Communicating with Your Employees During a Crisis

Communicating with the outside world during a crisis is important but one aspect that is often not talked about is communicating with your employees. Employees need to understand what is going on and be on the same page with the organization. Transparency in your communication with employees, showing empathy, and conveying a compelling message of hope can foster resilience in facing challenges.

Here are 5 tips for communicating with your employees-

1.       Create a crisis communication team-

“Create a crisis communication task force that has emergency procedures and roles mapped out in advance” (Beekeeper, 2021). It is important to prepare your team even before a crisis occurs by creating a crisis communication plan and team and informing employees about them.

2.       State facts only-

 It is important that you state the facts of the issue only. Do not state assumptions! If there is an ongoing investigation into the crisis, simply explain the same to employees and let them know that they will be updated as things progress.

3.       Make employees feel comfortable enough to give feedback-

Open channels of communication for employees to talk about how they feel or concerns they have about the situation.

4.       Communicate frequently-

COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE

5.       Evaluate-

After the crisis, review how the crisis communication plan was executed. Determine what succeeded and what can be improved. Involve employees in this process as well.

 

For tips on how to prepare for a crisis, click here.

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