All the public faces crisis at some point in their lives. For example, whenever there is a tsunami or an earthquake, there is lots of destruction in the area. People lose their homes, property, belongings, and most importantly, lives. But there are many other crises which result from various circumstances such as existential crises, human-made disasters, and business crises. Within the category of business crises, there are specific situations that have the potential to cause damage to the organisation, no matter its size, resources, or industry level.
Hence, it is safer to remain prepared with a crisis communication plan to face even the worst and most challenging situations. All these events may lead to a corporation’s downfall, which means loss of reputation, assets, and employees. Every employee wants to work in a reputed firm with an opportunity for growth and professional development.
What is a business crisis?
A business crisis has the potential to threaten the achievements and successes of an organisation by spoiling its reputation, business operations, finances, and harming its employees. They can prepare for the possibility of one of those unplanned events by planning a strategy to combat loss of reputation. They need to understand the stages of a crisis with the right people and resources to help them manage and get over it.
The crisis can occur because of some internal as well as external action. Due to the severity, it is vital to remain alert and prepared with a plan to prevent a threat to the firm.
How to create a plan?
Whenever there is a problem, every person must think calmly about the solution. Making hasty decisions will not solve it but lead to further issues. Have an outline of the plan to follow until the situation is not under control. Following are the steps to create a plan:
- Identify all the types of crises
- Determine the impact of each of them on the business
- Consider the actions to take for resolving them individually
- Decide who all to appoint for executing the actions in every scenario
- Develop resolution plans for each situation
- Train all those individuals who are familiar with the plans
- Revisit and have regular updates to the plans
How to manage it?
The crisis management process is a lot more than just managing the crisis itself. All the organisation’s employees and management should come up with a plan to tackle all these situations. Following are the steps:
- Pre-crisis: Prevent a crisis from occurring. Formulate a plan, hire and train the crisis management team. Conduct practice exercises to implement the plan. Draft a message for all employees to manage corporate affairs.
- Crisis management and response: Deal with and respond to different crisis stages. Forward the initial crisis management messages and contact all employees and stakeholders for safety.
- Post-crisis: After the crisis subsides, contact the employees, customers, and stakeholders. Answer all their questions and work with the crisis management team to review and analyse the emergency.