Historically, corporate communications and corporate risk management have been spherically exclusive. But increasingly, those division lines are dissolving.
PR professionals not only play a part in risk communications, but they can also have a hand in risk assessment and risk management. By working with risk managers, it is
possible to identify probable worst-case scenarios and develop communications strategies to answer them accordingly.
"We really believe it's important to assess from the beginning what the needs are, what we have and don't have and what we need to do to get there," says Tim Tinker, senior
vice president of Widmeyer Communications in Washington, DC. "It has to be more than awareness of what each side is doing. It's really optimal that each side is involved
with what each side is doing."
Tinker advises PR professionals to look for more opportunities to work together with other departments, whether it's in risk management or emergency management. "We need to
start at these issues on the front-end of things," he says, noting this allows the PR team to "have a much better idea of what should be our message internally but externally to
the audiences that are affected."
The last thing a corporate communications professional wants to have happen is to be blindsided by the media regarding a hitherto unknown issue affecting the company. The lack
of dialogue between the PR and risk management department can create such a situation, unless the PR effort is uncommonly prescient in planning for a crisis.
"If the risk manager doesn't talk to the corporate communications person, then that corporate communications person has to come up with a plan before it blows up," says Steve
Ellis, president of Ellis International, Darnestown, MD. "If there is any issue a risk manager has identified, if there is any risk going on, you need to have a
communications plan and an executions plan."
Yet Ellis notes this dialogue should include a third party. "You have to involve the legal department in risk management because we're in such in a litigious society," he
says. "The risk manager is thinking in more of financial terms. I think that's shortsighted. If you've got corporate communications not working closely with legal and risk
management, you're just missing the boat."
Ellis envisions a corporate set up where the three departments maintain contact with one another and the C-suite. "They shouldn't just report to each other - they still need
to report to the CEO - but they need to report to each other regularly," he emphasizes.
For Gene Marbach, group vice president of investor relations at Makovsky + Company in New York, it is crucial to ensure these communications remain fresh. He equates
the PR-risk management dialogue as the communications equivalent of updating a last will and testament.
"You have a will and your life circumstances change," he says. "You've got to review that and you've got review it on a regular basis. It may not be too much to say even if
you meet once a month or once a week just to look at the plan. It has to be a living document. It's stuff that no one wants to think about, but they really have to think about
it."
But then another question arises: Who is the face and voice of the company in the event of a crisis? And what role does the risk management department play in the actual
crisis communications situation?
Boyd Gaming Corporation of Las Vegas is an example of a company that streamlined its crisis communications strategy. "Sometimes when I respond to a crisis, the
communications person might be in another part of the world," says Stan Smith, vice president of risk management and security for Boyd. "If he's not in, then there is the
director of marketing. So there is always someone readily available to report to the media in the event of a crisis."
Coordinating Communications
Smith advises PR professionals and risk managers to sit down and create a crisis communications plan by defining guidelines of who wants to be notified when and work within the
system to fine-tune it. "We work with our communications department every day," he says. "I want the communications people to have information quickly so they can promptly relay
information to the media. You need to be working with the media instead of working against it."
This also extends beyond the corporate world. In the fall of 2001, a public panic followed an anthrax attack in Hamilton, NJ when local and national media incorrectly reported
two postal workers from a distribution center in the neighboring town of Monmouth were "suspect cases." Thanks to the collaborative communications effort by public health and
local law enforcement officials, that panic was allayed and ultimately stemmed.
"It wasn't a police problem, it wasn't a health problem, it was a communications problem," says Dr. Caron Chess, professor of environmental communications at Rutgers
University. "It was a problem that involved both agencies. They had to figure out who was going to handle phone calls, what to say to reporters, and what to say to
people."
Since the anthrax incident, Chess says, police and health officials are more equipped in dealing with crisis communications. "When we're dealing with a complex problem, it's
not just about communication and its not just dealing with risk - it's dealing with both risk and communications," she says. "In a crisis situation you don't want to be
exchanging business cards."
(This article originally appeared in PR News' Crisis and Legal PR Bulletin, an online sister publication of this newsletter. Sponsored by Levick Strategic
Communications, PR News' Crisis and Legal PR Bulletin can be found at https://www.prnewsonline.com/legalpr.)
CONTACTs: Tim Tinker, [email protected]; Steve Ellis, [email protected]; Gene Marbach, [email protected]; Stan Smith, [email protected]; Dr. Caron Chess, [email protected].