Remember to Exercise
Remember to Exercise
That isn’t a health related reminder but an encouragement to ensure that your crisis communication plans don’t just exist. For your crisis planning to be effective you have to test your response. This means ensuring that some form of exercise or crisis simulation takes place. They can range from a short table top scenario to a full immersive experience. How do you set about exercising your plans?
Ensure that your plan is up-to-date and that the team who will be called in to deliver it are aware of it and their role in the response.
Consider what you want to achieve from the exercise, what are your objectives. Is it a chance to educate the team about the approach or are you looking to find the weak points?
Identify how best to exercise your plans to achieve the required objective. If needed there are crisis communication experts who can help with this.
Develop your exercise whether it is a quick tabletop scenario to discuss or an immersive simulation.
For more detailed exercises there is software that can support and specialist organisations like Amanda Coleman Communications Ltd who can develop things for you.
Pick a day and time when you can run your exercise. Ensure you gather all the required information from the testing experience and use it to develop your plan further.
If you would like to discuss how to test your crisis communication plans get in touch with Amanda at amanda@amandacolemancomms.co.uk
Testing Times
The latest edition of the crisis communication case study Testing Times is the 25th to have been published. Every month it reviews a recent crisis or emergency incident looking at what happened and what could have been done differently within the communication. The June 2022 edition looks at the mixed messages and concerns from the police communication after the horrific Uvalde school shooting in Texas at the end of May. Find out more here.
Life Moves Fast
There are continued pressure on communicators some of which was covered in a blog by Amanda following the Chartered Institute of Public Relations publication of the State of the Profession report (find it here). The importance of taking time to reflect and focus on other parts of life, not just work, was the focus of an article by Amanda shared through LinkedIn. Read more here.
New Clients
May has been a productive month from Amanda Coleman Communications Ltd with some new clients signed up to work with. Work includes providing crisis response support, developing crisis communication plans, exercising crisis plans, and training teams on how to identify problems and develop the appropriate response. Thank you to everyone who has chosen to work with Amanda Coleman Communications Ltd.
In Brief:
The Audit Commission found that councils in Scotland will have to draw on their experiences and knowledge in dealing with Covid-19 to manage the challenges ahead. Find more about the report here.
Communities in New South Wales, Australia are still in crisis because of housing problems months after floods hit. A parliamentary committee is reviewing the official response to the floods. Find out more here.
Forbes has produced an article given leaders practical tips on responding to crises. You can find out more here.
The World Health Organisation has released some information related to the current Monkeypox outbreak. Find out what is in the guidance here.
Tourism organisations are being urged to prepare for hurricane season in the Caribbean. The season runs from June until November and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation has called for plans to be put in place. Find out more here.
Diary Dates:
If you have an ambition to manage an in-house communication team or you are a new manager, the PRCA are running a special training day on 14 June. Amanda will work through the skills required to successfully lead an in house team. Find out more here.
Crisis and emergency communication is the focus of a two day training course designed by Amanda for public sector communicators. The course is part of the Westco training programme and takes place on 16 and 17 June. Find out more here.
Public sector communicators and those who work with them will be interested in Amanda’s webinar on developing engaging content within public sector comms. The 90 minute session is on 15 June. Find out more here.
Amanda has been announced as one of the speakers for the 2022 Commshero Week. Find out details through the website here.