PR practitioners have a responsibility in a crisis to give the rest of the manag
ID: 456903 • Letter: P
Question
PR practitioners have a responsibility in a crisis to give the rest of the management team insight and information. PR practitioners should also consider “nimbus” publics. These are publics that were not designated recipients of messages, activities, or products/services of the organization, but who nevertheless become activated by the crisis. Imagine you are a PR professional for an organization that has just experienced a crisis, such as Toyota’s recall of cars because the accelerator pedals stuck or the Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch financial crises. Write a 1-2 page paper answering all of the below questions. Identify the organization and situation you are imagining. Describe who the stakeholders are in the organization. Explain in detail how you will show sensitivity to the needs of all stakeholders. Why is sensitivity to the needs of all stakeholders key?
I NEED IT WRITTEN IN WORD FORMAT NOT ATTACHMENT PLEASE, AND SOMETHING ORIGINAL NOT USED BEFORE IN STUDENT SUBMISSIONS.
Explanation / Answer
Who The StakeHolders Are in the Organization?
A stakeholder is any person, organization, social group, or society at large that has a stake in the business. Thus, stakeholders can be internal or external to the business. A stake is a vital interest in the business or its activities. It can include ownership and property interests, legal interests and obligations, and moral rights. Alegal obligation may be the duty to pay wages or to honor contacts. A moral right may include the right of a consumer not to be intentionally harmed by business activities. Stakeholders can:
A stakeholder is often contrasted against a shareholder, which has an ownership interest in the business. R. Edward Freeman and his book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (1984) has had a major influence on stakeholder theory.The concept of a stakeholder does have moral and ethical implications for business governance. If a business only has a duty to its shareholders, then the business may have no moral obligations to any other person, organization or society. On the other hand, if a business has a duty to its stakeholders, then a business must take into account the interests of its stakeholders as well and not focus completely on maximizing the interests of its owners.
How to Show Sensitivity to the Needs of all StakeHolders:-
Your analysis can be plotted into a 2x2 grid that shows the stakeholder's relationship to the project. This helps categorize stakeholders and determine where project management should direct its efforts. It is also a key input into the communications, risk and scope plans.
In the 2x2 grid, the X horizontal axis identifies the level of interest. This is the measure of how much they will be affected by the outcome of the project from low to high. The Y vertical axis of the grid identifies the level of power. This is the measure of how much a stakeholder can affect the outcome of a project from low to high. So in a 2x2 grid there are four squares.
Suffice it to say, these are important artifacts to help the project manager, and because of the sensitive nature of the information, shouldn't be shared or distributed widely.
Why is sensitivity to the needs of all stakeholders key?
Obviously the key stakeholders vary according to the organization and the circumstances of each crisis. However, the concerns of each broad group can be identified well ahead of any crisis. For instance:
Employees want their families to know they are safe, as would emergency and medical workers.
Families of victims want progress reports on their loved ones and want to know what happened in the incident.
Directors and senior management want to know the big picture information about the incident and the impact on the viability of your organization.
Community leaders want to know sufficient resources are being devoted to the crisis response and victims, and that the organization is showing leadership and has the incident under control. They need information they can pass on to people they think should know about the crisis, and they want to express their concern.
Politicians want to inform their constituents, review regulations and laws for adequacy in the light of the crisis, and want to have the opportunity to express their concern.
Peak industry bodies want to know about the business issues such as the impact on your organization’s revenue, any legal liability, when the organization will return to business and what protection was in place for employees.
Finance sector stakeholders want to know the impact on revenue and profitability and any likely future financial implications. Such stakeholders include creditors, suppliers, insurance companies and bankers.
The media want access to information and to spokespersons so they can report within their deadlines.
Other stakeholders want to be included in decision-making relevant to them, and want access to information about the crisis.
None of the stakeholder groups may start out as antagonistic, but each may quickly become an enemy if the contact is handled badly or ignored. Each group will need consistent, reliable and credible information quickly.
The stakeholder groups affected by the crisis need to be prioritized by their importance to the future of your organization. Even though the news media may be clamoring for attention, it is crucial to attend to the needs of the key stakeholder groups first. Generally it is best to make the key priority your own directors, management and employees because they in turn will have to respond to many other people when news of the crisis spreads.
The main understanding they are seeking is that your managers are effectively dealing with the situation, and operations are on the way back to normality. The best overall principle is that those who normally deal with a particular set of stakeholders should continue to communicate with their stakeholders about the crisis. This should be done as soon as possible with information that is as accurate as possible.
Employees should be the main priority
In times of crisis, clear lines of communication should be established to reach employees at all levels and in all locations. A procedure should also be set up for dealing with employee problems relating to the event. In many crises, employee issues emerge as the most important factor.
Questions need to be resolved by the public relations department so you can inform other stakeholders about:
where employees can obtain information – from their usual manager or from special telephone lines, meeting rooms, notice boards or other sources;
whether there is a monitoring system for post-traumatic stress of employees;
if there are services available for families of victims;
whether transport is needed for victims and their families.
Planning should take into account ways to continually update information during a crisis. For every message to the media, there should be a prior message to employees. These can be distributed in face-to-face briefings by managers and supervisors, in mass meetings in a public venue, via telephone hot lines, through telephone messages to homes, in public address system announcements and by progress statements handed out at gates or entrances, via local radio, by email and on the company Web site, intranet and extranet.
All information about names, injuries or cause of death must not be released until authorized. The authorization process should be an integral part of the crisis planning, especially at isolated locations.
Your management should have ways to gain emergency access to employee records so that families can be contacted quickly where there are serious accidents. The speed and care with which an organization deals with a family can be a source of great public and media focus.
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