The good news for business leaders is that a tentative agreement was reached Tuesday that averted a strike against UPS.
But while companies dodged the crisis bullet today, the agreement is no guarantee against other potential strikes or disruptions that would create a crisis for them.
As is the case for strikes and any other type of crisis, don’t wait until they happen to find out if you’re preapred for then. After breathing a sigh of relief about today’s agreement, company executives should take the following steps.
Update Or Prepare Plans
Review your crisis management plans to ensure they are up to date and account for the latest possible threats; if you do not have a plan in place, prepare one ASAP. The sooner the better.
Ensure your crisis communication policies and procedures are current and include a process for reaching everyone impacted by a crisis. “Anticipate and prepare for more customer service inquiries,” Andy Barr, a crisis communication expert and CEO of the 10 Yetis Digital agency, said via email.
“Have your communication team prepped and ready to go. Typically you will have a reply playbook where you can tweak pre-prepared replies to fit the question. Never do a copy-and-paste job, though,” he advised.
Inventory Resources And Skills
Based on the crises you are planing for, take stock of the resources skills you’d need to respond effectively to them. If they are not available in-house, contact the people or companies who can provide them.
Conduct Scenario Exercises
Test the effectiveness of crisis plans before they are needed by conducting a regular series of exercises to see how your company would respond to different crisis situations.
If, for example, if there had been a strike against UPS, how would your organization have responded to it?
Spokesperson Training
Know in advance who will represent your company to the public when a crisis strikes, and ensure they have received spokesperson training.
Learn From Others
Pay close attention to how others responded to their crisis, and what you can learn from their experiences, successes, or failures.
Supply Chain Disruptions
“Companies that have taken steps to transform supply chain operations from traditional, linear supply models to more resilient and collaborative supply chain networks have distinct advantages,”Valerie Blatt, Global Head, SAP Business Network Customer Success, said via email.
“First, they can see into their supply chains to anticipate and act on disruptions before they paralyze operations; and second, they have the agility to locate and engage with alternate suppliers – such as providers of materials and finished goods, logistics services, or even contingent labor,” she observed,
Royal Mail Strike
“In the United Kingdom, when the Royal Mail went on strike, small and medium sized companies were left to frantically search around for an alternative provider for delivering products to consumers,” 10 Yetis’ Barr recalled.
“This meant fast-tracking new operating procedures and processes and relying on new delivery companies to offer a level of service that customers expected. It resulted in increased demand and cost for customer service channels and even increased costs for consumers directly as shipping increases needed to be passed on because of tight product margins.
“Even worse, when the strikes happened, deliveries stacked up in the depots and in the case of fresh produce, much of it ended up having to be returned. The number of lost parcels also increased and it took months for the backlogs to be cleared which resulted in consumers demanding refunds from the companies that they were expecting deliveries from,” Barr concluded.
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