 Hello good afternoon my name is Judith Mason and I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar Express Crisis Communications hosted by the CIM Construction Industry Group. Before we get started I just like to go over a few things so that you know how the event will work and how to participate. The presentation will last for approximately 30 to 35 minutes followed by a short 10 minute Q&A session. You'll be able to post any questions you have by typing into the ask question chat box in the Q&A panel which you'll see on the right hand side of your screen if you're watching on a laptop or across the top if you are watching on a tablet or phone. You can send in your questions at any time during the presentation and we'll attempt to answer as many as we can during Q&A session at the end. If you want to share your thoughts on social media we're using the hashtag CIM events. The webinar is being recorded and we will share a link to the recording with you over the next few days. You'll also be emailed a short feedback survey after the event which we'd love you to complete. It'll only take a few minutes and all survey responses are anonymous so please do let us know your thoughts. I'd now like to hand you over to David Ng from Fabric who's our guest speaker today. Good afternoon and welcome to this webinar on crisis communications in the built environment. Firstly a little bit about myself from Fabric. So Fabric is a full service marketing agency that specializes in the built environment. We've been established for 34 years and employ a team of 20 plus. We started life as a PR agency and over the 34 years have evolved into a full service agency with internal teams managing creative digital content, copyrighting, digital development and much much more. We also have a sister company Real Information that provides market research and a core part of what we do is crisis communications. In terms of our client base this spans a number of sectors as illustrated and covers manufacturers, trade bodies, contractors, consultants and distributors. Our clients large and small, most based in the UK, but we also do work internationally. We provided crisis comm support to a number of these businesses over the years having to manage a real wide variety of incidences. I'd also like to add at this point that whilst our focus is on the built environment the principles in this presentation apply to other sectors as well. For example, a manufacturer of the building materials is very similar risk to that of manufacturers, so paper materials or electrical goods. As such, regardless of what sector you operate in, there will be content in this presentation that you can apply to your business. I'd like to start with, you know, it's no good thinking there will never happen to us. And I want to talk about risk. So I think all too often we find that businesses don't think it will happen to them. And if something does happen, it won't be that bad. This is the wrong approach. An accident can happen. And typically that they happen when you least expect it. So the next 20, 25 minutes, I'm going to talk about how to prepare yourself so that if something does happen, you are prepared and you are in comfort. So what impact can an incident happen? So incidents come in many forms, but the bottom line is that they can damage your reputation. As marketers, we spend time, money, effort, building a reputation. And our reputation is really important. So actually an incident can actually have a huge impact on your reputation, whether it be from the perception of your staff to your company, your customers or the wider stakeholders. So the issue is that, you know, you spend those years building a brand and one incident, your brand can be damaged. So you need to make sure that if an incident happens, you're prepared and you have the right tools to manage your brand's reputation. In terms of risk, this can take many forms. So as I said, you know, whilst we focus on the built environment, you know, the principles here apply to many other sectors. A crisis could be a building fire, a product failure, right through to misuse the social media by staff or a data breach and right through to what we're all facing a moment, which is a global pandemic. So risk is all around us and we need to understand these risks that we can prepare ourselves. I think it's interesting to note that technology is having a huge impact on risk at the moment. So with technology, we're finding ourselves having sort of more assets to manage. So social media, data breaches, I'm old enough to remember the years of social media not existing. So actually our risks back then were less, whereas now you have more things to consider. So what do we look at? So as a business, all of us are sort of, you know, probably slightly guilty is that we actually look at the obvious, you know, if you're going to look at risk, you'd actually think of accidents in the workplace. So if you have a factory, it's likely you've got very stringent and very strict health and safety procedures. And the factory is considered a hotspot in terms of potential accidents. And this is correct, you know, the factory should be top of the list in terms of where you look for risk. So most companies will have a health and safety policy that will ensure that risk is minimized. Risk assessments would have been conducted and completed, staff inducted, first aid is trained, staff made aware of the risks around them. This is all really good best practice and something that every business should be implementing to manage risk in their workplace. With this in place, you'd be placed to know what, you know, what to do if something happens. And you're also mineralizing risk so that, you know, the event of something happening is reduced. However, there's more than, you know, the risk that the risk is much wider in terms of where it is and where it's around it. It's more than just your factory. So you need to look across the entire business and more come on to a sort of how you actually start looking at your business and how you start assessing risk. There's also defining moments. So there are occasions that actually change how we look at risk. So if we take the graduate Grenfell Tower fire, this has affected so many lives. It's an ongoing inquiry into the fire, so I'm not going to talk about the specifics of the incident. However, I want to use it to illustrate a point with a point being that risk continues once you believe you've completed a task that you're employed to do. Lots of business have a responsibility in terms of their legacy. If you provide a product, your risk doesn't stop the moment you deliver it. It continues whilst it's in use, whether you're providing washing machines, car components or building products. How they're used is part of your ongoing risk. Or too often we look at the process of making the products and don't give enough consideration as to that ongoing use. The other challenges that Grenfell showed us is that if you provide products that need installation by a third party, your ability to manage the quality of that installation is limited. To make matters more complicated, if your products go through distribution or merchants, you can lose control on where they're going and how they're being used. If your product fails, the spotlight will be on you. And whilst the failure might be down to poor installation by a third party, you need to understand that this can't be used as an excuse. As part of your planning for a crisis, you need to understand this and prepare your position accordingly. And then there's things we don't expect. So I've sat in front of many clients and many boards and produced crisis response plans. And interestingly enough, I don't think I've ever been asked to put into it a crisis response plan, a global pandemic that shuts or impacts every single life globally and every single business. You know, we've all seen films that threaten the world with viruses and chemical attacks. So there's a sort of an underlying acknowledgement that it could happen, but I don't think anyone actually expected it to happen. And I don't think anyone quite expected it to happen as it did and how fast and affects so many of us. So part of your role in managing a crisis is to expect the unexpected. And whilst, you know, you can't plan for every eventuality, you can plan for what you can expect, but there will be instances that you can't plan for. So how should companies best prepare themselves? This is, this is the key part of now actually what we're looking at doing in terms of how you actually start planning for a crisis. So the first thing you need to do is consider resources. Someone has to own the project. You have to have a project lead that manages and coordinates the creation of the plan and is the lead in the event of an incident. This could be the marketing manager or marketing director or managing director or operations director. It should be somebody who knows the overall structure of the business. Someone who understands the key elements of the business, understand audiences and understands appropriate language and someone who can work under pressure. The second part of the resources is actually putting a stereo committee together. So this committee will help pull the plan together. They'll be the resources for the project lead and they will not only help with the planning process, but they'll be the support in terms of ongoing management should a crisis happen. Depending on their role and the type of potential incident, they also will be involved in managing that crisis. Depending on the size of business and your activities, we'd probably suggest that you might need people from HR and IT as well as you will need support from senior management. The third part is agency supports. So there's agencies such as fabric that have experience in helping companies understand their risk and helping them plan for potential crisis. They'll also be able to step in in the events of a crisis and provide that additional resource and guidance and support. So as part of your assessment of what resources you need to plan and manage a crisis, you need to think of all those three areas. So the next area is about looking at your business and identifying the risks. So we broadly break risks down into four areas. So firstly, there's your business operation. So if you're a manufacturer, this will be focusing on your factories. If you're a contractor, it will focus on the work you undertake. If you provide professional services or consultancy, it will look at the services you provide. So this is actually about understanding what you do day to day and where the risk lies in the products and services you're offering. The second element is your offices and operations. So this will require you to assess each of your locations. So if you're a global business, you might have more than you'd like to have more than one office. So you'll need to understand what your span is and what your operations in the States looks like. You also need to consider sort of the format of them. So in some instances, you might find that you've got a shared office space. So you need to understand the format of that location. So in the event of a local incident, you know what you're facing. For example, I said, if you have a shared office space, you need to understand there could be a shared reception and there'll be people who are not employees of your business in parts of that building. This adds risk as automatically you can be exposed to the risk that these other businesses face. We had a client that shared an office with another business. The other business faced a crisis that resulted in members of the public physically turning up at the office demonstrating. This had a direct effect on our client as their employees were actually subjected to verbal abuse. Now they weren't involved in the other companies activities and therefore not involved in that crisis, but the people outside the offices didn't know that. So again, it's about understanding where that risk lies and understanding your estates and the implications. You also need to think about other operations such as vehicles, do you have branded lorries or vans on the road? You know, if one of these was involved in an accident, it would be a very public and very visual. So you need to think about other other factors that affect your business operations. The third part is to think about people. The key part is to actually consider social media. So we've had many instances whereby employees post abusive message on their personal social media, but they've tagged where they work and this then reflects on your business. So every business should have a policy that outlines what is acceptable and what isn't. You also need to consider other instances and behaviors involving people. So this could be during work hours or out of hours. And again, how people affect your business. This isn't only from brand reputation perspective, but also from a considerate employer's perspective. We had one unfortunate instance where a client, one of their members of staff was on holiday and unfortunately was killed during a terror attack. So whilst it didn't directly affect or involve the business, it affected the employees and how that news was communicated to staff and colleagues. So again, you need to think sort of wider and think about the impact that people have and where again, risk-wise and the final step, which is slightly trickery, is about how to consider global forces. So whilst it's impossible to sort of predict the future of things such as COVID-19 pandemic, it's shown us that there are global forces at play and actually do need to think how we actually plan for those. And again, what processes you can put in place that manage that you're prepared in a quick to deal with those. So once you've assessed the risk to your business, the next step is the development of a crisis management plan or a crisis response plan. So we call it a CRP crisis response plan. So CRP outlines your procedures for managing a crisis. It establishes the steps and protocols. It identifies roles and responsibilities and outlines what the first steps are to be taken. It also covers procedures such as who the staff needs to call when there's an incident and what procedures there are for managing the media. This document provides guidance on what you should say internally and externally, and it provides a step by step guide to guide you through the crisis. The CRP is produced by your steering committee and takes all the information you've amassed from looking at risk across the business. It identifies the steps you should take and who you should involve. For example, if there's an accident involving when your client is in a crisis, you should be informed of who the project lead and how it should be informed. So what you do if the media calls and then who makes a statement. All of this is detailed in CRP. You'll probably find that you'll go through a number of drafts when you're completing this document. Once drafted it will need to go to senior management for approval. I would also add at this stage that once you've created a CRP, it's no good just saving it and finding it somewhere in your server. You actually need to communicate it across the company. All of your staff need to know that we have a plan in the event of an incident actually what that plan is. I'd also add it's worth noting that you should also review the CRP. So we suggest a quarterly review to make sure that it's appropriate. It's up to date and all information is correct. So in terms of that plan, as previously mentioned you need to start sort of breaking it down into activities and actions, your office and operations and your people. In each case you'll find that information and actually put that into the plan. And the thorough assessment by asking yourselves to sort of the questions of where risk lies across the business, you'll be able to sort of create this this plan and give you all the background you actually need. So in terms of the step-by-step guide, the CRP will provide you with these steps of managing a crisis. It should include contact details for key individuals. So as previously mentioned you should include heads of HR, heads of IT, whether this be internal or external. You should look to include all your office numbers, mobile numbers for key staff, email addresses for key staff, as well as home contact details. I think it's kind of the act of SOG's law that we always tend to find that incidents happen at weekends or when someone's on holiday. So to actually have contact details, should you need to get them out of office hours is really important. You should also include any relevant company policies and reference materials for part of the CRP. So we would suggest social media policies, office addresses and key contacts for each office. Would also suggest you create a series of pre-prepared statements. Now once you can't create a statement for every possible incident, you can create templates that mean in the event of an incident you have a head start. I've included an example there which is a very simple statement that in the event of being approached by the media, you've got a pre-prepared statement that you can actually adapt and respond to. But by having those pre-prepared statements again it puts you on the front foot. And what we tend to find is the pre-prepared statements, you tailor them to your business activities, so you know what your business activities are. This short statement as we said there is a good first statement in case you're being approached by the media following an incident. And actually this is good policy because it shows you're aware, you're responded, and it will buy you time when you find out what's happened. Go ahead Jeremy, head slightly from experiencing that the media don't like being ignored. If you don't respond, they'll ask someone else and they'll keep messaging until they get to somebody that will actually give them a comment. You also look at key spokespeople to include as part of the CRP. So this could be individuals based on locations, specialisms or if they've got media training. So part of this assessment of your business you should look at which members of staff have received media training and which ones haven't. And if there are senior members of your team that would benefit from media training, we suggest that that's that's completed. You might also find that it's more relevant to have a geographically located person to make a comment. So if there's an incident in your Southwest region, it's probably best coming from a senior member of the Southwest team. Interestingly, and you also need to sort of understand if you have got a senior spokesperson list, you should also ask any personal hobbies or interests that might impact on their ability to make make any comments. To give you an example and I would add that this hasn't happened, but it could do. If you are a client building or constructing or creating a new laboratory or a contractor or consultant working on a project where a new laboratory is being constructed and there's a possibility there might be animal testing, for example, you might find that you've got protesters standing outside. The media might be there. And what you don't want is a spokesperson from your company talking to the media and then you later find on that that spokesperson supports on like Fox hunting and has Fox hunting all over their Facebook profile because that's just giving the media more ammunition. So next stage is actually assessing the risk. So part of the CRP would be about how you address different levels and different examples of risk. So you should look to include examples of different levels of risk and what the appropriate action is for each. You could include high, medium and low risk and outline what they could entail and what the response would be. So you would actually look to include who needs to get involved at what level and actually who would leave that. For example, it's a low level risk that it could be something that is managed by the marketing director. If it's high level, it would need to be involvement of the board of directors. But this information is all about being prepared and having a plan. It's about knowing that if something happens, you know what to do. You know who to call and you know how to manage it. Communicating the plan. So this is a really important step. So if you've created your plan, you need to tell people where it actually exists. I said it's no good creating it and filing it away. You need to think about how you communicate his existence. The importance of this is that if there's an incident in your office and say Bristol, the two there need to know that there's a process in how to manage it. They need to know that this is something they should try and manage on their own. They need to know who to call. They need to know who to inform. They need to know not to make any comments in the media, but take details and pass on. They need to know that they'll be that they'll be asked what the facts of the incidents are and they need to know there's a team in place or manage it for them. It's therefore important that the CRPs, it's cascaded across key people across the business. So this could include depending on your size, size of business, office managers, team leaders, head to departments. What you probably don't want to do is actually send it out to all members of staff to read. It really is for sort of the team leaders to cascade it down through their departments. So what you need to think about is how you actually break the CRP down to the bite size chunks and communicate key messages. So you should consider use of posters in factories or staff canteens or notice boards, how it's included in staff inductions, how it can be briefed in as part of regular staff updates. So it's about making sure that all of your staff understand that in the event of an incident, there's a procedure that needs to be followed. With CRP created and all your staff informed is now how should you respond in the event of a crisis? It's really important that you stay calm and establish the facts. The first thing you need to do is establish what has happened to who and where. You need to speak to the person of people who are closest to what's happened. You need to ask direct questions and if necessary get confirmation of what you've been told. You then need to take a breath. Don't feel that you need to jump straight in and start calling or emailing people, collect your thoughts, run through what you've been told, think about the plan that you've created and actually if you haven't got the information you want, this is your opportunity to go back and ask for more. You then need to refer to the CRP, establish the level of risk. Is it a high risk? Is it a medium risk? Is it a low risk? Risks can change. Some things that can start low can move to medium. So again, you need to consider this and then you need to follow the procedures in terms of what you've established in terms of who to contact and who's going to be involved. So you'll need to establish if you've been approached by the media and actually if there's any likelihood of this. If necessary, you can then prepare statements. You can pull in the relevant spokes people that we've identified and I'll add at this point that unless you've been approached by the media, if you create a statement, don't send it out. In most cases about responding if you've been asked. There are the odd occasion where an incident is headline news and whilst you've not been approached a statement in your website, it's probably the right thing to do. But remember for all of this, take your time, don't rush and don't make rash decisions. So part of this would be about considering additional support. Depending on what the crisis is and whether it be a low level, medium level or high level, you might need to get some additional resources in. This could be if it's a major incident you would need to get senior management involved, there might be a requirement to pull in your legal team or solicitors and you might ask for the support of a comms agency. So remember, you're not alone in this. You have a team around you and they are here to help. One area that we find quite useful is the comms agency. If you have been approached by the media, normally the ones that can step in and to some extent sort of shield you from the media. They'll be the ones that were laced with the media. The media if they know there's a comms agency involved will know that their request for information is being managed. If you've got those resources around you, you know, I would suggest you use them. So the next thing is don't ignore social media. Social media, as I'm sure you all aware, is very powerful. It's interesting to note that a lot of stories that end up on the national press start on social media. It's almost the case that once have enough momentum on social media, they actually then find their way into the national news. So you need to start monitoring social very carefully. Look for mentions of your company, look for mentions of the incident. Again, assess what you find out but do not jump in and feel the need to respond. Wherever possible, we'd always recommend that you try and take conversations off of social media. Don't try and engage with conversations on social media. In many cases, the people making comments of general public have very little in terms of followers and influencers. We also find that a lot of people, the comment and not directly involved in what's happening. So by responding, you can be fueling the conversation and causing the comments to continue. Whereas actually, you need to assess and as said, where possible, take conversations offline. In some instances, you also find about an incident on social media. First, that's where you'll first hear about it. We had one client recently where a plastic pallet wrap got caught by the wind and some overhead electricity cables and then dropped back down again and started a small fire. The client's yard was actually next to a wire fence onto a public road. A number of members of the public filmed it and put it onto social media. There's little we can do in terms of getting them to take down the videos. And in this case, actually, the fire was very small and damaged only a couple of pallets of plastic pipe. No one was hurt and the news went away in a matter of hours. All it required us to do was a simple statement that was created outlining the facts and the incident was limited to a few social posts and a small online piece in the local paper that simply stated the fire brigade had been called to a small fire and that no one was hurt. And of course, I would add that that's another one that happened at a weekend and actually we heard about it via monitoring social media. But this is a really good example of how a low-level risk that can be quickly managed without fuss and by following a plan. In the case of larger incidences, then maybe need to monitor social media for longer and you may need to identify key people who are posting an influence in. In this case, you need to create a strategy for dealing with this. You should also make staff aware that they shouldn't comment or share on social posts about an incident, no matter how helpful they think they should be. We want to try and minimize our social content, not develop it further. This is really important stage and something that has to be done with thought and care. As part of the CRP, we would suggest that media lists are created. This is typically local press that are relevant to your offices. You may also have sector specific titles. By having a list of media, it helps to give you a heads up in case you're approached by the media. If you have an incident, at least knowing where the media inquiry may come from will give you a head start. You then need to look at how you manage an inquiry from the media. If you're approached by the media, this could be to the marketing or the press office or by the contact us page on the website or it could be a call to your office. Wherever the inquiry comes from, you need to take the details and forward it on to the relevant person, which is the CRP lead. This is an essential part of communicating. The people that answer the phone at your office, they will sit on reception need to know if they're approached, take the details and pass it on. They also need to know they shouldn't make any comments or statements. Just simply take the information and pass it on to the right person. Once you have an inquiry, the best thing to do is acknowledge it. Don't make a statement just yet, but confirm receipt of the inquiry and advise you're looking into it and that you'll come back to them. You need to think about what statement you now want to make, what information you say and how you say it. With all of this, the best approach is to be provide clear facts and be straight talking. Don't try and confuse matters. Don't try and avoid questions, but provide a simple answer to the questions that doesn't leave anything through interpretations. Your language will also pay a key part in this. Key points to remember not to speculate and don't be quick to pass the blame on to someone else. At this stage, depending on the extent of the crisis, you may also need to get additional support from the agency. When it comes to making a statement, this is typically passed by email, so it's in writing and it can't be misinterpreted. You may also need to think who's best to make a statement. It could be a company statement with a quote or it could be an interview with a senior leader. There may be times when you need to make a statement on TV or radio. In this instance, you need to think about who's got media training. There are also rules in these instances, such as, you know, to ask for questions in advance, ask if it's live or being recorded for future playback. There's also techniques for TV and radio, and this is really conforming another webinar. But it's important to remember be prepared, go into the clear understanding of what you want to say and stick to it. Don't try to be drawn in other directions. There's also a technique that politicians use very well called pivoting, whereby they go in with a plan of what they want to say and almost whatever question they get asked, they're very good at turning that question into providing the answer that they want to give rather than answering the question directly. So in terms of managing and monitoring, there's a number of steps that you'll need to look at moving forward. I won't read through all of these, but this is all about actually managing press coverage, assessing what it is, monitoring internal conversations, what are your staff talking about, agreeing the next steps, what's gone well, what we need to do, and then about briefing stakeholders. Again, all of this would be tailored to and detailed in the CRP, but actually tailored to whatever the incident is. Next thing I want to quickly talk about is actually about planning for the future. There are a number of things that you need to consider. Much of this is about learning. So how well did you manage the crisis? Are there areas that could be improved where where processes were busted? Our staff follow the CRP, how well do we manage to engage with the media? You also need to consider if the crisis is fully over or if there's a possibility for it to reoccur. For example, there could be an enquiry, a future date, or the news that keeps getting dragged up. There's also instances whereby negative can be turned into a positive. So if something's happened and you've learned from it and it's led to a change in the way that your business operates, then this is positive. You should actually communicate that. I just want to cover a few very quick but obvious things about what not to do. So the three rules really of what not to do are you shouldn't stick your head in the sand. If something's happened, ignoring it, you know, won't get rid of it. If you're approached by the media, don't ignore them. They'll keep contacting you. If they don't get a response from you, they're going to publish what they know and what they find, which means you're not, you know, getting your side of the story over and it does lead to misinterpretation. As mentioned, don't panic. Don't jump in and do the first thing that comes to mind. Stay calm, establish the facts, get the resources and support you need and get a pamphlet into place. Work on what you're going to say when you're going to say it and remember you need to remain agile if the situation changes. Third one is don't apologize. This tends to be one of the first things that people want to do with guidance if it's their fault. It's a bit like having a car crash. I think sort of both parties tend to jump out of the car and the first thing they tend to do is apologize to each other. By saying sorry, you're almost implying that you've done something wrong. This may not be the case that don't apologize. There are ways to word an apology without actually saying sorry. So there may be times you need to be apologetic, but just be careful about the words that you choose. Obviously, we're all going to be in a global crisis at the moment. So I thought this would be sort of a good sort of case study to talk about how we're managing this as a crisis. And actually what I wanted to do was actually talk about how fabric actually approached this. So the pandemic has affected all of us. It's hits an industry sexes hard with others and left everyone thinking about how they run their business in the future. It's required of all of us to take actions and implement new processes. And actually the way we work with clients is actually changed. So when covid first appeared on the news, I don't think anyone predicted where it would end up and how quickly it would happen. So as soon as it came out, came clear that it had an effect on our business, we convened our senior management team and assessed the situation. So this is all how it laid out in our CRP. We took guidance from the government and looked at what the impact could be and what we'd have to do. As I'm sure you can imagine there's lots of unknowns, but from quite early on, there was talk of offices closing and people working from home, although I don't think the initial talks were for a few months. It was more of a few weeks. So part of our business planning, we implemented a process where by twice a year, we have an office shutdown and make all of our staff work from home. This is part of our business resilience planning and it's in our CRP. So we put this into place straight away. So the original thinking for this was about if there was a flood or a fire or a long term power outage, how could we work? The principles are the same. So we looked at the possible risk and had a plan in place. So as such, we're meant to look at closing the office. We already knew that we had the ability for everyone to work from home. We had connections, we had the right equipment, and we knew that we could communicate by tools such as teams. It's part of the risk assessment. We also looked to what impact COVID would have on our clients. We knew that some of our clients' marketing teams would be on furlough. We had to think about how this would affect what we did, how we'd contact them. So we created a plan whereby we had staff working from home, we had procedures in place whereby we could continue to offer services to clients and in some cases, we ended up dealing with the senior management where the marketing teams are furloughed. We also came up with a weekly decision rotor. We had a board meeting every Friday afternoon and we provided an overview of where we were in terms of client activity. We looked at what resources we had in place and if any updates to clients were required, we then looked at decisions we needed to make, for example, if we were to bring a member of staff back from furlough. So as the situation was very fluid, we made a decision that didn't implement it. We then reviewed the situation, the following week to make sure that our decision was the right step. And in the following week, if it was the right step, we implemented it. So again, it's about having a plan, sticking to that plan and implementing it. In terms of our messaging, we actually kept our messaging simple, but we made sure that the messaging was genuine. So we actually made free promises to staff. So we made those three promises that will do everything to keep you and your family safe, will make sure that everyone gets 100% of wages and will do everything to make sure that everyone's got jobs to come back to. So we actually stuck by those three messages and I'm pleased to say that we're still sticking to those messages. But there were messages that we communicated internally and we actually made sure all of our clients knew about those messages as well. Just in summary, there are a number of things you need to consider so a crisis can happen anywhere and anytime. A lot of what we do is high risk. So be prepared for that risk, identify the risks to your business, develop that CRP, communicate the plan and its steps to staff, stay calm, establish the facts, don't ignore social media. Media relations is the heart of crisis management, make a statement using the right tone and language and consider additional support and plan for the future. And most importantly, don't bury your head, panic or publicly apologize. I hope you've all found that interesting. We have created a seven step guide to crisis communications. So if anyone would like a copy of that guide by means email me or track me down on LinkedIn and I will happily arrange for a copy of that piece sent through. Any questions? Our first question is from Alex. What tools and methods do you use to monitor the social media sentiment and crisis? So we we use a number of media tools. So there's lots of different platforms. We use our main media monitoring system is kind of is a system called view Leo. So that actually lets us monitor online and print media as well as social media. So with the different tools that we have, we have a head of department who actually manages that those teams for us. There's lots of lots of systems out there. They by and large a similar type of service, but it's actually about having that information in real time. Make the one that we use for our media monitoring is you know, and it's interesting in terms of monitoring. You can also not only monitor for your company name, but also key words. So for example, you take Grenfell as an example. You shouldn't just monitor for your company name. You should also start monitoring for keywords. Next question. Have you known for a business to create a joint CRP with their clients? That's an interesting question. The honest answer is no, but we are aware and we would encourage our clients to advise their clients in their largest supply chain that a CRP exists. For example, we've had instances whereby we have clients who are manufacturers and have supply agreements and their customers need to know that they have sort of business resilience planning in place. So in the event of a fire factory, how would they actually manage with supply? So we haven't produced one in conjunction with supply chain, but you should make your supply chain aware that it exists because actually it's all part of your business resilience and it should give them the confidence they're dealing with a reputable company. And if there is an instance, there's a plan in place. Question from Nicole. How best to communicate CRP and manage a crisis when all of your staff work remotely and you don't have any office locations? I wouldn't suggest that depending on the size of the company, I wouldn't suggest it's sent to all of your staff. It probably is best going to heads of departments. So that's something that would be potentially a team to call with heads of departments and brief them in on the contents and what the CRP is. And then actually it's about trying to cascade it down through those internal departments. So depending on your structure, if there are departmental meetings and quarterly updates, it's about trying to almost find slots at regular meetings where people are together just to firstly communicate existence and then actually remind people it exists. So it really depends on the structure of your business. Everyone working at home at the moment, team seems to be the go-to tool for communication. But I think it's about how you dovetail it with existing you'll be communicating with your staff at the moment. So it's how you dovetail the communication of the CRP into those activities. How quickly should you respond to the media in your experience? So what we would suggest is if an incident happens and you receive an email inquiry from a journalist, it's best to respond within a few hours. Typically, we would suggest a simple email, whether it be from from the client or actually from the agency to saying, thank you very much for your inquiry. We've received it. Just acknowledge the email and say that we'll respond in due course. So then the media know that they've actually, you know, that somebody has responded and it's in, it's in process. So you can respond fairly quickly on that because that's not giving anything away. You're not making an official statement. You're basically just acknowledging. Typically, media will then, depending on the incident, the media then will probably want a response within four or five hours. So again, this goes back to potentially a very simple statement of we are aware of an incident. We are looking into it to establish the facts and make a more detailed statement later on. So that will buy you time and initially that will buy you a window that will take you into the next day. OK. How often should you update the CRP? So we would suggest that CRPs are reviewed every quarter. So typically, this would just be a couple of members of the steering committee, potentially the agency that might have produced it for you. And this is really just to make sure that, you know, for example, if you've got a key contact that's head of IT, they haven't left the company and you've got to hold contact details. So every quarter is probably sufficient. I've got a question from Rona. Do you have any examples of trade associations working with their members to jointly respond to a crisis? Yes. So trade bodies typically are there to champion sort of their members. So in the event of typically sort of major incidences that bring into question, for example, a type of product, then yes, the trade body would be your go to organization. They would be the ones that would that would make sort of the statements and I wouldn't say protect, protect their members, but they are the ones that should be championed the category that they look after. So if there is a major incidence that, for example, if there's a question around timber, then one of the timber trade bodies would probably sort of they would have an involvement in that. And so if you're a member of a trade body and something happens to you, you should actually ask what the trade body are doing in terms of defending physicians and addressing any issues. So yes, trade bodies, which are a key part of who you should be involved in. And this is probably one you have your weekend crisis that you mentioned before. What should you do if you have a press inquiry, but no one suitable, e.g. senior enough to respond by the deadline and want to avoid no comment? I would like to think that shouldn't happen. I'd like to think that sort of senior management should be available to comments. I think obviously what you don't want is a no comment. What you and I think most media will actually allow you time to actually pull something together. You know, if there's an incidence, they typically generate news for a number of days afterwards. So the holding statement of we are looking into this and coming back should be enough to buy you time. I definitely wouldn't be pressurized into writing a statement that you're not comfortable with. So I think if that situation does rise is then you need to go back to the press and say we and I think the press will understand if you reassure them say we are looking into this and we will come back to the statement. Then invariably that they will give you the chance to do that, but I wouldn't be pressurized into making a statement that you're not comfortable with. How difficult is it to manage your crisis without having a crisis response plan in place? It's not impossible, but it's not easy because you're on the back foot before it started. The whole point of having a crisis response plan is that you've actually mapped out where risk lies. It means you're on the front foot and that you're not actually backtracking to try and try and manage that process. You know, without a CRP you might not need. You might not know what to say, who to say the tone of voice. You should be saying it. The process for how you should be communicating that staff won't know what they can say, what they can't say. So I wouldn't recommend trying to manage a crisis without having a plan in place. And then I think we've got time for one more question from Tony. Were any of your clients prepared specifically for a killer virus? If not, were any prepared for something quite catastrophic like you were? Were there for a position to respond quickly and professionally? As I mentioned, we've sat in front of many clients looking at where risk might come from. And at no point has somebody suggested a global pandemic and a killer virus. I said it's something that we've all seen films about, but I think it's one of those where no one quite expects it to happen. And actually in terms of how you plan a business to respond to that, it's very difficult. However, CRP will provide the framework and the guidelines regardless of what the incident is. It will tell you about, you know, the steps you need to take to approach that. So I don't think anyone was prepared for a global pandemic. No, that's brilliant. Thanks, David. So some great questions there and some really insightful answers. So that's all the time we have for our Q&A session today. I'd like to say thank you to David for today's presentation. CIM Construction Industry Group for organizing the event and thank you to everyone for attending. We hope you found it interesting and worthwhile. Our next webinar express is demystifying and simplifying customer journey mapping, and it will be on Wednesday, the 11th of November at 1pm, and that will be hosted by CIM Island. You'll find it listed on the events page on the CIM website where you can find out more information and register for the session. Once again, you'll shortly be receiving a survey on today's event, and we'd really appreciate it if you could provide your feedback. So on behalf of CIM, thank you for joining us, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your day.