Town halls go virtual at AutoTrader.com

AutoTrader.com’s first town hall takes place in cyberspace; 100 percent of employees approved

AutoTrader.com has traditionally held annual all-employee meetings in January. But company leaders recently decided once a year wasn’t enough.

“We wanted to be able to provide employees with a mid-year update on our progress in a live setting like the annual, in which they could get information as well as ask questions,” explains Elisher Ferrell, senior manager of internal relations. “[But] as you can imagine, this presents a logistical challenge to get all employees from across the country in one room at the same time, especially amidst our rapid growth.”

In the past communicators have provided employees with mid-year updates via the company newsletter and intranet; this time, they wanted to do something that was less static and provided more opportunity for two-way interaction.

The solution, they decided, was to hold an all-company town hall via a live webcast.