CRISIS COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION:
The operation of a business may get disturbed by a crisis occurred due to accidents, pollution,
take-over, strike, lock-out, stock-market crash, explosions, fires, closure or similar situation. A
crisis may also OCcur due to act of nature like earthquake, flood, drought, epidemic, etc.
Majority of the Corporate Crisis arises due to internal problems which are caused by low
productivity and operational inefficiency that tend to threaten the basic objective of the
organisation.
Crisis leads to an opportunity and nurtures the unit back to health, provided all the aspects
concerned with crisis are handled with due understanding, and efficiency.
There are instances when the handling of tragedies or serious crisis by PR staff turned out to
the advantage of the organisation. By way of sympathetic communication with those involved
in the community of what had happened, goodwill and understanding is created even when
disaster strikes.
A crisis brings risk into focus, and the organisation immediately falls under media and
government scrutiny, it drags the company into prolonged legal battles.

DEFINITION & MEANING OF CRISIS:

(1) Timothy Coomlos defines crisis as, "the perception of an stakeholders and can seriously
impact an organisation's unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of
performance and generate negative outcomes." He further defines crisis communication as,
"the collection, Processtng, and dissemination of information required to address the crisis
situation."
(2) Webster Dictionary defines crisis as, "a turning point for worse". This means that the
situation could turn out to be both good and bad. For an example, where an industry or
business falls sick, it will create a situation of overall crisis for the management, shareholders,
employees, management, distributors, suppliers, financiers and many more publics with whom
the industry has to interact. The other side of this situation is that some persons will consider
it as an Opportunity to turn the organisation into a viable unit.
(3) According to Holsti, "a crisis isa sitiuation characterised ision by surprise and height of the
important values, it has a short decision time.

Crisis come in many forms, but public relation people for most part deals with public crisis.
These can be desCribed, categorized and usually predicated. Crisis are like plays. Iwo factors
are always present. Crisis involves people and they interrupt the normal "Chain of command".

CAUSES OF CRISIS:
Causes of crisis are either physically violent or non-violent. The physically violent ones are
earthquakes, fires, storms, plane crashes, and terrorist acts. The collapse of the Asian
economies in 1998 is an example of a physically non-violent crisis.
Each of these broad categories of violent and non-violent has subsets with more specific
descriptors. Some violent crisis are created by acts of nature, such as lightning that sparks a
forest fire or a hurricane or typhoon that sweeps a coast.
Some non-violent crisis are created by acts of nature, crisis such as viral epidemic, insects,
plagues and droughts which may take lives, but they are not cataclysmic or overwhelmingly
violent.
Some crisis result from Intentional Acts committed by a person or a group. Violent intentional
crisis are due to acts of terrorist that result in loss of life or freedom e.g. hostage-taking.
This category also includes product tampering, when it results in loss of life or destruction of
property.
Non-violent intentional crisis includes bomb and Product tempering threats, insider trading,
computer viruses, malicious rumors etc.
The third category of crisis includes unintentional events that are neither acts of nature nor
deliberate acts of individuals or groups. e.g. explosions, fires, and chemical leaks. Whatever
organization a person is working with, one can predict and anticipate the most possible crisis.

This means you can plan for a crisis.

IMPACT OF CRISIS:
Crisis has no fixed time it can come anytime and they can come in all shapes and sizes. A
crisis is never anticipated fully. Take a very good example of COVID 19 in the present situation.
When the crisis cause it brings with it the possibility of grave consequences. It can result in
the loss of confidence; damage staff morale and it may destroy the firm's reputation. It can
have a lasting and order with a negative impact. But, if handled well, the situation can be
turned into a real corporate advantage and the organisation may emerge with its reputation
enhanced.
The following are some of the impacts of crisis:
(1) Emotional Effects: Some of the emotional effects of crisis are shock, terror, irritability,
blame, anger, guilt, grief or sadness, helplessness, loss of pleasure derived from familiar
activities and so on
2) Cognitive Effects: Memory impairment, disbelief, confusion, nightmares, decreased self-
esteem, self-blame, intrusive thoughts, disassociation etc. are some of the cognitive effects
of crisis.
3) Physical Effects: Some of the physical effects of the crisis are Tatigue, insomnia,
cardiovascular strain, startled response, hyperarousal, increased physical pain, reduced
immune response etc.
4) Interpersonal Effects: Increased relational conflict, social withdrawal, reduced relational
intimacy, alienation, impaired work performance, decreased satisfaction, distrust, feeling
abandoned and rejected etc. are some of the interpersonal effects of the crisis.
5) Financial Loss: Finance is the lifeblood of every business activity. It is a very sensitive
aspect of any organization and if any financial-related matter happens, forced it impacts on
their employees, their wages get reduced and they have to work under utmost pressure.
(6) Tarnishing of Corporate Reputation: Crisis threatens the image of an organisation as
well. The scams of leading businessmen have not only demolished their image but the
reputation of the company as well. Even mishandling of crisis may tarnish the image of the
organisation.
7) Reduction in the shareholders value: During the crisis, the value of the share decreases
or goes down as the company is not in a position to maintain its profitability. Dividends may
not be declared during a crisis period where the company is at a loss. This reduces the value
of the shares.
(8) Loss of stakeholder’s trust: Especially when the issue or crisis is emotional or tied to
people's core values, loss of trust with your employees, customers, and partners is likely to
take place and even harder to earn back.

ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN CRISIS

During crisis situations, decision-makers are often unable to collect and process information
in a timely manner and, thus rely on established routines for situations that are by definition,
novel.
Crisis and emergency risk communication is a vital component to help people poke and begin
to rebuild a sense of order and understanding in their lives.

1. Bring Together: It presents the problem in communication and tries to bring together
different attitude and methods of study in the ground.
2. Fight against challenges: It helps to fights against the various consequences and
challenges which may harm the organizational image and reputation.
3. Overview of significant theories: lt makes an overview of the major theories of crisis
communication and their diverse approaches.
4. Deal with the major element of an organization : It specially deals with the reputation,
image of the persons as well as the organization.
5. Discuss the problem : It discusses the systems, skills, and procedures that allow an
organization to communicate successfully in the course of a main threat to its business, image
or reputation.
6. Connecting audiences : It mainly designed to connect a variety of audiences to each
other. For example, management or employee, organization or consumer, organization or
stakeholders, etc.
7. Ensuring accessibility of information : In times of emergency, it ensures that employees,
stakeholders and customers have access to the most efficient or updated information on time.
8. Availability of information : It ensures information should be available for all whenever it
is required.

GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING CRISIS

Handling of Crisis requires good management skill. If a crisis situation is not addressed
appropriately, it may have to face the damages. Generally large organisations have a crisis
management team consisting of management experts and PR professionals who are prepared
to handle the issue even before its occurrence. The crisis management team designs planning
in such a way that it lessens the harm caused by the situation. Usually different tasks are
assigned to different members of the team. The members are trained on how to respond to a
crisis. Crisis involves panic and uncertainty. Therefore decision-making becomes more and
important.

The following are the various steps for handling crisis:

(1) Take Control: The first step is to take control of the unexpected situation even though
nothing seems certain at that point of time. However, it will have the effect of gaining the
confidence of external constituencies. The communication executive must remember that
successful crisis handling is more about attitudes than procedures.
(2) Respect the Role of Media: Understand that media interest in a certain crisis situation is
inevitable. So do not hesitate and acknowledge the problem, be honest, opęn and straight
forward in responding to media for crisis situation will be judged by the media in the same way
as it would be judged by all stakeholders.
(3) Communicate, communicate and communicate: The most important rule of crisis
management is to communicate. When any crisis happens it is essential to give the detail
information to all types of questions. It is always better if the masses get the information about
any crisis from the respective organisation which helps them to not form any negative image
about the organization.
4) Take responsibility: Taking responsibility means communicating what an organisation is
doing to remedy the situation. A company should always take prompt action if Someone is a
reason for occurring of any crisis on misinformation.
(5) Centralise Information: The PR department should be centralised and they should be
only responsible people to disseminate information about organisation among masses.
(6) Establish a crisis team: A team of senior executives should be identified in order to some
as your organisation's crisis communication team. Ideally the organisation's CEO should lead
the team, with the firm top public relations executive and legal counsel as his or her chief
advisers.
(7) Establish a Monitoring System: Today the entire world is full of technological
advancement. A smart PR team should be tech savvy and aware of all the technology-related
advancement and system so that they can handle external Communication effectively.
8) Assess the Crisis Situation: at every stage of the crisis situation and analysis should be
done regarding the prevailing situations every time. Depending upon the gravity of the situation
a decision should be taken to bring back the Situation to normalcy. For this regular assessment
of the crisis Situation should be done.

TRUST BUILDING
Trust appears to be an important element in managing crisis communication. The notion of
trust provides a basic awareness of why crisis communication management can be
successful. This is especially true for public trust as it is the lifeline for an organization’s
survival.

1. Create a strong network

The trust' is the core of any professional relationship in an organization. It is absolutely
necessary to build strong network among the employees who will help you throughout the
career of the organization as an employee or colleague. In an organization, no one can say
he/is she responsible for the particular success but it's a team effort by all to achieve the
taskan in organization.

2. Trustworthiness
Being truthful, even in the course of tough times, is something the most trustworthy leaders
acquire how to do.

3. Integrity
Showing basic moral and honest personality are means to establishing that you are
trustworthy.

4. Skilled and competent leadership

Sub-ordinates and lower staff do not put their faith in incompetent managers. Sometimes
leaders are caring and loving to their sub-ordinate but they failed to deal with the unforeseen
task. It is believed that competent leaders are more trustworthy and competently manage
organisation's goals.

5. Dynamics of exchange and share of work

Team building in administrations contributes to trust building because interdependence
constructs the dynamics of exchange.
6. Provide a safe place to working
Working in an organization with trust creates a positive environment among employees. If in
the workplace where people were insufficient and untrustworthy generates an extremely
worrying situation and an unwanted environment for others.

7. Openness
In an organization It is essential for managers to keep confidence, but they do not keep hidden
agendas or secrets from their employees. Open sharing of information is essential to create
common trust among the subordinates and employees.

8. Empower the employees

Empowering the employees means giving them the freedom to work in their own way they
like.
Empowering in the workplace communicates to employees that their higher authority and
leadership have trust in them and their work competency.