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By Pauline Bissett
first published on The Small Business Resource Network website
There is a naive belief that businesses are exempt from crises especially if they are small in size. Yet, most crises today are occurring in the workplace and owners are quickly learning that in order to emerge with their good name and reputation intact and a reasonable cost attached to fixing the problem, they had better be prepared with sound communications strategies and skills.
Not only are most crises today occurring in the workplace, they are "man-made": theft, scandal, downsizing, closure, strike action. And they are happening with a frequency that might never have been predicted a decade ago.
The secret to survival, then, is preparing for a crisis if one should occur. Like liability insurance, risk and crisis management are a critical part of protecting today's workplace.
The key is to begin the communications component of your plan with a risk assessment of your business, listing the potential hazards your business might face. Those risks might include serious employee dissatisfaction, the death of a key person in the business, a media campaign which unfairly levies criticism at the company, tampering with a product you manufacture or experiencing an unexpected and major shutdown of your computer system. Make a list of risks and their possible consequences.
Next, prepare a complete list of internal and external audiences including your employees, cleaning staff, their families, accountant, banker, even suppliers, government, media, civic authorities and the general public. Ensure you have employee addresses, telephone numbers and other pertinent data so you can first of all ensure staff is informed about the problem before they read about it in the newspaper. Internal audiences are just as important, perhaps even more than the media or general public. They can often offer you support and suggestions for dealing with the issue at hand.
Ensure you practice proactive media relations in your daily business. Get to know local journalists during the good times. If your relationship is good, they are likely to be less critical in their reporting of your bad news. Include the name of your media spokesperson plus a back-up in your plan. Your problem may never hit the 6 p.m. news, but don't count on it. Unless you want a one-sided version of the problem aired in public, ensure your side is presented in a focused, prompt manner. It is also good to have a media policy in place, sort of a mission statement for external communication, if you will.
Remember in dealing with the media to keep to one primary message - the one thing you will want people to remember about you after the story has run. And plan to monitor and evaluate your coverage using an independent agency unless you have someone in-house to do it for you. Ask around to see what companies locally specialize in crisis communications and call them if you need help with your plan. And keep their number handy if a serious event happens.
There are many business owners who view crisis communications planning as unnecessary. A few words of advice to owners like them: Ron Lindsay, manager of British Airways once said, "If an organization fails to prepare, it's preparing to fail." The owner of a small Canadian dental laboratory knows firsthand what happens when you aren't prepared. His staff sent out several dozen "cases" or appliances for direct insertion to the mouth, only to learn that the material in which they were packed appeared to melt anything that came in contact with it. Fortunately, no one was hurt but he learned quickly. Within 24 hours of the crisis concluding, he had begun his plan.
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