What is your guide for how and when to communicate about issues or crises?

If you have a plan, when was it last reviewed?

Is it up to date or wildly out of date?

I started to think about the importance of Crisis Communication Plans when reading an article last week. The article, titled Home Didn’t Report Harm, Despite Advice begins with this chilling opening paragraph:

KNOWN bashings at a scandal-hit aged-care home needed to be reported to police and the federal agency, according to strongly worded legal advice provided confidentially to Baptist group executives in December.

The article continues…

But no reports were made at the time and no effective plans were immediately put in place, leading to a further bashing in January at the Kepnock Grove home in Bundaberg, about 400km north of Brisbane.

 The failure of local managers at the Baptist Community Services-owned aged-care home to report multiple assaults was identified in a limited internal probe by senior management in December. The findings of this probe — which identified other problems, including untreated injuries, suspicious deaths, falsified documents, the rationing of food and general neglect — prompted the group to instruct lawyers.

 The group decided it would not meet its legislative mandatory reporting requirement to alert police and the Department of Social¬ Services, according to insiders¬, who accuse executives of mounting a deliberate cover-up.

The article goes on and you can read it here, but rather than focus on yet another disaster for good PR and more importantly, good customer service that includes a safe place to live; I decided to concentrate on looking at what you can do to reduce risk of a reputation crisis (and hopefully reduce the risk to the lives and wellbeing of our elderly.)

What is a crisis?

In this context when talking about crisis we mean:

A significant disruption to business that stimulates extensive news media coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial and government impact on its business.   Institute of Crisis Management (US)

A crisis can have a devastating impact on your business and everyone close to your business – your clients, their carers, family and friends, staff, Board, community.

Would you be prepared to deal with the aftermath? Talk to government departments, deal with the media?

In my opinion, all organisations need some sort of Crisis Communication Plan and its tenets should be to:

Act swiftly, proactively, ethically and honestly. 

Contain an apology where necessary.

 Your Crisis Communication Plan details how you will respond to crises.  What to include?

You would expect the following in most Crisis Communication Plans:

• Who are the Key spokespeople? (for example, CEO, Chair, Executive)
• What media training do these spokespeople need?
• Who are the key stakeholders? Of those, who needs to be contacted directly? Of those who are the most urgent?
• Who do you know in the media who understands your business? You will need media releases, briefing papers, backgrounders- When and how will these be developed? How can you be proactive instead of reactive with the media?
• Digital media – Announcements on Website(s); Who will monitor and respond to social media? What are the key messages?
• Communication protocol – who will deal with internal inquiries? Who will deal with external inquiries? How will callers/emailers be dealt with?
• Contact details – who will you need to contact in a hurry? Do you have mobile numbers, email addresses etc.?

Material at hand

Have you prepared materials prior to crisis? What are they? Do they include:

• Annual Reports
• Fact Sheets, (for example, number of employees, type and size of organisation, affiliated organisations, quality assurance measures in place; strategies in place to decrease risks associated with crisis, complaints procedures)
• Organisation Chart
• Mobile phone numbers
• Policies

Key Messages – they will vary depending on what has happened, but generally in the first instance:

Assume responsibility but not liability

Focus on recovery

Do Not blame

After the Crisis Now is time to:

• Review and Evaluatie
• Record and store knowledge
• Update plan as required
• Monitor recovery and maintain relationships
• Continue ongoing communication important to maintain control and regain stakeholder trust
• Recognise effort of all affected and those who assisted

And perhaps ask for help from influential people who could speak on your behalf.

This morning, just before loading this blog, I came across this link which will also be useful.

Microphones

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