HOW TO USE THIS TEMPLATE

1. Read this for theory (aimed at in-person BigCo, but still useful for smaller or remote teams)
2. Replace the slide theme with your company’s theme (or a generic one)
3. Run a few sessions yourself to set the example, then start rotating ownership between yourself and other team leads.

<Function>

All Hands

<DATE>

Replace with your own company’s branded assets

Celebrations

People first! A well-run all-hands builds morale & camaraderie. So long as the personal updates are punchy, it’s a great use of time.

Happy birthday!

Take a minute to celebrate team member birthdays since the last all-hands. “Do anything fun?” is an easy follow up.

<Congratulations, Ryan!>

Ask your people managers to surface team member life events e.g. newborns, vacations, new pets.

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Then, create a placeholder slide and ask those team members to drop in a photo and share a 1 min update with the team!

<Maria’s 2 year workaversary!>

🎉

🎂

Identify work anniversaries since the last all-hands and then ask your people managers to create a celebratory slide of that person and their work accomplishments.

Announcements

Section to provide quick administrative updates. Crowdsource the topics.

�30 sec per slide, presented by administrative driver, with a place to find more details async.

<Open enrollment is here!>

General all-hands slide etiquette:

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1. Require images + voiceover, NOT text. Text that spans more than one line kills storytelling.
2. No bullet lists. Same reason.
3. Coach presenters on keeping things punchy.

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^ this takes work, it doesn’t come naturally. You’ll have to police for a few months before it ingrains.

Achievements

This section is for celebrating work-related achievements. Use it to reward employee behavior you want to see more of. Especially something non-sexy that would otherwise be a thankless job.

Crowdsource achievements from your managers. Ideally there’s about a half-dozen achievements per all-hands meeting.

<1099 vs. W-2 pay calculator>

Achievement slides should be created and presented by the DRI (i.e. the person who did the work), not their manager.

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After crowdsourcing a list of Achievements, create placeholder slides with the DRI’s name on it and let them know they are on the hook.

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You’ll have to police slide etiquette until it ingrains.

<Little Ligma Launch>

10 responses

Live

The all-hands organizer is responsible for shepherding all slides / working with project managing presenters.

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During the meeting, the organizer should ask punchy, positive, FAQ followup questions to keep things engaging.

Deep-dives

Now that the crowd is sufficiently warmed up, time for 1-2 deep-dives. These are typically an opportunity for cross-functional knowledge-transfer. e.g. business-wide initiatives such as rebrands, company-wide survey analysis, or highlighting a team that’s doing a great job that you’d like others to be inspired by / learn from.

The rebrand is coming

Messaging updates

VP testing in ads (search, static, video)

Homepage, email, app store, public reviews v1 updates

V2 updates

Stay informed on #mktg-growth

3-4 slides and ~5-10 minutes total per deep dive is reasonable. The organizer should work with the presenter to get messaging sufficiently massed for a broad audience.

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Same rules apply for slide etiquette. No multi-line text, no bullets, no reading from slides.

What will the future of tax filing look like?

Bulk upload

1

Clarifying questions

2

✅

Complete!

Vision doc

Anyone can present a deep-dive, but ideally it’s the person working on it most directly. They should go to all-hands organizer for coaching.

Wrap up!

Company offsite in 1 month!

Sept 11 - Sept 15

If you have feel-good reminders, put them at the end. Especially if you’re doing all-hands at the end of the week, this is a great time to leave people feeling energetic and excited about the future. E.g. off/onsites, upcoming company holidays

Have a great weekend!

Let your organizer show some personal flare with a lighthearted exit slide.