Risk Management

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Crisis Communication Plan

Introduction

Crisis communication is disseminating information by a firm to address an emergency or crisis that affects its reputation and the customers. Communication is a significant factor during a situation in a workplace. It is vital to effectively communicate with the internal employees, clients, and media. A crisis communication plan is developed to reduce misinformation. Timely, precise, relevant information is essential during any emergency and crisis. Crisis communication is the most significant part of an effective communication plan. An excellent communication plan will signify that the organization cares about its customers and employees.

Creation of a Crisis Communication Plan

Preparing a crisis communication plan is vital in any organization because emergencies and crises occur without prior warning. Any organization that fails to develop a crisis communication plan before the emergency hit automatically fails to avert the catastrophe. To create an effective plan of strategy, a company must identify the plan’s objective because it will ensure that every aspect of the program aligns with this common objective.
Besides, the organization should identify stakeholders. The organization needs to establish all stakeholders they wish to keep informed concerning the crisis. Examples of stakeholders that should be kept informed in case of a crisis in an organization are customers, media outlets, employees, government, and partners. Besides, the organization should develop a hierarchy for sharing information on the crisis and establish information that should be disclosed to the parties immediately.
Additionally, the organization should assign individuals to design fact sheets to prevent misinterpretations from spreading to media houses. They should also identify and analyze example crisis scenarios and establish and respond to the crisis’s common questions. The company should also highlight potential risks not to be caught unprepared (Veronika, 2020). Furthermore, the company must develop guidelines certain to social media because proactive communication is necessary during a crisis.

How social media affects crisis communication?

Social media has a significant effect on crisis communications. It can either break or establish an organization specifically during reputation management and crisis communications. Social media conveys information very fast; hence organizations should trace problems and potential crises more frequently and respond swiftly when a disaster occurs. Social media has helped organizations to comprehend what different stakeholders perceive about them and behave towards them.
The organization will have to track a lot of misleading information and wrong information from social media of which are deliberate. Social media opinion is often polarized and volatile during a crisis, making it very challenging to understand when and how to manage perceptions. Additionally, social media has led to the leaking of confidential information because the lifecycle of crises cannot be forecasted with a lot of information steadily swirling online and getting picked up by media outlets (Mitchell, 2017). Social media also presently requires organizations to be open and responsive during crises, which significantly affects the crisis plan of action.

Ethical issues that should be addressed during the plan

Ethics during crisis communication are especially significant because crises commonly hold the capability to lead to widespread destruction or injuries. There are ethical principles to be put into considerations when planning for crisis communication. They include championing truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and rationale as significantly to the integrity of communication. Similarly, endorsement of freedom of expression, tolerance, and dissent diversity attain informed and reasonable decision-making.
The ethical concerns include measuring actions against the company’s stated values. This involves planning a course of action that is being thought out during the crisis. Similarly, purposely concealing vital information may or may not be unethical. The withholding of vital information may create ambiguity or act in an unethical manner. Still, it is ethical to conceal the names of death victims until the significant others have been notified.
Additionally, if you are on the wrong apologize, and then take responsibility for rectifying the situation. This will be important in putting the crisis in the past legitimately and remain on track. Finally, when you are right, defending yourself. Ensure you stand your ground, even if it’s media, competitors, or disgruntled employees, fight for the truth that is treated as ethical.
Finally, do not employ the use of uncertainties to deflect attention away from the company. Uncertainties are widespread during a crisis; it is good to understand the ambiguities to reinforce one’s perspective because it is advantageous to the company to draw away attention from the view that may damage an organization’s reputation is unethical.

Community of residence

The community of residence is battery Park City that is situated in the neighborhoods of New York City. The city has previously witnessed crucial crisis shocks such as the effects of terrorist attacks in 2001, the destruction of the sandy super-storms destruction in 2012, and a truck invasion on the Hudson River.
Based on this background, the community has well established Resilience Action Plan set to provide direction during crisis communication. The community has put in place a robust crisis communication plan to address crisis risks. They include developing escalation protocol across the community to ensure that possible crises are quickly escalated to the right individuals and experts to prevent the crisis’s possible worsening.
Finally, battery Park City has developed a situational assessment checklist to manage crises; this strategy enables the risk and disaster management departments to have facts available and the dynamics during the crisis period. This situational assessment creates confidence that the entire basis is fully covered and that the security personnel is not overlooking crucial aspects of communication crisis management.

Conclusion

During the crisis, every team member engaged in the control and management should have extensive knowledge of the communication crisis plan and terminologies. This is because, during the crisis, there is no time to give an explanation or more details. What is needed is a swift response that considers ethical issues contained in the communication plan. Creating a communication plan helps in effective and efficient response during emergency response.
Crisis communication plans focus on the company’s response and how it will communicate with its stakeholders. These steps ensure information reaches employees, partners, customers, media, the general public, and other valuable stakeholders. Most importantly, these plans guarantee a quick release of information and a consistent message on all company platforms. That message depends mainly on what the crisis involves and how all parties are affected by it.

References

Mitchell, M. (2017). Social Networking Engagement and Crisis Communication Considerations.

Social Media Performance Evaluation and Success Measurements, 130-155.

Veronika, F. (2020). Are crisis management and its tools based on systems methodology? International Journal of Applied Systemic Studies 9 (1), 45-57.

Yang. C. (2018). How social media is changing crisis communication strategies: Evidence from the updated literature. Journal of contingencies and crisis management 26 (1), 58-68.