Crisis management

Crisis management can be seen an insurance policy for the future of your construction or manufacturing business. Building brand values and industry reputation in the Construction sector can take decades, yet all can be swept away in a matter of days if a badly-handled crisis overtakes your business.

Construction is a highly aggressive market where the competition is always ready to strike and customer loyalty tested by such opportunism.

Create a Crisis Management Taskforce (CMT)

By creating a Crisis Management Taskforce (CMT) with a team of fellow industry communication professionals such as Pauley Creative, you’ll be ready to manage a crisis, mitigate any damage to the business and reassure your stakeholder groups.

Crisis – What crisis?

What we are concerned with will be matters that threaten to affect the whole or a substantial part of the organisation and that have potentially long-term or even permanent outcomes. Common examples include;

• Financial scandals or rumours
• Court Cases
• Product failures
• Factory accidents
• Breakdowns in distribution or material supply chains
• IT shutdowns
• Data breaches
• Social media or PR gaffes

Social media & risk management

The advent of Social Media has added a new risk element to Construction sector business. In particular the instant and uncontrollable nature of the medium
requires that your CMT is highly agile and has the potential for rapid response. Talk to us about Social Media monitoring and activity as part of your comprehensive Risk Management ‘insurance policy’.

Dealing with the media during crisis management

Pauley Creative can help you to agree a set of guidelines for dealing with the media but as a matter of first principle media relations must be handled by the CMT. This will ensure that statements and comments are on-message, accurate, considered and verifiable. On no account should off the cuff or off the record comments be offered.

Whatever the nature of a media contact, whether reactive or proactive, it is important not to make enemies among the media.

What does a Crisis Management Taskforce do?

The role of the CMT is vast and develops as the crisis unfolds. In the first instance however and in preparation, some of the standard tasks would be;

• Write a risk list – top 20 potential crisis situations specific to your business
• Carry out a Risk Assessment of likely outcomes and consequences
• Agree crisis management and media response protocols and responsibilities
• Draft reporting structures and hierarchy of spokespeople
• Confirm communications channels and contact details (24hour ?) for CMT
• List key media outlets and contacts

Internal communications during crisis management

Your internal comms should be the best possible to keep your people properly informed and to counter negative and misleading reportage. Never forget how important it is to maintain morale, spirit and resilience inside the organisation.

Talk to us

On this and all other aspects of Risk Management consult with Pauley Creative to find out more about our the strategic and tactical support we offer to the Construction sector.