ARE YOU FORGETTING SOMEONE? 3 strategies PR practitioners should adopt for effective internal crisis communication

by Margarita Boncheva

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PR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE DOWNPLAY INTERNAL CRISIS COMMUNICATION

Over the past few decades, scholars have paid considerable attention to find out what message and timing strategies would be most effective for crisis communication. Thereby, they have focused almost entirely on communication strategies to reduce damage to organizational reputation and external publics’ negative behavioral intentions. Yet, in their effort, they have overlooked one of the most important publics for any organization: its employees! What is more, it is not only researchers who have been ignorant of the importance of employees. PR professionals are also said to devote more attention to external crisis communication during crises rather than internal crisis communication (ICC) because they consider external stakeholders to be more significant (read more).

WHY IS UNDERESTIMATING THE ROLE OF EMPLOYEES IN CRISIS A HUGE MISTAKE? 

Firstly, as stakeholders with higher stakes, employees are likely to be impatient to find out what is going on with their organization in a crisis situation. Also, they are likely to have high expectations for adequate and timely information about the crisis from the management. Secondly, both researchers and practitioners need to be reminded that the reputation of an organization is formed by both internal and external stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization. Essentially, how employees view their organization can strongly influence the organization’s external reputation, as well as their feelings and behavior toward the organization. In a crisis, employees can play a critical role representing their organization as unofficial agents to external publics such as family, friends or media, with their positive or negative views of the organization mirrored in the process. Sometimes, this can help but it might also worsen already negative situations. 

The solution? Practitioners should recognize the significance of employees and should use ICC to minimize damage to the organization’s internal reputation and to profit from employees’ supportive behavior.

PRP’S TAKE-HOME MESSAGE FOR EFFECTIVE INTERNAL CRISIS COMMUNICATION

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In an effort to fill the gap in research, Kim and his collogues tried to find out what makes an effective internal crisis communication by integrating key concepts and theories (relationship factor, situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), and stealing thunder), commonly applied in the existing crisis communication research, to the context of internal communication. To serve as practical guidelines for crisis managers of how to achieve effective internal crisis communication, the main findings of the study are presented here in the form of 3 take-home messages. These take-home messages should be simultaneously seen as strategies practitioners should adopt to strengthen internal reputation and profit from employees’ support and help in a crisis situation.

1. Let’s make relationships great again! Employee-organization relationship (EOR) is the best strategy to improve internal reputation and employees’ supportive behavioral intentions.

To make more efforts into building and maintaining positive relationships between organizational management and employees is what scientists suggest practitioners should focus on when aiming for effective internal crisis communication. High-quality relationship between the employees and the organizations can make organizations more resistant against organizational crises by relying on employees’ positive view of the organization and their support during crises, such as sharing positive organizational information and advocating for their company to external publics during a crisis. 

2. Use the timing strategy of self-disclosure (stealing thunder) to improve internal reputation.

The timing of when an organization should release crisis information can be an important factor for effective crisis communication management (read more). When an organization is the first to reveal a crisis to its employees (stealing thunder), the employees are likely to assign less blame to their organization for the crisis and, in turn, evaluate the organization and situation positively. Thus, scientist suggest to not wait for someone else to inform employees about the crisis (thunder), but to be fast and proactive instead. 

3. Positive EOR is what matters, not prior crisis history and response message strategies.

SCCT tells us that the nature of the crisis helps us to select the most suitable message strategy to respond from three groups based upon perceptions of accepting responsibility for a crisis: (1) denial, (2) diminish, and (3) rebuild (read more). It also suggests that both prior relationship history and crisis history can intensify reputational threats. For internal crisis communication, however, it is once again EOR what matters the most! Scientists say that regardless of crisis history, or the type of crisis message strategy used, employees will evaluate their organization positively and be willing to support their organization during a crisis when they perceive their organization has been treating employees well in other contexts (positive EOR). 

Main reference: Kim, Y., Kang, M., Lee, E., & Yang, S. (2019). Exploring crisis communication in the internal context of an organization: Examining moderated and mediated effects of employee-organization relationships on crisis outcomes. Public Relations Review, 45(3), 138–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.04.010

About the author

Margarita is currently a master student in Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. Margarita was born in Bulgaria and completed her undergraduate studies both in Germany and the United Kingdom. She is an ambitious person who enjoys challenges and is looking for future career development, growth and success in the desired field of Corporate Communication.