Turning the town hall on its head

Communicators at Thermo Fisher Scientific knew that, in many cases, employee town hall meetings weren’t working.

“Employees were bored, the content wasn’t meaningful to them, the logistics were often poor—no seating, poor audio—and there was no measurement process for determining how effective the meetings were and where improvements could be made,” explains Ginger Kuenzel, director of employee communications for the Massachusetts-based maker of scientific instruments and laboratory supplies.

It’s a common situation, says Linda Dulye, whose firm L.M. Dulye & Co. has conducted extensive research on the subject.

But uncommonly, Thermo Fisher decided to do something about it—and, with the help of Dulye’s firm, the company completely overhauled its town hall program.

Taking the temperature

The first step was to survey the 150 site leaders who were holding town hall meetings to find out what was working well—and what wasn’t.