When running a business, your reputation is inherently linked to many different people beyond yourself. Not only can you take a reputational hit if your product or service is of poor quality, but you are also held responsible if people connected to your organization behave poorly. A common issue within crisis PR is employees or executives of a company engaging in improper behavior and how it reflects on the business.
While no business wants to be in such a situation, it’s important to have a game plan if an employee connected to you engages in wrongdoing. If you’ve ever wondered how best to react to such a situation, this crisis PR guide should help.
Why Employee Wrongdoing Impacts You
It’s important to understand why you should be concerned about your employees’ wrongdoing. On the surface, it doesn’t have anything to do with your business. But in reality, your employees represent your business when they are on the clock and even outside of working hours, according to public opinion.
When people engage with your employees, there is a conscious or self-conscious belief that they are engaging with you as an employer and that by having them as your employees, you endorse or at least condone their behavior. So, if your employee engages in wrongdoing, it reflects on you to some degree. So, like it or not, you might have to take action in that case.
Preventative Measures for Crisis PR
Prevention is always better than cure, and so, one of the first things you should do is put in measures to prevent blowback.
First, you should institute a strict social media policy for employees that should be enforced across the board. This includes restrictions on making comments about both your business and others in public settings, making problematic statements generally, and engaging in certain behavior when associated with your business.
An employee engaging in public misconduct while wearing your uniform, for example, should be outright banned. By letting employees know ahead of time that there are restrictions to how they can behave because they represent your business, they may be less likely to do so. If you have the resources, have an employee training session where this is explained in plain language to avoid any misunderstanding.
In addition to these preventive measures, you should also have a game plan if the worst happens.
How to Respond to Employee Wrongdoing
If your employee has engaged in some sort of wrongdoing, take the following steps to protect your business’s reputation:
1. Assess the Situation: The term “wrongdoing” is quite broad, and to avoid underreacting or overreacting, you have to assess exactly what has been done. There are different levels of wrongdoing, including unpleasant interactions with customers, illegal behavior, inappropriate statements online, and much more.
First, determine whether or not any legal issue is at hand. If the employee has been arrested or has made a statement that could lead to a lawsuit, your first step should be to speak with your business’s legal team about the way forward. Don’t rush to make a statement or take any action, as you could put your own business in legal hot water. If it is an unpleasant interaction or a statement, you can then take the time to determine the next course of action in-house.
2. Distance Yourself if Needed: Depending on what the employee has done, your first step might be to distance your business from their actions. It’s quite common for someone associated with a company to engage in wrongdoing, and for the company to distance itself from it. Ahead of time, you should have a template stating that your business does not endorse or condone the actions and that they do not reflect your own values.
This can be edited based on the actual situation, but it should be on hand to save time. Depending on how much public backlash there is, you might not need to put out the statement at all. If the situation is dying down on its own, a statement might inadvertently link you to it or draw more attention to it, which is not what you want.
3. Take Action Regarding Their Employment: Depending on the severity of the wrongdoing, you might be advised by your legal team to terminate your working relationship with the employee and question. If that is the case, do it as quickly as possible while ensuring all legal steps are taken to avoid future lawsuits. You do not want to find yourself terminating an employee’s contract only to have to rehire or compensate them later due to legal issues. If an investigation is needed on your part, simply tell the public that you will conduct an internal investigation and announce the results once they are available.
4. Avoid Commenting Unnecessarily: If you’ve already taken the step to distance yourself or condemn the wrongdoing, do not comment on it any further. This is especially true if there is some sort of investigation ongoing, in which case you can simply say that you will not comment further but allow the authorities to do their job. If there is significant public attention to the wrongdoing, making multiple statements in response could continually link your business’s reputation to it. News stories being written about it might mention you, which does not help the situation.
5. Leverage the Media: If you especially want to protect your business’s reputation, collaborate with various media stakeholders to distance yourself from the incident. If journalists are reporting on the story and connecting you to it, you can reach out to them to request an edit and maybe even offer an exclusive statement in return.
Depending on the level of media coverage, you might also make other business-related announcements to quell the noise, flood news organizations with more positive things to report on, and overall get your business back on track.
Conclusion
One of your employees engaging in wrongdoing can prove to be a PR nightmare if not handled well. But if there’s anything crisis PR has taught us, it’s that you can prepare yourself for virtually anything and act as needed. The golden rule of responding to employee wrongdoing is to employ restraint and act with guidance.
Do not speak unless you need to; make sure all authorities are contacted before any action is taken; and make sure you do not tie your business permanently to such an issue. If you would like any more guidance on crisis PR, distributing press releases in record time when dealing with a crisis, reach out to us here at BTCWire, and we will help your business navigate any crisis.