How crisis comms fits into the business continuity plan
When crisis strikes, communicators are responsible for being connectors and helping to keep stakeholders in the loop about response actions. That means becoming a planner.
For many communicators around the country, the business continuity plan has been activated in the face of COVID-19.
A business continuity plan charts how an organization will respond to a major crisis like a natural disaster—or a global pandemic that is shuttering business operations.
Ready.gov offers a basic outline of what a plan could contain:
For communicators in a crisis, it’s essential to know how your role fits into this plan and to be able to direct media inquiries and internal questions to the proper departments.
That doesn’t mean that you should run the plan, but it should mean you are familiar with it.
Rebeca Mueller, VP for digital strategy at Porter Novelli, explains it this way: “The business continuity plan is not led by the comms team. It’s usually led by a risk officer or some other trained person that is going to look at all of the operations and logistics. Then, everything in comms fits into that.”
She shared takeaways on the COVID-19 crisis with attendees at Ragan’s Social Media Conference at Walt Disney World, presenting them alongside Caitlin Angeloff, social strategy director for Providence St. Joseph Health.
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