Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#139 Disaster season and employee comms … how to prepare

• Season 1 • Episode 139

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If you're in Australia, then Spring has sprung... or whatever that quote usually is. Generally speaking, us Aussies get the first inklings of Spring through the wafts of breeze passing our heads as we get swooped by territorial magpies. However, Spring also marks the start of our disaster season with floods, cyclones, fires and heatwaves. 

In this episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast, we show you how communicators can strengthen internal readiness before disaster strikes. While many organisations focus heavily on external crisis communication, internal comms often gets overlooked and that can make a huge difference when things go wrong.

We share practical advice on preparing internal channels, establishing clear ownership and message responsibilities, and ensuring staff know where to go for accurate information. We also discuss how pre-season awareness campaigns can help build a sense of preparedness and care across the workplace.

When disaster hits, communication allows organisations to protect people, provide clarity, and keep teams connected when it matters most. So, listen in now!


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Here in Australia, Spring has certainly sprung apart from the burst of colors, Poland, spiders and snakes, the temperature has also risen, and unfortunately, disaster season is upon us once again. Each year, Australia and other countries around the world experience multiple natural disasters. In the state of Queensland where I am, we get it all. Cyclones, floods, droughts, fires, heat waves, everything in between. We've even had locust plagues. I have lost count of the number of disaster events I've been involved in over the years. As a professional communicator, I've travelled to flood ravaged country towns visited by scenes, and manned the phones as the cyclones hit. And while many companies are well prepared from an external comms point of view, I've certainly noticed very few put the same thought into internal comms preparations for disasters. So as we face down the cusp of another summer and all the potential disaster that can bring with it, it is time to get prepared. How do we do that? That's what today's episode is all about. Hello, friend, and welcome to another episode of Less Chatter More Matter, the Communication podcast. My name is Mel Loy and I'm recording this episode on the Lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, also known as Brisbane. And in Brisbane, we are no strangers to disasters. Earlier this year, for example, we experienced a cyclone, which I might add is pretty rare this far south, but it happened and the flooding under my house was an interesting development. And twice in the last 12 years or so, we've experienced devastating flooding, courtesy of our river, which we affectionately call the brown snake and dam overflows after immense rainfall. And we've had our fair share of droughts too. I vividly remember one such drought where things got so dire. The council put us on water restrictions. To the point where we could only have one four minute shower per person per day. Yes, that actually happened. Side note though, they did send out these little shower timers to every household to help embed the change. So that was encouraging. Anywho, these disasters are not going away. In fact, they are just getting more and more frequent courtesy of good old climate change and the fact that we are more highly populated than ever before, so more people are being impacted than ever before. So for example, from January to November 2024,, 30 disasters were declared across Australia. So that's less than 12 months. And a 2021 report from Deloitte Access Economics found that even if Australia achieves low emissions, the cost of natural disasters between 2020 and 2060 is likely to reach $1.2 trillion. So the point is, we need to care about this more than ever before. But like I said in the intro, we often put more thought into the external than the internal comms when doing our crisis communication planning, particularly with regard to natural disasters. So in today's episode, I'm going to share five tips on how you can make sure your internal comms are just as prepared to respond in a disaster. And stay tuned because after the episode recap, I'm sharing three tips on creating internal campaigns around disaster readiness. So tip number one, establish effective and off-grid channels. So this is all about making sure that you can quickly and effectively reach employees when you need to. Remember that you often have very little warning that a disaster is coming so quick action is absolutely critical to keep people safe. It also means that you can't just rely on one channel. You need to have multiple touchpoints for information, and those touch points need to be easily accessible. It does mean you will need to work with your IT and your risk people to help them understand why you might be suggesting a channel that is... unconventional or off the grid, but do that now to avoid delays later. And also remind them that nobody wants to be responsible for employees not getting messages that could keep them safe. It's in everybody's best interests to work with you on this. So let's look first at primary or direct channels. So these could be channels like SMS or WhatsApp or similar that don't rely on people having to go through verification to connect to channels like Microsoft Teams, for example. We want people to be able to get messages on their own devices quickly. Now, when you do develop your channels matrix in general, so for just managing internal comms in your organisation every day, remember that it is best to leave SMS or WhatsApp, or similar to emergency or urgent alerts only. If you use it too much for other types of messages, people not only get super annoyed, but they stop looking at them. But if it's a rare use, they will pay attention because we tend to notice what's unusual. They should also make sure you have call trees established in each department. So for example, when something happens, the CFO knows to personally call each of their direct reports, make sure they're safe, check in and remind them what they need to do. Those direct reports, then call each of their direct reports and so on. It's called a call tree now. It can be a little risky in terms of consistency of message, so keep it short, keep it simple, and direct people to a central source of information, which leads to the next point in this tip, which is have one source of truth. Now, this could be an intranet side that your team accesses activates in emergencies, but the challenge with that is what if you can't access that site and update it? What if nobody else can access it because your server burned down or the local cell tower has gone up in flames. You need to have an off-grid site, something that doesn't rely on your servers being up and running. It can be really simple. Just basic text that you know is literally just date stamped. Here's the latest update. Here's what you need to know. But it's a good way to make sure people have access to that information. And when you have just one source of truth that all your communication points to, it limits the risk of inconsistent information. I also re recommend having an employee helpline or hotline sign, uh, set up. So this can be a really simple like one 800 number where you, the comms pro log in. You leave a recorded message every hour or so to update people, so people just call that number and they get the latest information. Again, it's a good way to make sure the information is not only consistent but accessible. Most importantly though, do not rely on people's memories with these channels. There may be many months in the year where you don't even think about them, or you've got new employees who have never heard about them, so have all the links and the numbers readily accessible. So they might be on the desktop backgrounds of everyone's devices. You could have them sent out via SMS. So they've got a text message or even send them an... a photo. They can save to their own photos on their devices. You post them on each workstation in the office, et cetera, et cetera. But do make sure that you update them every now and then so they stay fresh in people's minds, especially around this time of year. And it can't hurt to do a mini campaign to remind people. And a side note here, it is also a good idea to encourage people to tune into their local radio stations during disasters, because radio is often the most reliable source of information, but also it's often the only accessible source of information in some places. Okay, tip number two, save time. Have your templates ready to go. You cannot waste time. Dilly dallying around crafting messages When a disaster's hitting, you need to be ready to go. Likewise, you can't have your time wasted by executives reviewing and approving messages. So you need to do a bit of a scenario plan here, and then create templated messages for each of those scenarios so that you can just copy, paste, tweak them when you need them. So for example, let's say there's bush fires. Some of the scenarios could be that people may not be able to get to their workplaces, or they might need to evacuate their workplace, or they've had to evacuate their homes, they can't get anywhere. That's just three scenarios of many possibilities. What you would then do is draft a template message for each scenario. Is it painstaking? Yes. But does it save pain later? Yes, so do it. It also means that you can have your messages reviewed and approved well ahead of time, which will also save you time later on when you need to act quickly. Now, importantly, remember that messages really should focus not only on sharing accurate information, but on care and support. While still being concise and clear, it is not the time for corporate messaging about values and purpose, et cetera, et cetera. So just make sure you include information about where people can find information and where they can get support if they need it. And a final point on this, we talk about this all the time on the podcast to remember that people consume information in different ways and sometimes in different languages. So consider if you need to translate any of these templates into other languages that your employees might speak, and consider having more visual versions of those messages available, too. Okay, tip number three. Know who says what and to who. In our crisis comms planning, we usually do a stakeholder matrix where we map out who talks to who about what. So for example, the CEO might be charged with having to contact the local government minister, the CFO might call the regulator, et cetera. It is no different for internal comms. You want to make sure you have trusted voices who are trained in communicating during disasters. So not just media training, but generally. Disaster communication and who know what their role is to play. This is about having an established plan or flow of information throughout the organisation. So while the CEO might still be the main spokesperson, they might also delegate to each C-suite member. To speak to their team members on more specific matters. So for example, the C-Suite member who's responsible for the contact center at your business would have very different messages to the one who is responsible for HR, for example. And again, everyone needs to be trained and refreshed on their roles and responsibilities if this is going to work effectively. Now having this plan and the training is one thing, making sure it is easily accessible and up to date is another. So again, as part of your yearly or half yearly planning cycle, revisit that matrix. Make sure all the contact details are up to date. And that includes detailing who the backup people are. So for example, if the CFO can't communicate, for some reason, they've been stuck on a highway somewhere that's blocked off by a flood, who is their backup person? And remember that people do change roles, so you're going to have to check and update that list regularly and make sure it's accessible. So again, when you update it. Send it to the people involved via multiple channels, so maybe via SMS, so they've got it on their phones. Send them an image they can save to their own devices, as well as a link to the central document, et cetera. Okay, tip number four, which leads off this. Tip number three is make sure your contact lists are not only updated regularly, but secured off site. Why? Because if you cannot get to your office or something happens to your systems. Or you don't have all these thousands of employee numbers and email addresses in your phone address book, then you need some way of getting those numbers and names quickly. So you want a digitized version of your contacts available somewhere else. Again, it could be on a web-based portal that's not hosted on your server, like a HubSpot or something, so you can access it quickly. Of course, it needs to be a secure portal to protect people's information, but it's your backup. It means you will have the details of other people in the crisis comms team, the C-suite leaders, their direct reports, et cetera, or readily accessible. Of course, put in some protocols around who can access this information and how, but make sure there's at least a few people so that if others are stuck somewhere, somebody can access it. You don't want one point of failure here. And remember that as a workplace, everyone has a responsibility and duty of care to each other. So being able to contact your people is absolutely essential to make sure they're safe and well, and not put them at further risk. Okay. The final tip is align your information and language with official sources. So, official sources could be state government departments like the emergency services department, police, ambulance, firies, whatever, uh, the Bureau of Meteorology, the State emergency Service, et cetera. They should be your source of truth for the most up-to-date information and make sure your employees know to check these official sources as well. It is also important to align your language with the language they use. So follow what is being said by official sources like state government departments, BOMs SES, et cetera, and use the language that is used in the official Australian government warning system or whatever your local equivalent is in the country you are listening from. So the warning system here, for example, is three levels. And three colours. So level one is yellow, which is advice, and that means an incident has started. There is no immediate danger and you should stay up to date in case a situation changes. Level two is orange, and that means watch and act. So there's a heightened threat level, conditions are changing, and you need to take some action now. And red is level three. It's the emergency warning. It's the highest level, and it means you may be in danger and you need to take action immediately. So that can mean evacuating, taking shelter, et cetera. So it is a good idea that when you develop your own crisis management plan, that you align your actions to these three levels too. So if there's a yellow warning level, what do you do in your business and what do you do if it's orange or red level? And that will make things much easier to plan and help keep things simple and consistent. So avoids confusion, which is so, so important in a disaster. Okay, it is time for your episode recap. So today I shared five things you should do to make sure your internal comms systems and processes are ready for disaster season. Tip number one was establish effective and accessible channels. So have one source of truth that you keep pointing back to. And have direct ways to reach every person like SMS. Also, make sure you have off-grid comms channels as backups. And one other option I want to add in here, for those of you who have... Stayed on the line is think about your company's Facebook or social media pages as well. So remember, they are not hosted on your own server. A lot of people might already follow those. So if you know your staff, for example, a lot of them follow you on LinkedIn. Use LinkedIn, get to people, whatever way you can. Tip number two, have your templates ready to go. And this means doing some scenario planning and mapping out the messaging for each scenario. Make sure you get those messages reviewed and approved. Now, to save time later, tip number three was know who says what to who and when. So have your internal stakeholder matrix updated, including with backup spokespeople, and ensure that everyone knows their role to play. Tip number four was have contact lists securely stored offsite. So have both, both paper and digital copies that are accessible during disasters. Of course, as we say, keep them secure. Protect people's privacy. And tip number five was align with official sources. So this means the information you share will be accurate and consider aligning with the warning system levels your local government uses. Now, one final thing I want to quickly chat about as I promised at the top of the episode is that developing regular pre-disaster season campaigns for your people is always a good idea. People have short memories. We need to remind them. And also people do tend to get a bit blase about things like this until they actually happen. And like every other message, this campaign will be competing with a lot of noise to get through to people. So what could these campaigns look like? Here's just a few ideas. Number one, get people involved in creating with them. And by people, I mean actual employees. Ask them for their ideas, get them involved in creating content like videos. The voices of our peers are often much more compelling. Than the voices of senior leaders. Number two, make it memorable. So remember, you don't have a lot of time, a lot of warning, and neither do your employees. So they need to be able to remember things, important things very quickly in the moment. So this is where using things like short rhyming phrases are a great idea because our brains love rhyme. It's like a save button for them. So here's a terrible one to get you started. I, I honestly, it's really terrible. It's about call trees for leaders.

The rhyme is:

"don't waste time, Call down the line," told you it was terrible, but you get the idea, uh, easy to re remember. Acronyms are also really helpful. So for example, one for team members could be poor. PAWP is prioritise your safety. A is access the disaster website. W is wait for your leader's call. Okay. Really simple things like that. You want to use techniques like these so people can really easily remember what they need to do without having to search for a poster or an email or a text message that's gone long gone from their memories. And tip number three is make it about caring for other people. Oftentimes, people are much more likely to pay attention if they feel a responsibility for keeping their colleagues safe, not just themselves. So tap into this. You could start with saying, do you care about keeping your teammates safe? And hopefully they'll say yes to that. And then that then leads to what we call commitment bias, which means we tend to align our actions with something we believe about ourselves or have publicly committed to. So we're more likely to pay attention and remember. Alright, team, that is all for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you need some help with your disaster preparation, I do have a crisis comms toolkit available on the website, so you can go and check that out. And of course, there's so many great sources of information online around crisis planning. Get amongst it. There's plenty of free ways to learn for this stuff too. In the meantime, please stay safe, keep doing amazing things, and bye for now.