Crisis Communication Skills

Overview:

Introduction

With the sporadic use of various educational and training resources, the session is intended to be participatory and engaging. In order to help the participants apply the theory in an effective and efficient way, the course also makes use of real-world scenarios. The course is structured around four learning pillars: exposure to real-world crises and policy options that participants may face; concept learning (lectures and presentations); role-playing (group activities); experience sharing (roundtable discussions); and.

Course Objectives

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Determine the various crises and their characteristics.
• List the different crisis communication tenets.
• Create crisis management procedures to reduce the likelihood of problems in their businesses.
• Show the advantages of using the media during a crisis.
• Assess and order the components of crisis communication management.
• Interpret and analyze the outcomes of crisis communication management

Targeted Audience

• Team leaders, supervisors, and managers of public relations departments, as well as any other staff members who might be involved in handling communication-related problems during a crisis, are the intended audience for this course.

Course Outline

Unit 1: Introduction

• Definition of a crisis
• Overview of communication
• Various types of crises
• Key aspects of a crisis
• Evolution of a crisis

Unit 2: Principles of crisis communications

• Setting your clear objective
• Responding quickly
• Accepting responsibility
• Appropriate messaging
• Profiling your audience
• Showing and maintaining credibility
• Coordinating with others
• Continuous monitoring

Unit 3: Crisis management process

• Pre-crisis phase
  • Crisis Management Plan (CMP)
  • Crisis Management Team (CMT)
  • The spokesperson's role
• Crisis event phase
  • Initial response
  • Reputation repair
• Post-crisis phase
  • Lessons learned
  • Follow up with communication

Unit 4: Crisis communication and media

• Media and communication
• Media as a partner in crisis response
• Social media and crisis communication
• Social media as a beneficial tool or a challenge
• Dynamic use of social media in crisis communication

Unit 5: Dimensions of crisis communication management

• Standard operating decisions dimension
• Victims management dimension
• Trust and credibility dimension
• Behavior dimension
• Professional expectations dimension
• Ethical dimension
• Lessons learned

Unit 6: How to measure your results in a crisis

• Measuring outputs
• Measuring impact
• Measuring outcomes
• Steps for a measurement program
  • Defining your objectives
  • Defining your audience
  • Defining your criteria and benchmarks
  • Deciding upon your timing, budget and measurements tools
  • Analyzing results for conclusions and recommendations