May 18, 2010
Do I Really Need a Crisis Plan?
Nobody plans to have a crisis – it’s like planning to have a heart attack the day after your retirement. So with recent headlines from financial malfeasance to natural disasters, public relations professionals like me just have to ask: What kind of crisis communications plan does your organization have? This isn’t a “yes” or “no” question – it’s a question of preparedness and responsibility to your employees, customers and shareholders.
No doubt this crisis negatively impacted revenue for this retailer.
Following 9/11, I thought businesses would be clamoring to make sure they were covered in the event of a crisis – manmade or natural. I was in shock and awe at how many organizations didn’t have so much as a current employee list, customer database and/or functional website. Most executives thought a crisis only happened in big faraway places (tell that to the thousands of businesses put out of commission because of tornadoes, floods, fires, etc.); some believed planning for a crisis was a waste of money (ask Domino’s about that); and one even chose to “ride the wave” of a national tragedy as his strategy (see news clips of executive stuttering to explain how donations were really used).
Let’s be clear about one thing: NO ONE IS IMMUNE TO A CRISIS. Who thought a 500-year flood would really happen, putting some businesses out of business? Who thought a pilot would have to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River? Who knew that students would actually form a plan to kill their classmates? The rescue services, airlines and school officials likely never dreamed of such circumstances on their watch, but that doesn’t mean that a nightmare can’t happen.
So for those organizations interested in making a responsible step toward crisis planning, see the checklist below. If you can check “yes” to all of the statements, then you’re ahead of the curve. If you can’t check “yes” to all the statements, then do something about that.
* We have an ongoing communications effort in place to maintain a foundation of goodwill in our community.
* We have identified potential crisis situations within our organization, and we have developed a communications strategy for responding to each.
* In the event of a crisis, we are prepared to quickly communicate with all our target audiences, including but not limited to, staff, volunteers, consumers, shareholders, elected officials, media and the general public.
* We have established a crisis team and a formal notification plan.
* Our management team and key board members/stakeholders have reviewed and approved the crisis communications plan.
* At any hour of the day, our crisis team knows how to contact each other.
* Each member of our crisis team has a copy of the crisis communications plan at home and at the office.
* If an incident occurs, we are confident the employee or volunteer on duty will know what to do to alert the crisis team.
* Our organization has established a formal communications policy on providing the media with full and accurate information in a timely manner.
* The spokesperson for our organization has received professional media training and is an integral part of our operations and/or management team.
How many can you positively answer?
Great heads up!
My business has what we call a Business Continuation plan that must be reviewed and updated annually. However, in going down the list I can not confidently answer yes to every question.
How do you test your plan against the unknown event? How prepared are stakeholders and staff? Having a plan and then being able to execute it in the crisis is the challenge.
Having a Business Continuation plan puts you ahead of many companies so good for you! The most critical time in a crisis is the first 24 to 48 hours – when communicating (even just to say this has happened, we don't yet know why, but we're working on it, and we'll keep you informed) to your audiences is critical. People want to know something, anything. And if organizations don't communicate, speculation develops, rumors start, and crisis recovery has just been made so much more difficult. In any case, just call me if you need me!
Great post. I remember in Texas having to develop a “hurricane plan” for weekly papers located along the coast in our company.
I think most of the communications issues you mentioned were covered, as well as the protection of assets and ensuring that we continued to communicate with the community in print and online.
When I submitted the plan for approval, it was sent back with something along the lines of “great plan, but make sure the employees and their families are taken care of first.”
This could relate to a PR crisis too. An employee that is watching his company take serious fire for something, watching his company’s stock tumble, or something similar, may develop extreme feelings of fear, concern, etc. You could lose good employees that strong internal communication could have prevented. Or at minimum, you could reduce an employee’s stress levels, keeping them focused, productive and useful to the company.
Excellent point Clay! And kudos to your former employer for recognizing the importance of taking care of employees and their families. Employees definitely are a key, if not the key, target audience in a crisis – they are the frontline people who are the organization's ambassadors on and off the job so it's imperative they be informed and helped. They can affect a company's reputation as much, or even more, than a media story. Thanks for sharing your experience and your comments!
This is something we should all do as business people…thank you!