65 town hall meeting questions: what employees ask leadership (and vice versa)
Below are 45 questions employees actually ask leadership at town halls — about strategy, compensation, job security, culture, and leadership itself — followed by 20 questions leadership should turn around and ask employees. Use the first list to prep your executives before the session, and the second list as live polls and open questions to make the town hall a two-way conversation instead of a broadcast.
How should you use these questions?
Two ways. First, as speaker prep: walk your leadership team through the employee questions below before the town hall, especially the uncomfortable ones, so nobody is improvising an answer about layoffs on stage. Second, as a submission seed: when you open question collection before the event, a couple of planted real questions lower the barrier for everyone else.
Collect questions in writing rather than relying on raised hands, and let people submit anonymously — the questions that matter most are exactly the ones people won't put their name on. A live Q&A tool with upvoting (Formkii's is free) lets the audience rank the queue so leadership answers what the room actually wants to know.
Prep leaders on the three or four questions they most hope nobody asks. Those are the ones that will get upvoted to the top. A direct, imperfect answer to a hard question builds more trust than polished answers to ten easy ones.
What questions do employees ask leadership at town halls?
Strategy and direction
- What is the single most important priority for the company over the next 12 months?
- What would have to happen for us to consider this year a success?
- What are we explicitly choosing not to do, and why?
- How are we positioned against [main competitor], honestly?
- What's the biggest threat to the business right now?
- What did leadership get wrong last year, and what changed because of it?
- How does the work my team does connect to the strategy you just presented?
- If revenue is growing, where is that money being reinvested?
Money, performance, and the numbers
- Are we profitable? If not, what's the runway?
- How did we actually perform against the targets we set last quarter?
- What metrics does the board care about most right now?
- Why did we miss [publicly known target], and what's different this time?
- How much are we spending on [major initiative], and how will we know it's working?
- What happens to budgets if the second half of the year is weaker than planned?
Job security and organizational change
- Are layoffs being considered? Will you tell us before rumors do?
- What does the recent reorg mean for my team, concretely?
- Are we planning to hire, freeze, or shrink this year?
- Is the company being positioned for an acquisition or IPO?
- Which roles or functions are most at risk of automation, and what's the plan for those people?
- Why are we hiring externally for senior roles instead of promoting internally?
- What's the plan if [key leader who just departed] isn't replaced?
Compensation and benefits
- Will compensation be adjusted for inflation or market rates this year?
- How are raises and bonuses actually decided? Who decides?
- Why is there a budget for [visible expense] but not for raises?
- When will we get pay bands or some form of compensation transparency?
- Are benefits being cut, kept, or improved next year?
- How does our equity or bonus plan actually pay out, in plain terms?
Ways of working
- Is the remote/hybrid policy going to change? What evidence would change it?
- Why are we required in the office [N] days when our teammates are in other cities anyway?
- What is leadership doing about meeting overload?
- Headcount stayed flat but goals grew — what should we deprioritize?
- What's the policy on using AI tools in our daily work?
- Why does it take so long to get [tools/approvals/decisions] in this company?
Culture and people
- What are we doing about the results of the last engagement survey?
- Several strong people left [team] recently — does leadership know why?
- What concrete actions back up our stated values, not just posters?
- How is leadership addressing burnout beyond wellness webinars?
- What's being done about managers who consistently get poor feedback?
- How diverse is our leadership team, and what's the plan to improve it?
Questions for the leaders themselves
- What keeps you up at night about this company?
- What's a decision you reversed in the last year, and why?
- What do you think employees misunderstand about how leadership makes decisions?
- If you were an individual contributor here, what would frustrate you most?
- What's one thing you've changed your mind about since taking this role?
- What question do you wish someone would ask at these town halls?
What questions should leadership ask employees?
A town hall where information only flows downward is a webcast. Use these as live polls (for the scale and choice questions) and open submissions (for the text questions) during the session — and report back on what you heard at the next one.
Temperature checks (run as live polls)
- How confident are you in the company's direction? (1–5)
- How clearly can you connect your daily work to the strategy we presented today? (Very / Somewhat / Not really)
- How sustainable is your current workload? (Light / Right / Heavy / Unsustainable)
- How honestly do you feel you can speak up at work? (1–5)
- Did today's town hall answer the questions you came with? (Yes / Partly / No)
- How would you rate communication from leadership between town halls? (1–5)
Priorities and friction
- What's the single biggest blocker slowing your team down right now?
- If you could redirect 10% of the company's budget, where would it go?
- Which internal process wastes the most of your time?
- What's one thing we should stop doing entirely?
- Which customer problem do you think we're ignoring?
Culture and ideas
- What's one thing a competitor does that we should copy?
- What would make you recommend working here to a friend — or stop you?
- What's the best thing that happened on your team this quarter?
- What rumor would you like leadership to confirm or kill right now?
- What should the topic of the next town hall be?
- What's one question we should have asked you today but didn't?
- Describe this quarter in one word. (Read a sample aloud — it's a reliable mood reading)
- What did we say today that you're skeptical about?
- What decision are you waiting on leadership for?
How do you put this together in a session?
| Segment | Time | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Opening poll: "one word for the quarter" | 3 min | Live poll, results on screen |
| Business update from leadership | 15 min | Presentation, short |
| Confidence + clarity polls | 4 min | Two live polls, discussed honestly |
| Q&A from submitted questions | 25 min | Upvote order, anonymous allowed |
| "What should we cover next time?" | 3 min | Open-text poll |
| Commitments recap and close | 5 min | Verbal, with owners and dates |
After the session, publish written answers to every question you didn't reach, and open the next town hall with a "you asked, we did" slide. Follow-through is what turns question collection from theater into trust.
Frequently asked questions
Should town hall questions be anonymous?
Yes, anonymity should at least be an option — the most important questions are the ones employees won't attach their names to. Announce the policy before collecting questions, and never speculate on stage about who asked an anonymous question.
How do you get employees to actually ask questions at a town hall?
Open submissions days before the event, allow anonymity, seed the queue with one or two real planted questions, and let people upvote instead of requiring them to write. Then answer every skipped question in writing afterward — follow-through is what drives submissions at the next session.
How should leadership handle a question they can't answer?
Say exactly why it can't be answered — legal, confidential, or simply not decided yet — and commit to a date when more can be shared. Pretending not to see a hard question costs more trust than any honest non-answer.
How often should companies hold town halls?
Monthly or quarterly is typical. Cadence matters less than consistency and follow-through: a quarterly town hall that opens with answers to last quarter's unanswered questions beats a monthly one that never closes the loop.