Running Remote Community Gems: Effective All-Hands Meetings

Hello and welcome back! This is a curated collection of best practices, tools, and inspiring stories from the Running Remote community—featuring insights from founders, C-level and People Ops executives leading remote and distributed companies. All content is shared with their permission and co-created in collaboration with them.

This month, we’re diving into All-hands.

In this edition, we’ll explore:

• Frequency and meeting length
• Agenda structuring
• Making All-hands interactive
• Best practices for preparation and execution

Join us as we delve into these key elements, equipped with real-world examples and practical advice to help you enhance your All-hands meetings and elevate your company culture.

Let’s dive in.

Understanding Town halls and All-hands meetings

In remote and distributed companies, terms like "Town hall" and "All-hands" are sometimes used interchangeably, yet they serve distinct purposes. All-hands meetings bring the entire organization together to align on company performance, strategic goals, and cultural values. These sessions are structured, with leadership sharing updates, key insights, and reinforcing company vision.

Town halls, however, are designed as open forums for dialogue between employees and leadership, with a focus on Q&A and transparent discussion. As Leigh Staub describes, “The meeting is intentionally open-ended. There is no agenda, in order to allow time for Q&A and dialogue.”

Both meeting types foster communication and engagement, but each plays a unique role in building alignment and community within the organization.

Frequency and meeting length

General trends and adaptations for growth

• The frequency of All-hands often correlates with company size and growth dynamics. Smaller companies and those experiencing rapid growth tend to hold All-hands more frequently to maintain alignment and engagement. For instance, Checkly , with 40 team members, holds weekly 30-minute All-hands but cancels them if there are no significant updates. Mural , which experienced rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, increased their meeting frequency from biweekly to weekly, ensuring consistent communication.
• Larger companies might reduce the frequency of these meetings to monthly or quarterly sessions, making use of supplemental communication tools. For example, dbt Labs hosts monthly All-hands meetings as part of a broader communication strategy that includes newsletters, while Publitas.com conducts quarterly meetings lasting 30-45 minutes.

"When you’re growing rapidly, increased frequency helps ensure everyone stays aligned and informed. It’s crucial for maintaining cohesion during dynamic times." – La?la von Alvensleben

Specific company practices and frequencies

• Cro Metrics (60+ employees): Holds biweekly meetings lasting 30 minutes to keep the team updated regularly.
• Hostaway (220 employees): Conducts monthly meetings that last an hour to recap business performance and industry trends.
• Seer Interactive (200 employees): Runs company-wide monthly meetings for one hour, engaging employees with live voting and interactive Q&A sessions.
• Lime Technology Inc. (10 full-time employees): Holds biweekly meetings with a focus on updates that require discussion or clarification.
• Testlio (200 employees): Conducts monthly meetings, strategically rotating times to cover EMEA, AMER, and APAC regions, ensuring inclusivity.
• QuoIntelligence (40 employees): Conducts one-hour All-hands every five weeks and is considering increasing frequency based on employee feedback for more consistent communication.
• Time Doctor (140+ employees): Holds monthly 1h long All-hands across two time zones.
• Slash (40 employees): Runs their All-hands meetings on the first Monday of each month, providing their team with a consistent schedule and a clear start to the month.

Duration trends

Meetings typically range from 30 minutes to an hour, balancing the need for comprehensive updates with productivity. For instance, Hostaway , Seer Interactive and Time Doctor structure their monthly meetings to maximize engagement and ensure that key business insights are shared within an hour.

Agenda structuring in All-hands meetings

Business Performance and Strategic Updates

• Many companies prioritize providing comprehensive insights into the company's current status, management strategies, and future plans.
• KPIs and OKRs: It's common for these meetings to include updates on key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives and key results (OKRs). This often involves a review of financial performance, sales pipelines, and progress against strategic goals. Dashboards or visual aids are frequently employed to illustrate these metrics clearly.
• Product and market updates: Companies often dedicate sections of the agenda to discuss new product features or changes, market trends, and competitive analysis. This can include live demonstrations of product features or customer success stories to highlight the product's impact and market positioning.
• Leadership updates: Senior leaders typically share strategic insights and decisions affecting the company. This might involve industry forecasts, significant partnerships, or shifts in company strategy.

Employee recognition and celebrations

• Peer recognition

At Cro Metrics , Chris Neumann emphasizes starting All-hands meetings with appreciation & gratitude, including recognizing anniversaries and significant achievements. This practice sets a “positive tone right from the start” and highlights employee contributions in a meaningful way. Similarly, at QuoIntelligence , they make it a point to celebrate milestones like project launches, ensuring that essential achievements don't go unnoticed, while Slash kicks off with Team Wins to set a positive tone, highlighting individual and team successes.

"Starting meetings with a recognition of milestones and achievements sets a positive tone and underscores the value we place on our team’s contributions." – Chris Neumann

Seer Interactive uses an engaging MVP voting process, as Crystal O'Neill shared, to allow employees to spotlight “exceptional contributions from peers across the company.” This approach fosters a supportive environment where everyone feels valued. Companies like dbt Labs , Time Doctor and Mural also incorporated peer shout-outs during meetings, building "camaraderie and reinforcing company values."

• Culture highlights

Kaylie Boogaerts puts emphasis on repeating the company mission during All-hands at Checkly . La?la von Alvensleben would also include culture topics in their company-wide meetings e.g. spotlight on Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, ERGs, retreat information, results and actions from employee engagement surveys etc.

• Welcoming and recognizing new hires

Welcoming new hires during All-hands meetings serves to both celebrate and integrate them into the company culture. At Checkly , Kaylie Boogaerts describes using engaging activities like "two truths and a lie" to help new team members feel instantly connected. At Mural the CEO asks new hires three questions during their introduction, a gesture that, according to La?la von Alvensleben , “creates a human connection” and ensures new employees feel valued from their initial interactions.

Making All-hands interactive

• Live Q&A sessions are a staple for keeping the audience actively involved. At Seer Interactive Crystal O'Neill integrates real-time Q&A using a live Q&A doc available throughout meeting, allowing employees to pose questions during the meeting. This ensures that employee concerns and curiosities are addressed directly and immediately, promoting open dialogue across the organization. At Publitas.com employees are encouraged to submit their questions in advance but also during the meeting and following up afterwards in the Slack thread, while at Slash as shared by Kasyfi Rahman Syafa they conclude their All-hands with the Q&A "encouraging open dialogue and feedback from everyone, regardless of their role or location". La?la von Alvensleben used Mentimeter for moderated Q&A, while at dbt Labs Leigh Staub couples the All-hands with a Slack channel for discussions throughout.
• Icebreakers and team activities are excellent ways to break the ice and energize participants before diving into substantive discussions. At Mural , La?la von Alvensleben shares how they started meetings with interactive exercises, like virtual games or friendly challenges, setting an engaging and inclusive tone right from the beginning.
• Breakout sessions for small group interaction encourage deeper connections among team members. At Tim Burgess 's organization, they used themed breakout rooms where participants can discuss specific topics or projects in smaller groups. This format ensures everyone has a voice and helps foster closer relationships within the broader team. Similarly, Ramiro Mellado from Time Doctor shares that they organize breakouts focused on specific non work-related topics, such as asking participants to tell their peers what their Halloween party looked like or give one piece of mental health advice to your past self, etc. These sessions provide a relaxed environment for employees to engage and bond over shared experiences, enhancing team cohesion and camaraderie.
• Interactive technology tools like digital whiteboards can transform meetings. Mural leverages their own platform to allow collaborative activities such as drawing or brainstorming, turning passive listening into active participation.
• Rotating MCs can provide diverse perspectives and keep meetings dynamic. At Cro Metrics , rotating the role of the meeting conductor allows junior employees to practice public speaking and leadership skills. This method keeps the format fresh, as different MCs bring their unique styles and energy to the meeting.

"Engagement is key—when everyone feels they can question, or contribute, it transforms a meeting into a collaborative event." – Leigh Staub

Best practices for preparing and conducting All-hands meetings

• Strategic timing of content

Darren Murph recommends starting with recognition to capture attention, followed by discussions to maintain engagement. Reserve updates for the end to ensure they stay fresh in attendees’ memories. This strategic content flow makes the meeting both engaging and memorable.

"There should be a balance between what’s going on with the business and celebrating people and other achievements. That way, you increase engagement and let people feel proud of their work, may it be launching a new feature, winning a great client, or celebrating anniversaries." – Laura-Marie Linholm

• Vetting the content

Ken Weary emphasizes the importance of pre-screening topics & content to keep All-hands meetings focused and relevant. By discussing with department leads ahead of time, he ensures that only essential and valuable information is shared, maintaining the meeting's impact.

"Pre-screening discussions ensure our meetings stay focused and impactful, with content that truly matters to the entire organization." – Ken Weary

• Buffer time

Leigh Staub highlights the need to incorporate buffer time to ensure the meeting ends on time and to allow some flexibility/acknowledgement that not all presenters will stay on track with their time limit.

• Scheduling considerations

Tim Burgess underscores the importance of rotating meeting times to cater to a global workforce. This practice ensures inclusivity by giving employees across different time zones the opportunity to attend meetings during their regular working hours.

• Use of engaging tech

Tiffany Jones uses Butter ?? to incorporate interactive elements into their meetings. Butter allows the team to integrate activities and sound effects, making sessions more engaging and lively. This technology enhances interaction and keeps employees' attention, turning meetings into dynamic experiences.

• Engaging emcees

Darren Murph suggests incorporating dynamic emcees, like DJ Graffiti to energize the crowd and maintain flow, particularly for major events. He highlights the approach taken by the team at Hopin, who produced their All-hands like a TV show. For everyday events, having an emcee who can hype folks up and keep things rolling helps maintain engagement and energy throughout the session.

• Measuring success and gathering feedback

Ali Seyedmehdi suggests tracking attendance as a measure of meeting success. By monitoring attendance and noting who misses the meetings, there's an opportunity to encourage viewing the recorded sessions. They also conduct feedback questionnaires on how to improve their All-hands meetings. Crystal O'Neill is using Know Your Team to check in at least 2-3x a year for feedback, additions, changes to All-hands to ensure team is getting the most out of them, while Ken Weary employs an NPS survey with a critical question: "Do you have all the information you need for your work to be effective?" to assess the effectiveness of company-wide meetings.

• Ensuring inclusivity

Laura-Marie Linholm employs a strategy of rotating All-hands meetings between regions like EMEA, AMER, and APAC. This approach ensures that each team member can participate during working hours at least quarterly, fostering a sense of inclusion. Tim Burgess had 3 different time schedules for All-hands to try to give everyone a fair chance of attending an all hands during their normal working hours.

• Utilizing multiple communication channels

Leigh Staub & Maria Pati?o Perez suggest using different channels like internal newsletters, town halls, and asynchronous updates to support company-wide communication. This diverse approach helps ensure that updates are accessible in various formats, making it easier for employees to stay informed and connected to the company's mission.

• Asynchronous and synchronous formats

Tim Burgess recommends splitting All-hands meetings into asynchronous and synchronous components. Founders and department heads pre-record short updates (3-5 minutes) and share them on Slack, where questions can be asked and answered asynchronously. This is complemented by hosting two live events per month centered around a theme, with small group breakout sessions to facilitate connection and conversation. This mixed approach not only makes the process more efficient but also ensures everyone has a chance to engage without the constraints of a typical live event. At Seer Interactive they run divisional roundtables & rotate which divisions present live each month, the others still do their updates but those are shared out async in the presentiation.

• Hybrid set ups

For hybrid All-hands meetings, leveraging platforms like Slack enhances communication suggests La?la von Alvensleben . In office locations, where attendees watch on a big screen, Slack is used for chat, enabling participants to interact via mobile devices or laptops. This setup allows for comments and questions, and helps maintain a record of the discussion for those who wish to revisit or address unanswered queries post-meeting.

• Making it a cross-team collaboration effort

Vinícius Coelho suggests leveraging All-hands meetings for cross-team collaboration by having different departments, like engineering, marketing, and sales, share quick updates. This not only highlights individual efforts but also showcases collective achievements, providing a comprehensive view of how each team's work contributes to the company's overall goals and initiatives.

"All-hands gives us an opportunity to show how all the pieces fit together and keep everyone in the loop on company-wide initiatives." - Vinícius Coelho

There is more!

What you see here is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discussions on remote management within our community.

In the past month alone, we've covered a wide range of topics, including travel policies, effective communication on Slack, benchmarks for referral schemes and home office budgets, assessing the effectiveness of offsite events, performance management tools, leadership training, and more.

Join us to be part of these dynamic conversations!

Upcoming events ??

While many community events are members-only, some are open to the public. Don’t miss out!

Nov 6: Community get-together in collaboration with Nini Fritz , Founder The Work Happiness Project . Networking + delightful team building surprise activities. Exclusively for the Running Remote Community members.

Nov 19: "Actionable, now" workshop: Evaluating ROI for Employee Experience Initiatives with Megan Trotter , Senior People Experience Partner at the BBC. Free for the Running Remote Community members, join here if you are not a member.

Nov 21: APAC Community meetup in collaboration with Aakash Gupta, Founder at Hooray Teams. Exclusively for the Running Remote Community members.

Nov 4-6 Async weekly AMA in community Slack with Justyna Adamczyk , Chief People Officer at Sketch . Exclusively for the Running Remote Community members.

Nov 18-22 Async weekly AMA in community Slack with Jared Schwartz , Senior Director, Employee Engagement at Apollo GraphQL . Exclusively for the Running Remote Community members.

29—30 April 2025 | Austin, TX: Running Remote Conference— the fastest growing conference on flexible work. Buy tickets here.

Remote job opportunities from the community ??

• Kaylie Boogaerts and the team at Checkly are currently hiring for a Senior Backend Engineer, Senior Full Stack Engineer , Senior Growth Marketer, Junior Support Engineer. They are a fully remote startup on a mission to enable developers to detect and resolve issues 10x faster through code-driven synthetic monitoring. Checkly Careers >>
• Ali Seyedmehdi and the team at Publitas.com, an AI-enabled discovery commerce platform that seamlessly guides shoppers from discovery to purchase, is hiring for a few roles across IT, HR and Sales. Publitas is a fully remote team of 95 people across 25 countries. Publitas Careers >>
• Sarah Hawk and the team at Discourse are hiring a designer, software engineer, legal ops and system admin. Discourse is a global company with a product that's transforming the online community space. Their team is 102 people and growing. Discourse Careers >>

• Charlie Smethurst and the team at Airalo are hiring for several roles across growth, partnerships & engineering. Airalo is the world’s first eSIM store that helps people connect in over 200+ countries and regions across the globe. Remote-first, their team of 200+ is spread across 50+ countries and six continents. Airalo Careers >>
• dbt Labs are hiring for a several roles across sales, partnerships, revenue, engineering and more. They are a distributed team that's on a mission to empower data practitioners to create and disseminate organizational?knowledge. dbt Labs Careers >>
• Ken Weary from Hostaway, a SaaS startup that is transforming the vacation rental industry, is hiring for several roles across revenue, IT, engineering, CS and many roles. They're a fully remote, innovative company with a team of 220+ people working from over 40 countries. Hostaway Careers >>
• Vinícius Coelho and the team at Time Doctor which provides productivity software for companies with remote, hybrid and offshore teams are currently hiring: Growth Product Manager, Director of Customer Success and Director of Sales. Time Doctor team is fully remote & made up of more than 140 people in 45+ countries. Time Doctor Careers >>

Disclaimer: I am not a recruiter, and I do not possess any additional information about the roles beyond the links provided.

Last week’s must-read articles from the industry ??

• One company A/B tested hybrid work. Here’s what they found. | HBR

Recent research conducted in a real company showed that employees who worked from home three days a week experienced higher satisfaction and lower attrition rates compared with their colleagues who worked from the office.

• New research: Write more clearly and become a super communicator | Atlassian

Smart Brevity and AI can teach teams clear, impactful writing – and save everyone time.

• Election day tensions so high some employers grant remote work week | worklife

Four in 10 managers will have staff work remotely during election week, according to a new survey from ResumeBuilder among over 1,000 U.S.-based managers. About 30% say the election has caused conflicts among employees, and 70% fear tensions will escalate post election, that survey found.

• Some employees are more afraid of losing flexibility at work than their romantic partner | HR Brew

Jasmine Escalera, career expert at LiveCareer, shares how HR pros can navigate sticky return-to-office conversations.

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