How often should you review your crisis communication plan?

Having worked as a contractor for FEMA during some very big disasters such as hurricane Rita, and Katrina I feel very qualified to give suggestions. The crisis communications plan is a very important key component of a business' preparedness program. All businesses must be able to respond promptly, accurately and confidently during an emergency in the hours and days that follow, to save lives, prevent further issues. Your plans need to be reviewed every quarter at a minimum! Free templates are at ready dot gov. Here to help in any way is Bill Stankiewicz, Savannah Supply Chain Guy.

On top of assessing your risks, think about how LIKELY these risks are to occur and try to actively mitigate them in advance. Don’t think about IF but rather, WHEN.

Regularly conducting a thorough risk assessment, we can ensure our crisis communication plan is dynamic, comprehensive, and well-equipped to handle any unforeseen challenges our organization may face.

Any crisis communication plan should be reviewed annually to determine if the plan still works or changes need to be made. There are often changes to the operation of the organization that are not captured in the crisis communication plan. It is important to review any plan when circumstances or conditions change, so for example staffing is a good example of a time to update your plan or review it at a minimum. If there are changes to equipment, or facilities then a review must be made as well. This is not simply a plan you create and put on a shelf until testing, it should be reviewed and updated even in between tests of it.

Assessing and updating your risk, whether it is part of a risky registry or matrix, should be completed on an annual basis (as a minimum). This may vary depending on the level of risk an organization operates within. This should be a long process but a quick review and update. Similar magnitude to reviewing and signing off on corporate policies i.e. conflict of interest etc. If during this process something is identified a deeper look, that can be flagged at that time.

Your plans should be living documents. After every crisis, you should be updating your plans. Your plans should also be offering scenario analysis and potential responses as well as the public sentiment after each response.

Ensuring supporting information like media lists and contact lists for executives and key personnel are up to date is critical to ensuring the success of the crisis comms plan when it is deployed.

Updating our information isn't a one time event. We should schedule regular reviews of our crisis communication plan, at least quarterly or after major events, to ensure it stays current and effective. While proactively maintaining a well oiled information machine, we can navigate any crisis with confidence and minimize reputational damage.

This encompasses a symphony of elements: contact lists, media outlets, key messages, spokespersons, and communication channels. Ensuring the currency and accuracy of these details is tantamount, forming the bedrock of effective crisis communication both internally and externally. Scrutinize your messages; they should not merely convey information but resonate with current organizational goals, values, and policies.

Make sure that you have plans to review key messages for different scenarios with key stakeholders before a crisis hits - Executive Director, CEO, program staff, key board members. It will save you time when you need it most if the main narratives of your messages have been cleared.

Testing our plan is not about finding fault, but about identifying opportunities to strengthen our response in the face of unforeseen challenges. By proactively simulating crisis situations, we can build a resilient and adaptable crisis communication plan that helps we navigate real-world emergencies with confidence and minimize reputational damage.

Testing your crisis communication plan is a dynamic dance of practicality—testing the plan’s mettle in simulated chaos. This orchestrated chaos unravels the tapestry of your team’s response and performance. It’s more than a mere litmus test; it’s a diagnostic exploration of feasibility, efficiency, and overall effectiveness. Employing various methods—tabletop exercises, drills, mock interviews, or audits—lends a multidimensional perspective. The crux lies in orchestrating a test that mirrors the unpredictability of a real crisis, pushing boundaries. Collecting feedback and data becomes the post-rehearsal analysis, where insights from all participants and observers become the keystones for refining strengths and addressing vulnerabilities.

As a PR agency CEO, I understand the critical role that a well-prepared team plays in navigating through a crisis. Training your team is the linchpin of an effective crisis communication plan. Conduct immersive workshops that simulate crisis situations specific to your industry or the brand you're representing. These sessions provide practical experience and help in honing communication skills under pressure. Encourage a culture of Kaizen within your team. Share relevant articles, case studies, and industry best practices regularly. This keeps everyone informed about evolving communication trends and instills a proactive mindset in anticipating and mitigating potential crises.

In addition to annual crisis communications/response training, investing in professional development activities such as media training will also prepare key personnel to be able to respond in a calm and measured manner when the time comes.

One working method that I have found very useful for involving and training all the people in the team is to engage them in handling small emergency situations. School-based, low-risk cases that can be useful to do educational activities by dealing with them side by side. In this way it will be possible to apply the crisis communication plan in a practical case.

One time in college, there was an incident where my group members had issues with my ideas and my work ethic in the group project due to some health issues and circumstances outside of my control, and there was one team member who got really fired up about it and would consistently lash out with her anger at me. Her anger would consists of threats to have a group discussion with the professor even though I tried to do everything I could to remedy the conflict and crisis, and offer to do more work in any way that I could. Fortunately the professor had been trained well on how to handle group issues and offered to mediate a conversation in which we each got uninterrupted time to voice our concerns. The professor carefully assessed the issues.

Few people do this well. So much time is spent in the lead up and the actual execution itself, that there is little energy or momentum left for post mortems or hot washes (depending on the terminology within your industry) which are just as important.

Taking the time to debrief following a crisis is critical. Not only do you need to assess how the team internally handled the crisis, but also how your key stakeholders and publics reacted and felt about your organization's response. Did you maintain trust with them? Did you reputation suffer? Are there lasting external brand impacts that will need to be worked on as a result of the crisis or crisis communications? On the internal side, was the team well prepared? Did they feel empowered and aligned?

After each occasion on which your crisis comms plan needs to be activated - a small post-mortem should be conducted to review the pain points, and any friction that occurred in your structures and systems.

At least quarterly but for highly-scrutinized sectors experiencing increased news cycle exposure (even if its competitors and not your org.), it could be monthly. It’s important to understand what “reviewing the crisis plan” actually entails. It means not only reviewing the contact lists, placeholder statements, media lists, it also may involve table top exercises, refresher media trainings and briefings with new staff on protocols. New scenarios can pop up without warning and smart orgs have a process for identifying them. One thing that’s often overlooked is regular check-in with third-party validator to ensure that they can be deployed appropriately when and if needed, these stakeholders need frequent touch and feel.

Quarterly. Sometimes there will be minor changes, sometimes it will be an overhaul. But every new day brings additional challenges and scenarios that you need to be prepared for, or at the very least, have a statement prepared for. The worst place you can find yourself is in crisis with an outdated plan. The amount of time it takes to update a crisis plan quarterly is negligible compared to how much time your team will have to spend getting out of a crisis without a plan.

A crisis communications plan should be in service and in support of a crisis operations plan. It is important that both of these plans exist and that they are complimentary to each other. Senior leadership and key personnel need to know about the plans and play a role in the creation.

On top of a crisis communications plan, consider a business continuity plan as well. The companies that easily pivoted during the pandemic likely had plans in place that were well thought out in advance of a crisis. The best offense is a strong defense. You want to be proactive instead of reactive. The same is true for any type of crisis- financial, natural, etc.