Effective issues and crisis management relies on simulations and practical scenarios. At n2n, we have regular internal training sessions for our team – and it’s timely that issues and crisis management fell recently.

The escalating industrial relations crisis at Qantas served for a challenging and relevant scenario for our team to tackle as a training exercise.

The challenge for the Qantas public relations team is to work through the likely scenarios, and develop a communication plan that can be implemented quickly, and remain flexible enough to respond to situation changes and as new issues emerge.

A typical issues management plan would cover:

•The potential risks to Qantas (reputation, financial, operational etc..)

•The likely scenarios and how these could play out

•The stakeholders and how they may be impacted (employees, shareholders, customers, government)

•Potential third party advocates and supporters

•Key messages for each stakeholder and the best channels to use to communicate with them (eg face to face, media, direct email, online/social media)

•The make-up of the crisis management team and roles/responsibilities

•The resources needed (internal/ contracted) to manage the issue and the recovery

•Protocols for handling the media and social media

Qantas made for a robust and challenging workshop on how to prepare for a crisis – and what to do when you’re in one.

It also raised a key question – how many executive and communications teams invest in advance to prepare for potential issues and crises?

Are you prepared? For more, see n2n's own blog.