Take these steps and make every employee a crisis management asset
Sure, your employees are hired to fill specific roles, but anyone who’s been in the middle of a crisis situation knows that a whole new set of responsibilities pops up, whether you’re ready or not.
BCM president Jonathan Bernstein was recently interviewed for a Hotel News Now article on terrorism risks for hoteliers, and the insight he shared holds true for any type of organization:
“Every employee is a crisis manager and a (public relations representative) for the organization, if you want them to be or not,” Bernstein said. “If you don’t teach them what they should and shouldn’t do, they’ll wing it,” and that can be dangerous to a hotel’s reputation.
How to you maximize the effectiveness of employees as part of your crisis management strategy, while minimizing the potential risks of having someone share information they shouldn’t, make the wrong call, etc.? As Jonathan explained, training is the key.
Create specific guidelines for employees of all types, from the C-suite to the front desk, in your crisis management plans, and take the time to actually go over them, AT MINIMUM, a couple of times a year. Make sure your plans are easily accessible in hard copy, as well as on devices like cell phones or tablets, so they can be referenced any time, any where.
Take these steps, and when trouble does hit you’ll be glad to find yourself surrounded by a crew of trained crisis managers.
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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]
Jonathan L. Bernstein, founder and Chairman of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of crisis management – crisis response, vulnerability assessment, planning, training and simulations.
Erik Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management. Erik started with BCM in 2009 as a writer and subsequently became social media manager for the consultancy itself as well as for a number of BCM clients before moving to the president position.