The quarterly company meeting is coming up at DAVIS and multitudes of emails, break room flyers and the usual company chatter has been hyping up the event for weeks beforehand. Finishing touches on division presentations are hurriedly being put together, and travel plans are being made for employees from all over the country to get together for the sharing of ideas and the announcement of exciting developments. One could wonder why so much fuss is being made over a good old-fashioned company meeting when everything could be done via email? The argument remains that sharing face time with coworkers is a critical part of building a company culture.
In the day and age of Skype and various media to get people together to discuss financials and RFPs (those do get the job done as necessary tools), the charm of the traditional business meeting between coworkers has been largely pushed aside. Sure, client meetings and sales lunches are still in full swing. The nostalgia of meeting and shaking hands with business partners is not lost on inter-company gatherings, so why would it be lost on a company priding itself on relationships and the personal aspect of conducting business?
Here at The DAVIS Companies, we get together as teams on a daily basis to talk about current events and opportunities to help both our client partners and candidates…but we also see immense value in setting aside at least a half day on a quarterly basis for our heralded “Town Hall” meeting. This month I will be presenting with my partner-in-crime and Co-Founder for “DAVIS National Engineering.” We will be presenting our results for Q2 as well as our plans to crush our goals for next quarter. We couldn’t find a better place for feedback than a room full of our colleagues from Executives to Recruiters and support personnel – everyone who holds a stake in our company’s success and has some great ideas to share.
This epic meeting of the minds brings together our nationwide offices from New Hampshire to Boston, Atlanta, Minnesota, Tennessee and New Jersey…and if anyone can’t make it there physically our friends from IT make sure they can connect via video conferencing so they can be a part of the action.
Leadership will take the opportunity to address current events, company performance, and exciting news which everyone in the room can be a part of. Every person in the room was a part of getting us to where we are and it feels like it. Momentum is built in just a few hours through both the excitement of all being together and excellent game plans being shared, but also in the chit chat that the hustle and bustle of our daily business. Of course, at the end of the meeting our fearless leader will host as many of us who can attend at an equally excellent pool party, complete with refreshments of course!
The moral of the story is not in the media for a meeting, but in the value of getting people together regularly who depend on each other to service our clients to the utmost of our ability. As an avid user of GoToMeeting and Skype, those are critical for our speed, responsiveness, and success. On the other hand, when you have a chance to have a coffee with a coworker or to hold a Town Hall meeting like here at DAVIS, and to build a relationship which goes beyond the computer screen, run with it and see how it impacts your team and your company.