Before we dig into this month’s topic, let’s make sure you’ve checked all the boxes we’ve talked about so far in the Culture Under Construction series:
- You know what culture is, and you’ve taken steps to measure how you’re doing
- You’ve created a healthy environment where people feel safe, loved, and appreciated
- You have clearly defined your mission and values and you communicate them regularly
- You have a recruiting and interviewing process that revolves around your culture
- You have systems in place to ensure you’re having regular conversations with your team and you’re investing in their growth and development
- You’ve written a Culture Guide that introduces everyone to your way of life at work
Now that you’ve done the work to get everyone on the same page, how do you keep them on the same page? Hosting a monthly company meeting is a way to ensure everyone in the boat continues to row in the same direction. It’s a way to bring people together, provide a sense of community and belonging, and cultivate pride in your company’s brand.
The Basics
The monthly meeting should take place on the same day and same time every month (ex: 7am on the last Wednesday of the month). Finding the best time for everyone may mean that some of your team members may need to come in a little early. Build in some calendar reminders to be sure everyone knows where to be and when. Pro tip: don’t forget to add new team members to the calendar invite during onboarding. Add in extra accountability by scheduling it as a recurring work order in your CRM and adding it to your on-call calendars so people see it and know what to expect. Make it a way of life, and keep rescheduling to a minimum. As the owner of the company, this should be your most important calendar event each month.
Let’s go ahead and address the first concern many of you have: it sounds expensive to have this amount of people sitting in a room not producing any revenue. You’re right. But you know what’s more expensive? Turnover. Low employee satisfaction. Misalignment.
Like any effective meeting, your monthly meeting needs an agenda, and the meeting should start and end on time. Allow about 45 minutes, but no more than an hour. The agenda doesn’t need to be distributed in advance to the whole team. Just the ones who are presenting.
If you’re wondering what exactly you should talk about during your monthly meeting, here’s a sample agenda to get you started:
Agenda
- Welcome New Team Members
Take the time to welcome anyone who has joined your team since the last monthly meeting and make this a positive and fun experience for them.
- Mission, Vision, Values
If you have new employees in attendance, try having your team members volunteer to explain the mission, vision, and values to the first-time attendees. This is an easy way to find out who your culture champions really are. Another thing you can do is highlight people who have exemplified your values in the last 30 days. The more ways you can communicate what it looks like to put your mission and values into action, the better.
- Birthdays and Anniversaries
Celebrate anyone with a birthday or anniversary that month. Maybe hand out some cash or company swag, but be sure to say something that you appreciate about each person celebrating an anniversary with you.
- Announcements
Announce important things happening in the life of the company and the people in it. If you have open positions you’re hiring for, let everyone know so they can refer candidates to you. If there are upcoming holidays, events, or any items that need everyone’s attention, mention it here. Did someone recently become a grandparent? Congratulate them during this section. This is also a good time to recap any events that happened since the last meeting with photos, such as large losses, company gatherings, or community events you attended.
- Certifications & Promotions
If anyone has earned a new certification or promotion in the last month, recognize them during the meeting. If they went to a class, ask them to share with the group one thing they learned.
- Strategic Plan
If you’re the owner, you may think that some of your team has no idea what you do on a daily basis. Your team regularly reports to you, but who are you reporting to? This is your time to hold yourself accountable and deliver status updates on your strategic plan, and let people know what’s coming up in the next 30 days. When people know what to expect, they can be a champion for change. Plus, people like to feel “in” on things, and this is a great way to give them ownership in the company’s future.
- Department Updates
If you have managers leading divisions in your company, give them an opportunity to share any updates the whole company may need to hear. This could be related to benefits (Admin), software implementation (Ops), or feedback from referral partners (Sales).
- Financial Performance
When you share the company’s financial performance, it helps you to build trust with the people you rely on to achieve the company’s goals. It’s best to make your KPIs and financial reporting basic and easy to understand, and be sure to break it down for your new team members so they know what you’re talking about. If you miss the mark, explain why, and what you’re doing to correct it. The goal is an environment where there are no surprises….and even better if there are company-wide bonuses tied to reaching goals each month.
- Customer Feedback and Reviews
Take time to share the positive reviews and compliments that you’ve received from customers in the last month and praise the ones who earned them.
- Send-Off
You can conclude your meeting with something uplifting or fun that sets the tone for the rest of the day. Our tradition is “catching someone doing something right” and it’s as simple as writing down something positive about a teammate on a piece of paper, and throwing it into a fishing net. We pass the net around, everyone pulls out a piece of paper, and reads the compliment out loud.
If you follow the same basic format every month, preparing the agenda and slides isn’t a heavy lift. It may be helpful for you to always keep the agenda document open on your computer and add content as it’s occurring throughout the month.
Best Practices
Finally, here are a few tips to help you make your monthly meeting an event that people look forward to attending:
- Make It Visually Pleasing
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to create slides for your meeting, and you probably have someone on your team who’s good with Canva, so ask for help. Use this opportunity to showcase your team with photos that highlight them at their best. For example, the new team members’ photos should be on the screen when you welcome them, and the people celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, and new certifications should be on screen during their time in the spotlight.
- Make It Fun
Early morning meetings can be tough, so find a way to break the ice. Music is a great way to get people in a good mood. Sometimes we let our older team members choose songs that they think our youngest teammates should be exposed to, and while we wait for everyone to get in the room, we’ve got old school music videos entertaining us.
- Reward What’s Important
If you base your culture around the belief that when the company wins, the individual wins, the monthly meeting is an ideal time to deliver the winnings. You can distribute incentives for sales goals, finder’s fees, referral bonuses, or whatever is relevant to your strategy. If you’re implementing software, reward the ones who have embraced it. Companies like KnowHow give you insights into who’s using the software. Gamify it and reward those who are making implementation a priority.
- Keep it Upbeat
If you’re having issues at work, address them one on one or in small groups. Don’t do it at the monthly meeting. People will dread coming to a meeting where the owner is always complaining about what “some people” are doing wrong.
- Feed Your People
You don’t have to provide a huge breakfast buffet, but something simple goes a long way to boost morale.
- Prepare in Advance
If you treat the meeting like an afterthought, don’t expect your audience to be engaged. If you really want to use this meeting as an opportunity to build culture, you have to send the message that it’s important to you.
If you’re not currently in the rhythm of hosting a regular company meeting, all of this might seem daunting, but the potential rewards outweigh the concerns. Once your team knows what to expect – a dedicated monthly time where you deliver updates on the company’s progress and celebrate the people who make your company great, while having fun in the process – they’ll look forward to showing up every month. When you make them feel “in” on what’s happening in your company, they’ll look forward to showing up every day. It takes discipline, and a few months to get into your groove. But once you do, you’ll see those numbers that you use to measure your culture start to increase over time.
Katie Smith, CR
Katie Smith, CR is the second generation owner of PHC Restoration in North Carolina, an independent company committed to making a positive impact on its team, customers and community. Passionate about servant leadership and building relationships, Katie plays an active role both inside of her company and within the industry. She currently serves as the President of the Restoration Industry Association, the oldest and largest non-profit, professional trade association dedicated to providing leadership and promoting best practices through advocacy, education & professional networking opportunities for the restoration industry.
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