Old SARS crises taught people and business owners different lessons especially when it comes to preparedness, crisis communication, and how to respond to disease viral outbreaks.

One of the main lessons learned, as mentioned by Day et al. (2004) is to always be honest and transparent when it comes to crisis communication; in particular, when communicating your epidemic management strategy. This can reduce a lot of losses. Therefore, the authors recommend that every CEO and manager develop a plan to “displace information feudalism and enhance information flow.”

Why Is Crisis Communication Vital?

• Developing a plan can decrease and even avoid panic in your firm;
• It establishes a corporate culture of information sharing which will make all necessary data available to everyone in a timely and accurate form;

How Can You Crisis-Communicate Effectively?

You can benefit from these two crisis communication examples:

Flextronics International Ltd’s approach:

This company worked on increasingly spreading factual information to its different factories by the aid of local doctors and health officials whose job was to brief all employees about the issue. To add, they disproved any fake news that was spread and created a crisis task force to ensure that all employees in all factories are always updated and informed of the latest health news.

When companies that receive shipments from Flextronics became concerned about the SARS virus surviving a sea journey, the company directly issued a statement in which it proved scientifically that the bug does not survive for a very long period of time outside of a living host.

Buckman Laboratories’ Tactics:

Buckman Laboratories’ CEO created a global electronic communications network to provide access for all the workers to one information source. To encourage proper communication, the company rewarded anyone who openly communicates ideas and used negative incentives for those who hides information.

Source

Day, B., McKay, R. B., Ishman, M., & Chung, E. (2004). It will happen again: What SARS taught businesses about crisis management. Management Decision, 42(7), 822-836.Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00251740410550907/full/html

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