I worked at Malt Dining, who did not have a crisis communications plan.

This means that, if a hospitality crisis arose, the company did not have a clear plan on how to handle each stage of a reputational crisis: pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis.

Long-term reputational damage, especially in the age of social media, could be much more severe than if a plan was made.

Stakeholders would not have clear, consistent messaging, and employees would not know their roles and have clear templates to use in times of panic and time constraints.

My goal was to plan most of the thinking in advance.

This is so that the organisation’s crisis team can identify: if they’re in a crisis, what crisis stage they’re in, what the recommended response is to that crisis and stage, and have templates for each media platform (social media, sms, phone call, etc) to effectively manage reputational risk with their stakeholders.

• Organise a crisis communications team, listing out key objectives

• List out common hospitality crises (e.g. food contamination), what crisis level it is, the recommended crisis response based on academic research, the benefits of that response, and templates of how to respond with that crisis strategy

• Plan out the social media platforms, strategies, and templates used to combat the crisis in advance

• Show what situations are what stage of a crisis

• Simplify the staff communication process

• I reviewed other exemplars, conducted academic research regarding hospitality crises, common stakeholder emotions during these crises, and best responses.

• I also interviewed key Malt Dining staff to understand crises from their perspective.

• I wrote the plan adhering to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) and the ABC principle (Accuracy, Brevity, Clarity).

• I used diagrams to explain concepts quicker, which is useful for teams who are in crisis.

• I ensured templated could be used for a variety of hospitality crises by ensuring key messages were general, but had editable fields to make messages more specific.