With the Coronavirus outbreak has come increased global business and economic disruption and uncertainty. Analysis indicates that the COVID-19 outbreak will push down the full-year gross domestic product (GDP) globally from the 2.5% that was forecast in January 2020 to 0%. In this crisis management situation, companies are grappling with managing the impact of the outbreak on their ability to meet strategic goals and customer demands.
The pace of technology is reaching a fever pitch, with new innovations, upgrades, and features emerging all the time. As technology evolves in countless ways, it’s vital that your crisis management plan evolves as well. Crisis management should be an essential part of every business organization. Having a plan for when worse comes to worst and especially knowing how to communicate the right message to the right people at the right time is critical for ensuring the wellbeing of your company, not to mention influencing how your brand appears to the outside world.
For effective crisis management, companies need to have a plan for the three main phases of any crisis, and ways to ensure such a plan can be shared to all concerned. This latter part requires a focused approach when it comes to choosing the right technology platform.
In this article we share the steps your organization should have in place, and how each of these impact on your choice of technology.
1. Pre-crisis
Even before a crisis happens, organizations need to be well prepared. There are various situations that can be anticipated, such as recurring issues such as extreme weather, or those that are more industry-specific, like – first-aid situations on the factory floor. The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic is an example of crisis management in action that is impacting business of all kinds. Organizations are not prepared for these unforeseen circumstances, however, there are numerous processes a business can have in place.
Team
Organizations should’ve an assigned leader who can step into the action when a crisis hits. They must have a responsible person who can immediately take action and provide employees with a feeling of security.
Establish a preferred channel
This is where tools such as an employee app come into the picture. How are you supposed to reach everybody if you normally communicate with a newsletter or an intranet or email? All of these channels lack reach and immediacy. In comparison, an employee app enables push notifications, which are of significant importance in times of crisis, when sending and receiving information at a moment’s notice can be the difference between a minor incident and a major catastrophe. So, push notifications are a game changer in internal communication.
2. During a crisis
During the crisis there are numerous disciplines, which have a big impact on the technology platform that organizations use to communicate with their workforce. To avoid panic and injuries, immediate action is key.
Reach everybody
How do you make sure that people have gotten the message and that everybody is alerted? Apart from sending your messages to your employees’, and facilitating push notifications, you can also take advantage of the acknowledgement function available in the most effective employee apps. This again highlights the significance of a consistent approach to the technology platform you use.
Control your messages
Organizations should establish themselves as a trusted source of information. Employee apps in general are seen as a credible channel for all information concerning a company. Such a reputation is increasingly important when competing with social media sources. An app allows you to influence the news and messaging being consumed by your workforce. How employees react to an incident – negatively, neutrally, or positively will determine whether or not the incident becomes a full-blown crisis. Despite this, related research has found that managers often communicate significantly less with employees during a crisis.
3. After the crisis
While this is plausible a time for businesses to breathe a collective sigh of relief, it’s important to take time to consider how you crisis management strategy played out, and if there are any requirements to improve the technology platform you used to communicate throughout. Here are some areas to consider:
Evaluate successes and failures
An effective way to evaluate your crisis management is to offer a short survey to your employees and ask them how satisfied they were with the overall execution and follow-through of your crisis management plan. Again, your choice of technology can greatly simplify this process. Whereas surveys collected by email will require additional hours to collate and turn into meaningful data, the use of a native workforce communication app can allow you to set fixed questions and analyze these results within one platform.
Be sure to give credit
Crises happen. It’s inevitable. How effectively you deal with them can be one more quality that elevates your organization above the norm. This means having the right technology platform in place to facilitate timely, clear and inclusive communication with your workforce.