Speaker 1: Hi, it's Rachel Miller of All Things IC. I'm here to help you think through crisis communication strategies. What is crisis communication? It's anything which disrupts business activity. So that's anything from tornadoes to floods to tragedies. A crisis situation is an unplanned event which stops the flow of business. Having a crisis strategy in place provides an action checklist of what to do next. It provides the foundation which your company can build on when communicating with employees. Through this short video, I'm going to be talking you through a how-to guide to help you get ready for whatever crisis comes your way. Let's start. Top tip from me, you need to tailor your strategy for every situation. Each situation will be unique. However, having a rough draft can save you valuable thinking time. Make sure you keep your crisis communication strategy jargon free and seek input from your dedicated crisis communications team and your employees. The mindset you need is two-way communication. When you're thinking about crisis communication strategies, you need to have two-way communication channels in place. This is not the time for broadcast. Your leaders need to be visible and provide clarity and reassurance. If you're in a situation where there is restricted movement or restricted travel, for example, then your leaders need to be virtually visible. Your employees will want to know what is happening in real time and need opportunities to ask questions. Top tip from me is give certain times when employee communication channels will be updated. You cannot over-communicate in this situation. So the mindset from me is give certainty of communication even if you can't give certainty of content. What does that mean? Well, it's saying things like our intranet will be updated tomorrow morning, for example, and then tomorrow morning rolls around and sometimes you may find there's nothing to add from the previous update from the day before. So this is where given certainty of communication, even if you can't give certainty of content comes in because the content is totally okay to say there is nothing further to add. We will update you again this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Give times when people can expect information. Why is that important? Well, I find if you leave gaps, then people fill it themselves. They will have rumours. There will be things which aren't accurate because there's gaps in the information flow in the organisation. So to help avoid that, give certainty of communication so people know when they'll be updated, particularly your people managers. It's really important to prepare your team for a crisis, not only important for your company, but for testing the dynamics of your internal communication. As the saying goes, if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. The most important steps you need to ensure, including knowing who's in the team, communicating who the nominated team is with your workforce, and most importantly, making sure the most suitable and easily accessible channels of communication to communicate your crisis response through, internally and externally, are known. So things to bear in mind are your objectives. What are you trying to achieve? Your messaging. What are you saying and who to? Access. If you have a crisis telephone hotline, for example, where your employees can dial in to hear the latest information, can it be updated remotely? Availability. Can you contact your emergency team 24-7? Channels. Could your channels sustain the crisis? Do you have a backup? Credibility. What are your approvals processes? Who are your spokespeople, internally and externally? And then the team. Does your team include representatives across the whole company? Don't forget to communicate with your third parties too, your external contacts and third parties. This could be anybody from delivery drivers to catering staff to your cleaning team. Create a link for external professionals via your website, for example. Provide a similar feed of responsive communication via a channel which is easily accessible and more importantly, easily maintainable. So top tip from me, it may be worth having an external contact list for your contractors, freelancers and all third parties who can be contacted if a crisis will impact their association with your company. And again, don't forget to store all of this data securely and compliant with your local laws. The next thing to think about is announcing and promoting. So make sure your employees know which channels are dedicated for crisis communication. Show and remind them of these channels throughout the year. For example, you could regularly publicise the number of an employee information hotline. You can use an informative business card, for example, a page in the employee handbook, and some people even use the back of their staff passes. Top tip from me is induction sessions are the perfect time to introduce your crisis communication strategies, including nominated contacts and channels. So when employees enter the organisation, they join you, they understand the process for crisis communication. It's really important that you keep your dedicated crisis communications team updated. If rotation changes, so for example, if you have a nominated lead, the whole team need to be informed and so do your stakeholders. There's no point somebody calling someone from your operations centre, calling the comms team at three in the morning, for example, that you monitor conversations. If employees are asking questions through a shared mailbox, for example, or customers are asking via social media, you need to be monitoring and joining those conversations. If there are recurring questions, it's a good gauge to tell you what's missing from your communication activities. Knowing what is being said is critical. It can have significant impact on your company's reputation, understand the concerns and react appropriately. Top tip from me is have a dedicated person to monitor the two way channels, responding with agreed information and knowledge of who can provide real time feedback. Make sure you interact and respond. So dedicated channels for crisis communication need to be interactive and responsive. So there's no point, for example, having an update on a website and the comments are turned off and there's no opportunity for your employees to check their understanding, ask questions, clarify what they're reading and get further information. That's no good. Employees and customers will be going through a flurry of emotions and will need reassurance of the situation. They want to know how the crisis affects them and the overall impact. Make sure you regularly communicate with employees. It's OK to say you have nothing further to add and when the next update is. Don't leave big gaps between updates and encourage them to have their say. Always update and communicate. Be vigilant. You may have the perfect strategy in place, but do you still have the original team working for you? Make sure nominated teams are known by all employees and any levers have been noted and details updated. More importantly, ensure your entire team are aware of these changes, particularly for emergency purposes. So my top tip is to review your strategy periodically and communicate changes. Practice and respond internally. So preparing for the worst case scenario can be challenging, but facing a crisis can be the determining factor of whether your strategy works or collapses at the first hurdle. Why not have a practice run? Create a crisis rehearsal. You can do this as a planned exercise or spring it on the on call team, but make sure you tell them it's a trial run as soon as you get through to them. Communicate your motive for a trial run with your employees and execute your strategy through the pretend scenario. This will give you an understanding of how it works when put into motion and will identify areas for improvement. The top tip for me is rehearsals and fake crisis scenarios allow your executives to play different roles. This helps them see the crisis from other perspectives, which you often can't do when you're in a real life situation. You can also practice and respond externally. So implementing your crisis strategy is a great way of working out how effective your comms channels are and if your business can function if office access is limited, for example. But how do you know the strategy will work externally? Try a practice run with a selection of your clients or associates who are trusted with a given information. Construct a crisis scenario, use the appointed communication channels and interact and respond with your selective audience. You'll then know if your channels can handle the crisis externally. Let's think about PR nomination. Communicating the crisis internally and externally needs to be handled by a nominated team. However, handling the press can be a complicated process and if handled incorrectly can spell disaster for your company's public image. Therefore, it is crucial you have fully trained and fully prepared spokespeople who will talk with the press. They need to know how to assess the situation, respond adequately and efficiently and know who to contact directly when making a public statement. Don't just rely on one person. They may be on holiday, unavailable or left the company. So top tip for me in this situation, PR can be the icing on the cake for your company if managed and executed effectively. It is worth investing in PR training if your nominated employees do not have the relevant experience. Remember, review and implement. Your reaction to a crisis can either strengthen or weaken your company image with employees. Improvements will inevitably emerge with any crisis plan. It is your responsibility to capture them and act on them next time around. Once a crisis is over, I strongly encourage you to review what happened. Seek feedback and ideas from your employees and from your stakeholders inside and outside of your business. Transparency will engage your strongest team. Tip from me is don't blanket and cover over your mistakes. Be open and honest and make suggested improvements in the next plan. Remember, your team is the one communicating the crisis, so include them in the content and in the channel selection stages. Best of luck with your crisis communication strategies. If you want to know anything else about internal communication, PR or social media, I encourage you to check out my website allthingsic.com and you can find me at all things I see on Twitter and Rachel all things I see on Instagram. Best of luck. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai