If there’s a catastrophic failure on one of your projects, or one of your executives is arrested, will everyone in your firm know what to do? Who should be notified? What should you communicate to the press, to your clients, or on your social media accounts?
Many firms that have experienced an emergency are stunned by the speed at which chaos envelops them. When trouble strikes, they’ve had to act immediately and simultaneously on many fronts.
Responding to a crisis is much easier if your firm has developed a comprehensive plan that lays out the necessary steps to take in crisis situations. A plan can guide your staff with step-by-step instructions on whom to contact, what to do, and what to say (or not).
Even if you already have a plan, it’s important to review and update it periodically. Many firms find that their existing plan is out of date, is not robust enough, lacks specificity, or fails to address growing risks, such as cyber breaches, natural disasters, or civil unrest.
Responding to a crisis is much easier if your firm has developed a plan.
The “Crisis Communication Plan,” now available as Exhibit 19 in , is a good place to start. Intended to be tailored to reflect your firm’s specific practice and risks, the plan follows a tiered approach that identifies crises based on their type, scale, and scope, and outlines when and how your firm should respond. A Tier 1 crisis, for example, is an emergency that requires an all-hands-on-deck response. It might be a significant structural failure, a jobsite injury, executive misconduct, etc.—any high-profile incident that poses the threat of long-term damage to your firm, your client, and/or project stakeholders. A Tier 3 situation, on the other hand, is unlikely to pose a long-term risk but still requires everyone to be on the same page, e.g., the closing of one of the firm’s offices or rumors of a merger.
The plan also considers a variety of likely crisis scenarios and provides many templates for press releases and social media messaging along with scripts for communicating with internal and external stakeholders.
For example, suppose that a worker is severely injured or killed on one of your project sites. Having a plan in place gives you a blueprint that puts crucial resources at the ready: the names and contact information of everyone you should alert and a checklist of what you and your team should do in the first minutes, hours, and days following the tragedy. Your plan should have key messages and materials you may need in the event of a crisis. You’ll have sample scripts for communicating with the media or for your front desk staff to use when responding to inquiries, and sample news releases and social media messaging. You can work with your public relations (PR) firm, legal counsel, and crisis management committee to quickly customize and vet the scripts and other materials.
Getting started
Developing a plan for your firm takes some work. In addition to forming a crisis management team, you’ll need to assign responsibilities, gather information, identify PR firms, test the plan, and train your staff:
- Form a crisis management team. Identify key individuals within the firm who will form the crisis management team. This team should include representatives from different departments (and possibly your other office locations), such as communications, legal, financial management, IT, and HR. When trouble strikes, this is the team that will issue notifications, control and coordinate the dissemination and collection of information, and conduct an internal investigation. Designate someone to take the lead in reviewing and developing your plan.
- Engage a crisis management firm. Identify a PR firm with experience in crisis communication management...before you need it. These professionals can help you think through potential situations and plan appropriate responses. The right PR firm’s assistance could be crucial not only before and during a crisis but also throughout any ensuing legal battles and recovery period.
- Assess your risks. Using the sample “Crisis Communication Plan” as a guide and enlisting the help of your legal counsel and insurance and PR advisors, identify as many of the risk scenarios your firm might face as possible, assess their likelihood and potential impacts, and weigh how best to react to each. If necessary, develop additional scripts and key points and add them to your plan.
- Assign responsibilities. Define crisis roles and responsibilities for both internal and external stakeholders, including your crisis team, management team, legal counsel, and PR firm; make sure these are reflected in your crisis plan and communicated to everyone involved.
- Complete and test the plan. Run emergency drills to test your crisis communication plan and your crisis team.
- Train your staff. Communicate the finalized plan to the entire firm through a company-wide meeting or internal communication channels. Train all employees on the plan and make this training a part of new employee orientation.
AXA XL’s Design Professional clients can access more about this topic on .The “Crisis Communication Plan (Exhibit 19)” is available in AXA XL’s Contract Guide for Design Professionals. For more information about developing a crisis plan, check out our webinar, “Planning for the Inevitable: Why You Need a Comprehensive Crisis Management Plan.” Also, see “Everyone’s talking about you! Covering your crisis and reputation management costs” in the Q2 2023 Communiqué.
