It’s all about the place. Everyone’s seen it or heard about it on the radio or TV. Someone’s checked out some pretty damaging blogs. It’s the talk of the office; the entire organisation. Rumour is spooled out around the water cooler, nurtured in the coffee break. Soon it’ll be around all their friends, discussed across dinner tables, shared on Facebook.
And half of it is unfounded, utterly incorrect, and potentially damaging tittle-tattle.
Internal communications; it’s got a life of its own but is often neglected during a crisis.
Yet your own staff, sometimes treated like mushrooms – just left in the dark – as many managers would outwardly profess, are your greatest asset. Those beautiful people, smartly dressed and with incredible dental work, seen smiling and looking busy on so many websites, are often forgotten when the balloon goes up.
As stakeholders go, however, they are very near the top of the list – the achievement of your organisation’s objectives is very much in their hands, on a daily basis and equally so during a crisis. And therefore, internal communications is undoubtedly a mainstay of crisis communications.
Indeed, every employee is a potential spokesperson, or at least an ambassador or ‘touchpoint’ for your brand, whether you like it or not. Further, they know stuff, some of it in great detail, and may harbour some great ideas to help resolve a crisis. The more you engage your staff in a crisis, the quicker you may be able to regain control and resolve a difficult situation.
Practice has shown that it is highly beneficial that the staff are quickly fully aware of any crisis and its implications, are able to use the correct channels to assist in its resolution, know what immediate actions are required, have access to crisis plans and are fully conversant with what roles and responsibilities, even if generic, they have under these crisis conditions.
The key to making internal communications successful lies within the staff themselves. They know how they consume, distribute, receive, analyse and digest information; they know how best to communicate to them. So when working up an internal communications plan, be it by SMS or yammer, telegraph or carrier pigeon, consult them on how best it should be configured.
There are some common features, however to any internal communications plan.
Contact lists (home and cell-phone numbers, email address, instant messaging (IM) and fax numbers) must be regularly updated, along with preferred mode of contact. Alongside this (not instead of), an official notification system may be employed such as a cascade system or an electronic alert system. This is all good and well but consideration must be made for a catastrophic failure of such an internal system, which is where a commercial system like twitter may come into its own.
Importantly, remember that large organisations have varying degrees of communications savvy among their staff. Some will adore Facebook, others will think email is cutting edge. Which makes it all the more important to consult the staff and use simple systems which all can utilise. Train them on these if necessary.
Despite all this wonderful technology, the ‘last three feet’ and word-of-mouth are still the most potent form of communication. Gatherings of staff to brief them will be invaluable. However, it is sometimes impractical for the CEO to gather people together. So an effective chain of command must be used to allow managers to be briefed so they can take that information forward directly to staff.
Any systems, formal or informal, tech-driven or personal, must also allow two-way exchange. That vital piece of information which will save an organisation may be buried deep within the bowels of a sub-division and will never see the light of day if there is not a mechanism and managerial ethos allowing it up the chain. Also, the concerns of senior management are unlikely to be the same as those of the staff. But these concerns may be as equally valid and must be addressed, through allowing them to be aired and monitored through an effective feedback loop.
Notably, by informing, listening to, and engaging your staff you are much more likely to garner their support in handling a crisis. Soft and ethereal, that very sentiment may be as critical to survival as any other actions taken.
Some tips:
1. Just like all communications during a crisis, communicate internally quickly – the media is a valid source of information for your staff. Hearing details, sometimes incorrect, from the media before the management is damaging and morale-sapping.
2. Keep it personal as much as practicable – the regular briefing from a real person in a position of authority, i.e. someone who might just know what is going on, will trump emails and texts every time.
3. Stamp on rumours – creating a system, anonymous if necessary, to allow staff to question rumours will help in rumour-control. A simple anonymous bulletin board may go some way in this direction and is good issue management practice anyway.
4. Identify those who have credibility amongst co-workers – they may be utilised as effective interlocutors more effectively than management.
5. Develop messages applicable to the staff, which address their concerns – messages about the company share price may not be as interesting as those about job security.
6. Treat the staff as grown ups – as in everything with crisis communications, don’t try and polish a turd. Be honest and seek their understanding if not their assistance.
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