We just had an all hands meeting with the owner of the company a few days ago.  While I'm new to all of this, I guess at one point there was a massive turnover rate, and it still isn't going away.  For instance, everyone here in our department is pretty much brand new except for 2 employees.  The IT department is getting resignation notices every week (one came in this morning) from other departments so they can take appropriate steps upon the person's departure.  This is a first to me.  In past companies people get laid off, they don't voluntarily quit like this.

Anyway, to go to the meeting we all had to trek upstairs into the large conference room.  There weren't enough chairs for everyone to sit in.  Food was waiting outside, and it was lunchtime.  We wouldn't be able to eat until after the meeting.  To make things a little worse, it seemed like there wasn't enough food.  I took it upon myself to go out and scrounge up a few more chairs for some other people.  The meeting began with the food outside and about 20 other people standing about.  The meeting took about an hour.

Within the meeting the speaker brought up how he would like everyone to take pride in their work.  I mean, we're saving people's lives here.  He emphasized the fact that each and every one of us had a important job that kept this company running.  While looking around at the people standing, my stomach growling, I didn't believe him.

If I were to run this meeting I would make sure each person had a place to sit.  There should have been extra chairs so people could even stretch out a bit.  The next thing I would do is have two projectors running with me speaking in the middle.  This would bring everyone closer to the front and no one would be standing at the back trying to see.  I would let everyone grab some pizza on the way in.  I would let my secretaries eat before the meeting, and make them stewards, going up and down the aisles getting people drinks/napkins/whatever until the meeting started.  I would make sure there was extra food (It's pizza, come on) and drinks for those who didn't make it on time.  I would have snacks afterwards to try and keep people talking to each other afterwards.

The only difference between the meeting I envision and the one we had was a bit of the food cost.  The chairs are around, there's multiple projectors, and plenty of space (we used half the conference room).  The food might have run about 50 bucks extra, but you can bet your ass that people would have felt that much more appreciated, and I probably would have believed him.