The Costa Concordia cruise ship incident has been plastered all over the news this week and with the ongoing debate of how this disaster happened continuing, I have been eagerly looking at the reaction of the cruise ships owners, Costa Cruises.

So what have I found? Truth be told, the answer [...]]]> It seems like an obvious rule, but all too often we see examples in the news of companies failing to implement the most important factor of any crisis communication: actually communicating.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship incident has been plastered all over the news this week and with the ongoing debate of how this disaster happened continuing, I have been eagerly looking at the reaction of the cruise ships owners, Costa Cruises.

So what have I found? Truth be told, the answer is very little. There seems to be few, if any, statements from the company in much of the news coverage. This lack of communication is leading to widespread gossip about the whole incident and with each negative tweet or article the reputation of the organisation is sinking as quickly as the ship.

Have we learnt nothing from the BP oil disaster not too long ago? BP were highly criticised for their lack of communication during the crisis and I had hoped many organisations would take this example on board (no pun intended).

The key rules any organisation should follow when handling a crisis are:

1)      Communicate – don’t disappear off the radar the second disaster strikes. Communicate with the public and the media with constant updates. If an extended period of time has passed between communications, let them know you are still working and have nothing to report

2)      Don’t lie – liars get caught out eventually, and once they do the damage done to their reputation can often be irreversible

3)      Apologise – obviously I’m not suggesting you implicate your organisation or suggest you are fully to blame, but an apology goes a long way. In the cruise ship scenario, sharing your condolences to families who have lost loved ones and sympathy to anyone involved is highly recommended.

4)      Be concise – make sure you are being consistent with messaging. Nothing looks more suspicious than an organisation constantly changing their story

5)      Nominate a spokesperson – for the sake of consistency this should be the same person, preferably a senior member of staff with experience or training when it comes to speaking to the press

Finally, and most importantly, be prepared! Don’t wait until a crisis hits to discuss your crisis communications plan; that simply will not work. If you don’t have an effective plan in place you risk damaging you brands reputation which can have a domino effect on the business itself.

Chances are you will never need to implement the crisis communications plan, but it never hurts to be prepared.

Now, we don’t need to tell you that it’s inadvisable to badmouth your employer on social networks. It’s about as subtle as writing “I hate my job” on your forehead and even if it doesn’t get you in trouble, it certainly won’t single you out as an ideal candidate for promotion.

Under normal circumstances I would argue [...]]]> This week, David Rowat was fired from his job at Argos for taking to Facebook to have a moan about a bad day at work.

Now, we don’t need to tell you that it’s inadvisable to badmouth your employer on social networks. It’s about as subtle as writing “I hate my job” on your forehead and even if it doesn’t get you in trouble, it certainly won’t single you out as an ideal candidate for promotion.

Under normal circumstances I would argue that, assuming a company has a proper social media policy in place, bringing your employers into disrepute in any way is enough to warrant at least a warning, at worst a dismissal.

However, as more context began to emerge I found myself, oddly, disagreeing with myself. While I still think Mr. Rowat was beyond foolish for posting anything negative about work on Facebook, let’s examine what he actually said. Having come back from holiday to find that work had not been done to a high standard, he grumbled:

“”Had a great day back at work after my hols who am I kidding!! Back to the shambles that is work.”

For a start, Mr. Rowat didn’t mention the company by name. To add to this, at the time of writing a quick search shows he has fewer than 100 Facebook friends – and he posted this to his private wall. While his comments may have been inappropriate, did they really constitute the “gross misconduct” for which he was sacked?

The plot thickens. As it transpires, David Rowat has cancer of the lymph nodes. He had worked at Argos for thirteen years, and even met his wife (who is also in ill health) there.  Facts that the media was all too quick to pick up on.

The story soon became a tabloid’s dream. An extremely unwell man, fired for having an ill-advised yet probably harmless moan on Facebook about a bad day at work, a story of company loyalty being paid back with callousness – you couldn’t make it up.

I’m not an expert in employment law – and I understand that social media needs to be used carefully and that companies need to stick to their policies in order for them to be effective.

But overall, what has caused the company more damage? The poorly thought out ramblings of someone fed up with a bad day at work? Or the business that fired a loyal employee with cancer and a family to support? You decide.

I was having lunch with an employment journalist recently and we were discussing recent press releases put out by the CIPD. She had just received the release outlining the results of the CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook.  The opening lines of the release state that the report - and I quote : “.. indicates that private sector job creation will more than offset public sector job cuts in the final quarter of 2010.”  It also talks about a net [...]]]>

I was having lunch with an employment journalist recently and we were discussing recent press releases put out by the CIPD. She had just received the release outlining the results of the CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook.  The opening lines of the release state that the report - and I quote : “.. indicates that private sector job creation will more than offset public sector job cuts in the final quarter of 2010.”  It also talks about a net positive balance of  +11 (the figure which measures the difference between the proportion of employers intending to increase staffing levels – and those intending to decrease staffing levels) Apparently, this is the third quarter in a row to record a positive balance rising from +2 in the summer survey.  And Dr Philpott, economic guru at the CIPD says that “signs of not only a sustained but also an increasing buoyancy in private sector job prospects is encouraging.”   All good stuff then?

Err apparently not because only two weeks previously there had been a grand old hoo hah about their press release which stated that cuts in public spending would result in the loss of almost £1.6 million jobs across the UK economy with the private sector hit harder than the public sector. These predictions, say the release, are based on ‘soundings from public sector managers  (whatever that means) and the CIPD were forced to swiftly defend their stance in a statement following criticism from the IOD.  The predictions, say the CIPD, were based on the analysis and detailed predictions of our 135,000 members – and on data from  the labour market outlook ( yes that really positive one I mentioned first).  So not public sector managers then?   As I said in my comments to a blog posted by Mervyn Dinnen on this subject, if it is based on 135,000 members then that probably ignores a large proportion of the SME community – who don’t have CIPD members on their staff – mine included. There was also an interesting blog on the subject from Andy Headworth which is worth a read.

But apart from all this, my point here really is about communication.  Going back to the journalist and our lunch, the main point she made was that she felt she had no real understanding of what the actual message was – there were so many conflicting statements, so many ifs  buts and maybes that the message – whatever it was trying to convey – was just lost.

I’ll leave you with their latest snappy headline:

“Private sector in pre-festive season jobs surge but more than 4 in 10 public sector organisations already making redundancies says CIPD/KPMG quarterly jobs survey”…….draws breath!

Come on CIPD – get on message!

It’s nearly Christmas. You know what that means – presents, turkey, carols, and apparently danger according to the many press releases about the festive season (sigh). I was wondering whether to blog about this or not – after all, it’s only a fellow PR person trying to do their job – even if they do send out the same ‘beware at the Christmas party’ release every year. But then I saw a press release today that convinced me that I should [...]]]>

It’s nearly Christmas. You know what that means – presents, turkey, carols, and apparently danger according to the many press releases about the festive season (sigh). I was wondering whether to blog about this or not – after all, it’s only a fellow PR person trying to do their job – even if they do send out the same ‘beware at the Christmas party’ release every year. But then I saw a press release today that convinced me that I should (see #1). Reading these, anyone would think that Christmas should just be cancelled as quite frankly it’s just too risky – surely Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without some over-indulgence?!

If these are the stories coming out of PR land, should we advise the PR world to give up and start their Christmas holiday early? Or are they doing their job well, seeing as though I am sat here writing about them? You decide: here are my top 5 festive press releases (AKA top 5 rubbish press releases of the month):

1. Santa promotes unhealthy lifestyle (no, I didn’t make this up)

2. Beware of popping corks

3. Festive feasting should carry a health warning

4. Managers should ensure they don’t do anything they would regret at the Christmas party

5. Beware unsafe holiday lights