How to reach employees in an emergency
The goal of a crisis communication plan in any company is simply to help and keep everyone safe! That’s why it’s important that information is clear, accurate, and timely for all employee audiences… and sent through the best possible channel. If you’re responsible for how to reach employees in an emergency, focus on a few different key ideas to keep it all straight. Prioritize these areas in your employee comms plan:
- Employee safety. First and foremost, your crisis comms should keep everyone physically safe.
- Employee morale. Psychological safety and visible support should follow all safety instructions.
- Support larger crisis plans. The employee comms in an emergency should enable all teams to quickly, safely, and correctly execute all of the other elements of crisis plans.
- Maintain trust. Make sure that your plans are thorough and transparent – let employees know what kind of information they can expect from you when disaster strikes!
- Reputation management. Consider the after-effects of how, what, and when you communicate with your employees, and plan to support them afterward.
Creating an emergency plan that reaches all employees
A solid crisis communication plan should address all five of the steps above in a clear, easy-to-follow, and easy-to-share document. Of course, there’s quite a bit of detail and information that you’re going to have to include, so organization of your plan is key. We recommend starting with a great template, which will help think through all the included information and provide a framework for that organization. Grab our popular free template below to get started!
First, identify as many potential crises for your organization as possible. What you might need to prepare for will depend on the nature of your work, your facilities (or lack of facilities), your physical location, and the number of employees you serve.
Second, gather any and all existing emergency plans from around your company. Many (or most) potential crises have already been thought through by someone, somewhere… But they probably don’t all live in the same place. You’ll be checking and developing the communications parts of these plans, and adding to them if there are any gaps.
(take this moment to organize everything in an easy-to-find centralized location, too)
Third, establish a crisis communications team. Execution of your plan(s) will take speed and efficiency, so it’s important to have responsible people in place who know what their role will be. Include communications team members, human resources, leadership, team leaders, and facility managers at the very least.
Fourth, define all the roles and responsibilities needed to execute your comms, and set clear expectations. For each step you write out, best practices are to make sure it’s super-clear who will be doing it, what will trigger it, and how they should execute it.
Lastly, practice and test! At least once a year, gather your crisis communication team and go through the roles and responsibilities. At least twice a year, send out test messages on all your channels and make sure employees know what to expect. Ensure that all employees are opted into your comms and double-check the setup of your distribution lists. Ideally, when disaster strikes, everyone will know exactly where to find information.
What should be included in my plan?
There’s a fairly simple list of what should be included in a good crisis comms plan, though how they look is different for everyone. Make sure you have :
1. Contact lists and a communications tree
The most key aspect of crisis communications is that it has to happen fast. Which means it’s not the time to fumble around looking for the latest employee contact lists, or hoping that the latest new hire class is included. The best way is to use an internal communications platform that has automatic distribution lists that sync with your HRIS, so you’re not ever manually doing this. But if manual management of contact lists is all you’ve got, make sure that you
- Keep them in an easily and quickly accessible location and format
- Regularly update them
- Share document location and instructions with the entire comms team
We also recommend pairing your employee contact lists (automatic or manual) with a communications tree. That’s usually a diagram or chart (like a cascade) that shows how info is disseminated from one person or group to the next.
2. Pre-drafted messages and emergency messaging templates
Emergency situations involving groups of people are complicated and stressful. In almost any crisis major or minor, there is a LOT of information that needs to be shared, in a lot of places. You can’t know everything that will happen, but you can think through and outline the broad strokes of what’s most likely to happen. Use this to your advantage, and make messages simpler, faster, and clearer with templates.
Emergency text message templates
Emergency text messaging is for in-the-moment communication. Think about what will need to be shared quickly with employee group, and give yourself a framework to fill in the details. (get a great list of usable emergency SMS templates here!)
Emergency email templates
Email isn’t always the right channel up-to-the-minute, but it’s great for both emergency preparation and quick follow-ups with resources. These are both messages you can largely craft in calmer times and save in your template gallery.
Holding statement templates
Externally, you’ll need to issue a holding statement through your PR department. Holding statements should be issued as soon as possible; some studies suggest that companies have just 15 minutes to respond once a crisis breaks out. Grab our popular holding statement templates to make your own.
3. Crisis factsheet or debrief
After everyone is safe and things return to normal, schedule your post-crisis debriefing quickly. Ask all members of your crisis communications team to record their thoughts, feedback, reactions, feelings, mistakes, wins, and anything else as quickly as possible after the event. Memories fade faster than people think. Formalize your debriefing with a crisis factsheet and plan action items to implement right away.
How internal comms channels are part of employee emergency planning
The other thing that should be in your plan is every channel you have available. When you work through the channel matrix and message planning (what’s the best tool for who? when?) in your crisis communications plan, it’s important to understand each opportunity. No tool reaches every person, but the right combination of tools can get you to 100%.
Generally for internal comms, we recommend setting up at least 4 messaging platforms – text messaging, email, intranet, and instant messaging. For emergencies, you should activate and include as many others as you have. Let’s take a look at those pros and cons.
To understand how to use each channel to reach employees in an emergency, consider its strengths, weaknesses, and user tendencies. Let’s look at each for (1) speed and reliability, (2) accessibility, and (3) effectiveness in message delivery.
- Speed: Fairly fast, with the right delivery platform. Emails tend to be medium- to long-form, so this channel is best for comms you can either pre-plan or send after an event.
- Accessibility: High. Email reaches nearly every employee, even if it’s not instant. Frontline (deskless) employees will need more to be reached quickly, though.
- Effectiveness: Best for delivering detailed, organized information with images, references, and links. Excellent at living on as a point of reference, too.
Intranet
- Speed: Always-on, but not very good at notifications. An intranet or app is a great place to store materials for fast accessibility but still requires a “push” notice to get people there. Don’t count on someone accessing the intranet for information in a high-stress moment.
- Accessbility: Medium. Employees need to be actively logged in on their desktop or phone, and ready to engage with an intranet.
- Effectiveness: Best used as a “house” for important content, like contact lists, evacuation maps, detailed plans, and more. Send links to your intranet docs with speedier, more accessible tools.
Social media
- Speed: High. It’s quick to make a post, but the need to post on lots of social platforms trying to reach different groups will slow you down.
- Accessibility: High, probably too high. Most social networks will include employees AND the public… so there is limited use for emergency messaging here. Social media can be excellent for follow-up and public relations initiatives, however.
- Effectiveness: Not the best way to plan to reach employees in an emergency. Social isn’t generally looked to as the “source of truth,” and the algorithms don’t reach followers immediately anymore. Use social as a tool to share information for both team members and the general population.
SMS messaging
- Speed: Near-instant. Texts are quick to create, and send in seconds through mobile phone networks. They’re also quick to notify and quick to read, making emergency text messages ideal for “in-the-moment” communications.
- Accessibility: High. SMS is the only push notification that will reach nearly 100% of people (everyone has a phone), without requiring installation or login on a particular app. It’s native, and it’s natural for someone to check their texts regardless of what’s going on.
- Effectiveness: High, for both “right now” messages and less timely prompts to engage with important information on another channel. Most employers use text for important issues or special events only to keep employee attention in the channel high.
Phone calls
- Speed: Medium-low. There’s no real system for mass phone calls, so one-to-one is the only option. It’s very fast for one person or small groups, but not practical at scale.
- Accessibility: High, but limited. People are hesitant to answer a live phone call, and even less likely during a chaotic situation. The one-to-one nature of phone calls also limits accessibility.
- Effectiveness: Not very effective for groups of people.
Press releases
- Speed: Medium-high. With pre-drafted holding statements and a good crisis comms plan, a company can get press releases out quite quickly. And should!
- Accessibility: Limited. Press releases are an essential part of the plan, but are not a method to reach your employees at all.
- Effectiveness: Low effectiveness for employees. Vital for follow-up, however, and in managing and sharing employee stories after an emergency situation.
Town hall meetings (including virtual)
- Speed: Slow. A town hall or all-hands meeting can be effective for addressing groups, but it takes planning and knowledge and skill to execute effectively.
- Accessbility: Medium. Most employees can attend an in-person or virtual town hall during normal times, but that’s not always available during an emergency.
- Effectiveness: Low effectiveness in the moment. A town hall meeting can be valuable for policy announcements and talking about plans you’re making for the future.
The special role of SMS in any crisis comms plan
Including a super-fast, app-agnostic channel like text messaging is a huge step in crisis comms, but not every company has SMS set up. There are a variety of reasons you might not be ready to text your employees, but they’re all fixable. If texting isn’t currently part of your emergency comms plan, consider this:
Texting has instant delivery and high open rates. Frontline, office, remote… everyone has a mobile phone and everyone checks when a text comes in. There are no logins to remember or save, no extra apps or security layers on your phone to get through. A text message is automatically part of the native cell phone environment. And because you don’t text every day, an emergency alert text is likely to get attention.
How to reach employees in an emergency with SMS
There are a few ways to set up employee text messaging, the easiest of which is through the Workshop platform. You’ll discover lots of mass texting tools out there, but most are either (1) intended for texting customers in a marketing environment or (2) heavily interfaced and not that user-friendly.
Emergency text messaging best practices
- Make sure emergency texts are concise – say exactly what to do with no fluff
- Only share and use verified information
- Keep the tone of voice serious but not panicked
- Link to other channels (like intranet) for documents and details
- Give instructions for what to do next
- Plan to notify employees with an “all-clear” afterward
- Get a template and more how to write employee emergency text messages here
How to combine SMS and your other comms channels
Complementing phone and email communication
- Use text messaging to confirm phone calls and emails have been received
- Send follow-ups and reminders for things you’ve emailed via text
- Cross-post important email sens through your SMS platform
Supporting intranet and social media updates
- Direct employees to detailed updates and urgent to-dos on the intranet through text links
- Use text to drive traffic to social media alerts and information
Enhancing public address systems and mobile apps
- Notify employees via text after public address announcements
- Reinforce app notifications with text messaging for critical updates
Next steps: enhance your comms plan and implement all your channels
If you’re ready to dive in on your plan to reach employees during an emergency, start with our crisis communications plan template. It’s a basic outline of what to do, and should help you plan your channel mix and messaging plan to get the right messages in the right places. If you haven’t looked into text messaging as a crisis communications tool, consider Workshop!
Workshop is the go-to crisis comms software for internal teams. Our mobile-friendly multi-channel platform (including SMS) helps you reach your team in every way needed… while being SO easy to use. Use text, email, and cross-channel notifications, get responses from the front line right away, segment your teams with automatic HRIS-connected lists, and store your message templates for super-fast sending.
