Crisis communication

Crisis communication is one of the most central points in handling an incident. It is important to have a clear plan on how to communicate with employees, the press and other stakeholders during and in the aftermath of a crisis.

By having a communication plan, you determine a clear-cut approach to how the organisation manages the pressure for information from the surrounding environment. This ensures that communication is handled in a sensible and manageable way. This could help to relieve the general pressure that arises during an incident.

Depending on the size of your organisation and public awareness, it may be a good idea to set up a communications team responsible for managing the flow of communications during and after an incident. This increases the chance that only management approved information is released. The communications team could naturally consist of communication staff with an overview of the general communication channels – internally to staff as well as externally to the public. If you are a small company, you can outsource this function, e.g., by buying crisis communication services from a communications agency or consultant.

Furthermore, if there is a high public interest in your organisation, it may be beneficial to have an established contact with the media to ensure constructive media management in the event of an incident.

Failure to maintain good contact with external actors, particularly the media, could risk increasing the pressure from information and communication demands, which could drain resources away from other parts of crisis management.

In addition to the crisis management strategy/policy/plan, crisis communication should be included in the organisation's communication policy; e.g., it could include a statement that ordinary staff should not speak to the press without management's approval in the event of an incident, an overview of communications managers with their contact information and responsibilities, and an activation plan for when, how and in what order the communication team is activated.

Because the mass media has a very high interest in terrorist incidents, even small and medium-sized enterprises will benefit from setting down some guidelines for crisis communication, so that a potential incident does not generate more significant consequences than necessary. Different types of technical solutions can support the work of crisis communication. What is appropriate for a given organisation will depend on the culture of the organisation and how the company generally operates on a day-to-day basis. If you are unsure about what is suitable for your organisation, you can seek advice from an independent security advisor who deals with emergency planning.