Corporate culture and communication: the keys to crisis prevention

It’s easy to blame crises on the actions of one person, the front-line employee who did or said the wrong thing that led to a crisis event. Easy, but wrong.

Today’s organisations in crisis include an airline whose employee turned away a blind passenger, and the death of a landlord when simple checks were not carried out on a gas fire in his pub. Previous incidents have occurred when safety procedures were ignored in order to get the job done on time, when quality control was short-circuited to meet a deadline and when a call-centre employee was abusive towards a customer.

The catalyst for a crisis may indeed be the action of the front-line employee. But the root cause is usually the culture of the organisation (which is really most important, safety or profit?) and internal communication. People need to know exactly what is expected of them, and the principles and priorities which guide their behaviour. Getting these factors right is hugely significant in crisis prevention.

Hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons are today’s organisations in crisis:

Enterprise Inns: pub chain; fined following death of pub landlord when checks on gas fires were not carried out

FlyDubai: airline; customer service – blind passenger prevented from boarding his flight

Seaworld: tourist attraction; guest drowns at the water park

Crown Currency Exchange: currency exchange; company went into liquidation leaving customers without their money (note the knock on mini-crisis for websites such as Moneysavingexpert which included the company in their “best buy” lists)

Vodafone: telecoms; closure of call centre with loss of 400 jobs

Veolia: waste and recyling; fined after death of employee when health and safety measures were overlooked

Do keep a close eye on your own organisational culture and internal communication if you adhere to the principle that crisis prevention is always better than crisis cure.