Guide What is crisis communication? A complete guide to strategies and best practices Last updated: August 11, 2025 Calculating… Nowadays, crisis communication is something that many businesses must deal with. It’s important for every company to have a crisis communications plan in place to reassure employees and manage crisis situations effectively. According to PWC, 69% of business leaders have experienced at least one corporate crisis in the past five years. One of the main internal communications challenges of the modern day is being able to stop the spread of any negative internal or external coverage that will impact the organisation’s reputation. Although a firefighting exercise by nature, having a plan and tools in place to deal with it will put you one step ahead. If you’re struggling with managing a crisis communications plan between you and your staff, don’t fret. Read on for advice and tips on communicating with your employees effectively during times of crisis. What is crisis communication? So what is crisis communication? Crisis communication is the process of managing and responding to an event or situation that threatens to harm an organisation’s reputation and thus its credibility and operations. Crisis comms encompasses the processes and systems you use when responding to these issues. How internal comms should react in a crisis Announce changes immediately The last thing you want to do during a crisis is to keep your employees in the dark or keep anything secret from them. As soon as changes have been announced, you should let your employees know so they can prepare for what is about to come. Whether this is through a company wide town hall, a video call, your own internal comms platform, email or through SMS. It’s better to let your staff know there will be changes sooner rather than later. Crisis communication is all about good timing. By utilising a digital workplace or employee collaboration software, organisations are able to send messages out to their staff in seconds. Information can be distributed in several ways: Main timeline – information and messages can be posted on the main timeline by any member of staff. Users can also interact with posts through comments and likes, this is a great way to get your people communicating with each other. Instant messenger – this allows you to create multiple chats with different people. Messages can be seen instantly and notifications will be sent to users whenever they receive a message. Breaking news – if you need your employees to see something urgently, breaking news is the place to do this. This feature enables you to send out a message to all your employees with a push notification and will appear within a very hard to miss yellow box across the user’s timeline. Utilise mobile technology to reach everybody! When it comes to keeping up your internal communications with dispersed and frontline employees, mobile is your best friend. Mobile is crucial to an effective internal comms strategy and crisis plan. With the help of our employee engagement app, users can access their digital workplace on the move. They will be able to see important company updates and announcements, chat to colleagues and receive all urgent notifications quickly. Employee engagement software is the definitive crisis communications tool to be used within any crisis plan. Bring your people together Having a united workforce will be half the battle when communicating in a crisis. Crisis communications isn’t all about distributing important news and updates to your team. It’s about maintaining a general, informal stream of communication too. Creating a Hub is a great way to start a conversation within your team. With Oak’s community hubs you can create social spaces where employees can chat about anything, it could be a place for employees to go to discuss changes or somewhere to chat about their favourite TV show. The possibilities are endless. From formal project management to informal social groups, hubs are designed to be a work-based collaboration tool that gives you a place to share ideas, distribute information and interact with your team. By implementing the above techniques into your crisis communications plan your employees will be well on their way to becoming more connected and engaged with the whole team. Summary Don’t let your crisis communications strategy fall to the bottom of the priority pile. Your people are your businesses biggest asset; keep them engaged, communicate regularly and keep your crisis communication strategy agile. Anything can happen, so be prepared. Not sure where to start with your crisis comms plan? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Prepare your organisation for the unpredictable with our expertly crafted guide on crisis communications planning and strategy. Learn crucial best practices and receive valuable tips for navigating though carious crisis scenarios with confidence. Download your FREE copy today. 📄 Crisis comms best practices: How to create a plan
Nowadays, crisis communication is something that many businesses must deal with. It’s important for every company to have a crisis communications plan in place to reassure employees and manage crisis situations effectively. According to PWC, 69% of business leaders have experienced at least one corporate crisis in the past five years. One of the main internal communications challenges of the modern day is being able to stop the spread of any negative internal or external coverage that will impact the organisation’s reputation. Although a firefighting exercise by nature, having a plan and tools in place to deal with it will put you one step ahead. If you’re struggling with managing a crisis communications plan between you and your staff, don’t fret. Read on for advice and tips on communicating with your employees effectively during times of crisis.
What is crisis communication? So what is crisis communication? Crisis communication is the process of managing and responding to an event or situation that threatens to harm an organisation’s reputation and thus its credibility and operations. Crisis comms encompasses the processes and systems you use when responding to these issues.
How internal comms should react in a crisis Announce changes immediately The last thing you want to do during a crisis is to keep your employees in the dark or keep anything secret from them. As soon as changes have been announced, you should let your employees know so they can prepare for what is about to come. Whether this is through a company wide town hall, a video call, your own internal comms platform, email or through SMS. It’s better to let your staff know there will be changes sooner rather than later. Crisis communication is all about good timing. By utilising a digital workplace or employee collaboration software, organisations are able to send messages out to their staff in seconds. Information can be distributed in several ways: Main timeline – information and messages can be posted on the main timeline by any member of staff. Users can also interact with posts through comments and likes, this is a great way to get your people communicating with each other. Instant messenger – this allows you to create multiple chats with different people. Messages can be seen instantly and notifications will be sent to users whenever they receive a message. Breaking news – if you need your employees to see something urgently, breaking news is the place to do this. This feature enables you to send out a message to all your employees with a push notification and will appear within a very hard to miss yellow box across the user’s timeline. Utilise mobile technology to reach everybody! When it comes to keeping up your internal communications with dispersed and frontline employees, mobile is your best friend. Mobile is crucial to an effective internal comms strategy and crisis plan. With the help of our employee engagement app, users can access their digital workplace on the move. They will be able to see important company updates and announcements, chat to colleagues and receive all urgent notifications quickly. Employee engagement software is the definitive crisis communications tool to be used within any crisis plan. Bring your people together Having a united workforce will be half the battle when communicating in a crisis. Crisis communications isn’t all about distributing important news and updates to your team. It’s about maintaining a general, informal stream of communication too. Creating a Hub is a great way to start a conversation within your team. With Oak’s community hubs you can create social spaces where employees can chat about anything, it could be a place for employees to go to discuss changes or somewhere to chat about their favourite TV show. The possibilities are endless. From formal project management to informal social groups, hubs are designed to be a work-based collaboration tool that gives you a place to share ideas, distribute information and interact with your team. By implementing the above techniques into your crisis communications plan your employees will be well on their way to becoming more connected and engaged with the whole team. Summary Don’t let your crisis communications strategy fall to the bottom of the priority pile. Your people are your businesses biggest asset; keep them engaged, communicate regularly and keep your crisis communication strategy agile. Anything can happen, so be prepared. Not sure where to start with your crisis comms plan? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Prepare your organisation for the unpredictable with our expertly crafted guide on crisis communications planning and strategy. Learn crucial best practices and receive valuable tips for navigating though carious crisis scenarios with confidence. Download your FREE copy today. 📄 Crisis comms best practices: How to create a plan
