The Best Time to Build a Crisis Communications Plan Is When Nothing Is Wrong
During my 20-year career, I’ve experienced a number of crisis scenarios play out — workplace and environmental incidents, employee misconduct, cybersecurity breaches and other situations no organization wants to face.
Unfortunately, no matter how responsible an operator you are or how strong your company culture is, you can’t control everything. Humans make mistakes. Technology fails. Mother Nature bares her teeth. Circumstances outside your control can suddenly put your employees, operations and reputation at risk.
That’s why the worst possible time to think about your crisis communications plan is in the middle of an actual crisis.
A crisis communications plan is much more than just deciding who writes the statement or stands in front of the cameras. It answers questions like:
Who makes which decisions?
Who needs to know first, second, third, etc.?
Who communicates with employees, customers, investors, regulators and community leaders?
Which messages go out when?
Who speaks for the company (and yes, it should only be one or two people)?
Who monitors media and social conversations?
What happens at 10 p.m. on a Saturday when half the people you need aren’t answering their phones?
“The first 30 minutes of a crisis shouldn’t be the first time your leadership team discusses how it will communicate during one.”
Build the Process Before You Need It
An effective crisis plan starts with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
Your leadership team should know who has authority to activate the crisis response process and assemble the appropriate team. Legal, risk management, HR, IT, operations, finance and communications should understand their roles before an incident occurs.
No one should be stopping in the middle of a crisis to ask, “What am I supposed to be doing?” or “Who needs to approve this?”
While responsibilities and even the process can vary by situation, one person should be responsible for activating the team and ensuring the process is followed. Communications should have clear responsibility for coordinating information and messaging outside the response team — including communications to employees.
That structure helps ensure messages are accurate and consistent and that information reaches audiences in the appropriate order and through the right channels.
It also prevents one of the easiest ways to create a second crisis — different parts of the organization communicating different versions of the same story.
Don't Wait to Write the First Statement
Your initial holding statements should already be drafted and approved through all the appropriate channels so communications can simply fill in the necessary blanks and share as needed.
You obviously can't predict every detail of an incident, but you can develop templates around your organization's most likely risk scenarios.
At its simplest, your holding statement should be something similar to:
We experienced [type of event] at [time/location]. Our team is responding and we have launched an investigation to help us determine the cause. We will provide additional information [timeframe/channel].
This first statement isn't meant to answer every question. It's meant to acknowledge what has happened, communicate what the company is doing and create space for the response team to gather verified information.
Silence creates a vacuum — and in today’s 24/7 news cycle and constant social media sharing— that vacuum can quickly be filled with speculation, misinformation and out-of-context details.
A pre-approved holding statement gives media and invested parties the most basic details and assurances an active response is taking place from a reliable, credible source.
Your second communication should provide more substance. That means your crisis playbook should include frameworks for follow-up statements, talking points and, when appropriate, FAQs for impacted audiences.
Employees may want to know whether they should report to work. Customers may want to know whether operations will be interrupted. Investors may be concerned about financial impact. Neighbors may want to know whether their families or property are safe.
One incident. Very different information needs.
Thinking through those audiences when nothing is wrong gives you the luxury of asking the questions you won't have time to ask when everything is moving quickly.
Of course, all of the questions don’t have to be answered in your second communication. Crisis communications don’t start and stop on the day of the incident. The response can and should go on for weeks and even months, depending on the event – as long as it takes to address the situation, implement changes as needed and reinstall trust among stakeholders.
Prepare for the Crises You Can Predict
You can't develop a playbook for every possible scenario. You can identify your most significant risks.
Bring senior representatives from operations, legal, risk, HR, IT, finance and communications together and ask: What could realistically happen here?
Depending on your business, that might include a workplace injury or fatality, environmental incident, cybersecurity attack, product issue, criminal allegation, executive misconduct or significant operational disruption.
Then work through each scenario.
What information would you need? Who would gather it? Who needs to be notified? Which audiences would be affected and to what extent? What questions would they ask? Which communications channels would you use? What existing policies, safeguards or programs would be important to explain?
Doing that work ahead of time doesn't just make communications faster. It makes the response better and could possible identify gaps to close that prevent a crisis from ever happening in the first place.
Don't Forget the Infrastructure
A written plan sitting on a shared drive isn't enough. You need the necessary tools and training to execute it.
That includes robust traditional and social media monitoring. During an incident, knowing what is being said is only part of the equation. You need to understand where the conversation is occurring, how quickly it is spreading, its tone and reach, and whether misinformation is gaining traction.
That context helps leadership determine a reasonable, measured response — including when not to respond.
Your crisis team should also participate in a tabletop exercise at least annually. Put everyone in a room, introduce a realistic scenario and see what happens.
Where does the process break down? Which approvals take too long? Who doesn't know his or her responsibility? What information can't you access quickly?
Finding those gaps during an exercise is considerably less expensive than discovering them during a real emergency.
Media Training Isn't Just for the Spokesperson
One of the most overlooked pieces of crisis preparation is media training.
Yes, your designated spokesperson needs it, but so do members of your response team and, ideally, their direct reports.
During a significant incident, reporters won't be the only ones asking questions.
Neighbors may arrive at an operating location. Suppliers and contractors will call. Employees will text their managers. Government agencies and industry organizations may contact people throughout the company.
Those employees need to know how to respond respectfully without speculating, sharing unverified information or inadvertently speaking on behalf of the organization.
And they need something better than “no comment.”
They should know the approved holding message, where to direct questions and how to professionally hold that line.
Being helpful is usually a great instinct. During a crisis, however, an extra adjective, an unverified detail or an off-the-cuff explanation can quickly create a crisis within the crisis.
Preparation Buys You Something You Can't Create During a Crisis: Time
A strong crisis communications plan doesn't eliminate crises. It gives your organization the ability to respond to them thoughtfully and deliberately instead of reactively.
Your processes are established. Roles are clear. Initial messaging has already been reviewed by communications, legal and other key stakeholders. You understand your audiences and their likely questions. You know where to find information about the policies, safeguards and responsible operating practices already in place.
Instead of spending that critical first hour figuring out how to respond, your team can focus on what has happened and what needs to happen next.
No one enjoys sitting around a conference table imagining everything that could go wrong, but simply hoping those things never happen isn't a strategy.
The best crisis communications work often happens long before there is a crisis to communicate.
How ready is your organization?
Use the BWC Crisis Communications Readiness Checklist to identify potential gaps in your people, processes, messaging and response tools.