Radiation – The Silent Killer Crisis

The recent death by polonium-210 radiation poisoning of the Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko exemplifies how a crisis can strike unrelated businesses. In this extraordinary story which made headline news around the world, the commercial impact on an airline, restaurant, leading hotels and other businesses in the centre of London’s West End was put at risk.

The authorities were clearly prepared to deal with such an out of the blue situation because the Health Protection Agency quickly called a press conference in an attempt to allay public panic over a possible radiation threat; the hospital where Litvinenko died was caught off guard in the early stages of the drama because initially there were conflicting reports about the cause of the Russian’s illness and subsequent death.

Traces of radiation were initially discovered in the restaurant where Litvinenko had eaten before being taken ill and also in the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Street where he had an earlier meeting; the restaurant was instantly closed and the hotel management was left with the problem of ensuring guests that all was well and at the same time attempting to stop future cancellations until an all-clear was announced. Likewise, British Airways is struggling to make contact with thousands of passengers who flew on affected aircraft.

According to Dr David Perl, chief executive of docleaf, the crisis communications specialists, “It would be very unlikely that radiation poisoning would have been identified as a likely risk for most businesses. “They would be more concerned with the impact of terrorism, a product recall, consumer complaint, product tampering, natural disaster, worker injury/redundancies, an environmental/ health & safety issue, fire or litigation, crisis, and social, political or economic changes.”

In developing a communications plan, docleaf strategy is to develop six steps that should be taken to manage a crisis before it happens:

Step 1 - Form a core crisis management team led by the CEO and comprising representatives from the following functions - human relations, operations, legal, public relations, marketing & sales;

Step 2 - Conduct a crisis audit to determine what crises the company might encounter;

Step 3 – Provide the crisis management team with a loose leaf notebook containing essential information they would need in the event of a situation – from individual contact numbers to specific actions and critical tasks.

Step 4 - Write the crisis management plan which should a premium on intelligent, effective communication, both inside and outside a company. Communication with the media, government officials, trade organizations, customers, suppliers and employees can save or destroy a company during times of crisis. The communications policy should address:

• Choosing a corporate spokesperson.
• Releasing information (when, how and how much, to whom).
• Communicating with the media and government authorities.
• Communicating with trade associations, customers and suppliers.
• Communicating with employees.

Step 5 - Create a crisis resource notebook
Once the plans and statements are written, the lists are compiled and key resources located; they should be compiled into a Crisis Resource Notebook – the corporate ‘bible’ - that is distributed to each member of the Crisis Management Team. Choose an easily identifiable notebook -- perhaps red in colour -- that will be easy to spot when a crisis unfolds.

Step 6 - Develop a crisis mindset among employees
The very act of crisis auditing and planning helps to cultivate a crisis mindset among those involved. But it is also important to launch a campaign, including stimulation programmes, to make all employees aware of the role they play in averting crises and managing them when they do occur.

Says Dr Perl: “With such a plan in place, any company can be confident that they have done all it can to deal effectively with any eventuality, even possibly a radiation scare.”.

For further information on our crisis communication services, please click here.

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What can you expect following a critical incident?

Following a critical incident it is normal to have strong emotional or physical reactions. These reactions may last for days, weeks, months or even years. The way an individual reacts to trauma will depend on a number of things, such as the type and severity of the event, the level of support the person has, other stresses in their lives, previous trauma and their personality, all of these things will all have an impact on how they deal with the trauma.

Traumatic stress can result in very powerful reactions in some people. So when should psychological support be brought in?

The ideal scenario would be to implement pre-crisis training, this will lay the groundwork for workers so that they are informed and prepared, if and when a critical incident takes place. Training staff to recognise common types of psychological reactions, including post traumatic stress helps them not only to respond more effectively but also to better protect themselves from psychological injury.

Pre-crisis training will prepare you and your employees in how to deal with the human aspects of a critical incident. Limiting the impact on your people and your business and reducing the risk of litigation.

For further information on docleaf's training courses on managing critical incidents please click here

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Articles are copyrighted to docleaf^®. Permission to reprint will usually be granted for no charge. Write to info@docleaf.com.  The articles represent the opinions of the authors and all information is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.

A collection of past eNews articles can be found at www.docleaf.com/news/enews.php

Regards, Dr. David Perl.
CEO - docleaf
Visit our website at www.docleaf.com
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