A lot of organizations will view crisis PR purely in external terms. That’s all well and good, and very much true, but often times most companies will deal with a crisis PR event in their lifetime because of something that occurred internally.
Case in point, Amazon’s come under fire lately for how they terminated employees because of big data’s analysis of their seeming lack of productivity, and they essentially send them a termination notice by email. This gave the company, who already doesn’t possess the best reputation for dealing with employees, a really sour reputation for essentially being unfeeling. Now, to their credit, Amazon’s denied that that occurs, but there does seem to be at least some modicum of truth for how they monitor people’s employment and how they notify them, at least some level, for not meeting standards.
If you don’t view at your employee communications in the same vein you look at external communications, chances are you will get burned from them. People like dealing with caring companies. It doesn’t mean you should relax standards, but you must show empathy and action toward not only your customers, your partners, your investors, but, rule number one, your employees. If treated well, no better PR engine exists. Southwest proved that decades ago. They cater to employees first. They know that when they do that they’ll take care of the customers, customers will come back, and shareholders will benefit in return. If you don’t follow this rule, you could fall by way of Amazon.
