So, what is a Crisis Communications Plan, and how does it come into play during a crisis?
A Crisis Communications Plan is an organisation-wide document that spells out roles and responsibilities during a crisis, protocol for action, and even details best practice models for moving forward. It is unique to each organisation, but the commonalities mean that a company can ensure all of its team are trained to handle a negative situation, and that the voice of the company is one, rather than many.
It comes into play as a guide for dealing with situations. By setting protocols, it helps ensure consistency of message; and it also helps to give focus to the teams involved.
What are the key elements of an effective Crisis Communications Plan, and how can we craft content for each of these elements?
A Crisis Communications Plan has many elements. But the most important are the roles and responsibilities, communication channels, protocols, and approaches to possible scenarios.
Crafting relevant content for each is an in-depth process. It should involve interviewing team members at all levels of the organisation; to better understand internal processes and communication standards.
Ultimately, we seek plausible and actionable plans for times of crisis which resonate well with the organisation. But these come from within first.
Additionally, we need to learn from past mistakes. Maybe the organisation has had previous issues which we can learn from. What worked well, and what didn’t. Furthermore, we can look outside of the organisation to understand how other businesses, be it within the same industry or further afield, have worked on addressing crises of a similar nature.
Once the content is crafted to the detail required, the most important step becomes training the teams to understand how to respond, and how to work together to survive the situation.
How often does an organisation need to review its crisis communications plan? With that, what are some of the ways that an organisation can communicate the plan internally to staff?
There is not a fixed time, but a good systems auditor would ensure that a review is at least annually. I personally believe that the plan should be reviewed more frequently; as changes happen within an organisation, key personnel change, or as major external crises offer us key learnings to help strengthen our own plan.
Staff meetings, periodic training sessions, and internal newsletters / communiques are important tools to help communicate the plan. Just like a regular fire drill, we need to keep the team involved. For her hires, the plan should be discussed during their induction, and then followed up during other appropriate team opportunities.
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