ICMM - International Council on Mining & Metals

CASE STUDY

Communication plans for crisis management

A communications strategy for employees, their dependents, local communities and other relevant stakeholders is an important element in the planning for emergencies. This was the subject of the previous case study. Equally important is a plan for communications at the development of and during a crisis. The information demand from all manner of stakeholders, not least those most affected, grows rapidly as a crisis develops. In the absence of reliable information, there will be a burgeoning growth of views, opinions and ‘facts’. An emotionally charged chaos can easily ensue, typified by high levels of stress, anger, frustration and mistrust. The consequence of this has a high potential to derail the best of response plans.

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) confirmed this in consultations into emergency planning and response carried out in 2000 among both mining industry leaders and external stakeholders. Among other things, the external stakeholders expressed a grave concern about how the mining industry communicated during and after a crisis. While they were obviously of the opinion that all incidents should be prevented, they also looked to the industry to improve its communication effectiveness and responsiveness when an incident did happen.

In response to this finding, the MAC established a crisis management team to study best practice in the industry and to make recommendations on how to proceed. This resulted in the publication in November 2001 of a Crisis Communications Guide. The Guide was reviewed and republished in 2004. This guide was designed to assist companies in developing or improving their plans for responding to and communicating during a crisis. It deals solely with communication issues and reflects best practices drawn from many industrial sectors. The guide comes in two parts; the first reviews the key components of a corporate crisis management plan (CCMP) and the second provides a sample ofsuch a plan. This section describes only some of the important aspects in the preparation of a communications plan.

The guide defines a crisis as a sudden event or set of circumstances that could significantly affect the company’s ability to carry out its business, damage its reputation or threaten the environment, health, safety and well-being of employees, neighbouring communities or the public at large. It defines the first critical step in the development of the crisis management plan as securing the endorsement and support of the most senior company officials. Such endorsement ensures that the CCMP becomes a priority in the organisation during its development.

The second critical step is to ensure that a member of the senior management team is responsible for the plan’s development. His or her first responsibility is to establish a multidisciplinary crisis management committee, thus ensuring across the-organisation understanding and buy-in. Such a committee would consist of representatives from corporate affairs, environment, human resources, operations, finance, legal and other relevant departments or functions. The committee should also have representatives from the operations to ensure that the corporate and operations’ plans are integrated and seamless.

This committee should determine at the outset what the organisation’s top priority is during a crisis, because this will set the tone and focus of the CCMP as it emerges. From there the work of developing a CCMP should involve an assessment of the potential risks and threats facing a company and the evaluation of the company’s crisis preparedness both at the corporate and operations level (see below and also Case Study 2).

The next step is to establish a crisis management team organisation with a clearly defined structure, roles and accountability. Again, like the committee, this team should draw in people who represent all facets of the corporate centre and the operations. Specifications for the roles and examples of a team are given in the Crisis Communications Guide.

That task having been completed, the development of activation protocols extending into the key components of managing a crisis follows. The core of the CCMP – the who, what, when of the communication process – is then addressed in detail. This part of the guide has sections on the important elements of debriefing, training and review.

Analysis

The MAC has produced a comprehensive document (81 pages) about the development of a corporate crisis management plan that includes an extensive worked example. It is about how a corporate centre should communicate during and after a crisis has developed, but not how it should respond to it. As such, the document gives due attention to communities likely to be affected by local operations and, indeed, recommends the UNEP Technical Report, APELL for Mining. It emphasises that while professional communication with the media is vital in an emergency, so too is communication with local communities and the work-force.

Apart from the vulnerability assessment, however, the document does not cover what should be done in preparation for a crisis ahead of its development, and this is equally an important issue for communication with local communities and employees. It is conceivable, too, that some who read it will be at odds with some of its apparent business orientation. This view, however, should not reduce the value of this guide for those who wish to improve their communication practices in a crisis.

Organizational Vulnerabilities

Operational

• Industrial emergencies, such as accidents resulting in a critical injury or property damage
• Natural disasters that threaten employee safety or jeopardize operations
• Accidental releases of materials, such as tailings dam failure or a major chemical spill that could threaten people and the environment

Non-operational

• Medical emergencies in jurisdictions where quality medical care is either remote or entirely lacking
• Corporate/business-related threats such as litigation, white collar crime, market issues and other matters with a material impact on the company
• Workplace issues such as sexual harassment, workplace violence, allegations of an unethical behaviour and so on
• Missing persons incidents related to criminal or non-criminal circumstances
• Political and security risks such as kidnapping, extortion, bomb threats, sabotage, political or civil unrest, disgruntled employees, illegal detention by authorities and insurgent or guerrilla activity
• Any other event that threatens the health and safety of employees or the communities in which the company operates