Department leads
Employee recognition and celebrations
Time: 5 min
Owner: HR or People team
Team spotlight
Time: 5 min
Owner: Featured team lead
Q&A session
Time: 15 min
Owner: Moderator and leadership
Action items and closing
Time: 5 min
Owner: Moderator
If your meeting runs longer than 60 minutes, consider adding a short break midway through and building in time for interactive polls or small group discussions to maintain energy. Adjust time allocations to what's most relevant for each meeting, while always protecting time for Q&A so employees feel heard.
The Q&A portion of your all-hands meeting is often what employees value most, but it can also be the hardest to get right.
Collect questions in advance. Use a shared document, form, or project in Asana to gather questions before the meeting. This gives leadership time to prepare thoughtful responses and ensures quieter team members have a voice.
Allow anonymous submissions. Some employees may feel more comfortable asking candid questions if they can do so anonymously. Consider using a tool or survey that supports this.
Assign a moderator. Have someone dedicated to reading questions aloud, managing time, and keeping the conversation on track.
Follow up on unanswered questions. If you run out of time, commit to answering remaining questions in a follow-up message or document. This builds trust and shows employees that their input matters.
Mix live and pre-submitted questions. Start with pre-submitted questions to set the tone, then open the floor for live questions to create a more interactive experience.
If your team is distributed, your all-hands meeting needs to work just as well for someone joining from home as it does for someone in the office.
Choose the right platform. Use a video conferencing tool that supports large groups, screen sharing, and features like live polls or chat. Make sure everyone has access before the meeting.
Design for remote-first. Even if some employees are in a conference room together, run the meeting as if everyone were remote, using a remote-first approach. That means presenting on screen, using chat for questions, and keeping the camera on for speakers.
Use interactive elements. Polls, emoji reactions, and live chat keep remote participants engaged and give them ways to participate beyond just listening.
Record the meeting. Not everyone can attend live, especially across time zones. Record the session and share it afterward, along with meeting minutes summarizing key takeaways and action items.
Include icebreakers that work virtually. Quick prompts, trivia questions, or "this or that" polls are easy to run virtually and help set a collaborative tone from the start.
Planning an all-hands meeting involves many moving parts, from finalizing speakers to collecting questions to sharing follow-up notes. Asana makes it easy to manage every step in one place.
With the free all-company meeting template, you can:
Assign tasks to speakers and set due dates for agenda prep
Track progress so nothing falls through the cracks
Use custom fields to tag agenda items by theme
Share the project with your team so everyone knows what's coming
Save it as a reusable template, so planning the next meeting takes even less time
Your team can collaborate on the agenda, submit Q&A topics, and review action items, all within the same workspace. Ready to make your next all-hands meeting your best one yet? Get started with Asana and bring structure, clarity, and collaboration to every company-wide meeting.
Manage your all company meeting in Asana and help your organization plan their best work yet.