crisis communication in the workplace – Assignment: Article Analysis

1.This research study was conducted on the subject of internal crisis communication, for three years at the University Hospital (UH), in Sweden. There are two issues that have been focused in this research study. First is the inspection of roles and practices which should be followed by the professionals in communication for analyzing various aspects, which are the reason for the crisis communication (Heide and Simonsson, 2013). The second purpose is to identify new practices that can be adopted by the communication professionals to manage the internal communication crisis.

2.The purpose of this research study is important as in the present scenario different organizations are facing various types of crises specifically related to the communication. Crisis in any organization requires a sudden and appropriate response; otherwise it may hamper the reputation and goodwill of the organization (Heide and Simonsson, 2013). The organizations are taking different steps to reduce the effect of the crisis on the reputation of the organization.

3.In order to investigate the purpose of this research study, data has been collected by using different methods including interviews, observations, and analyzing various documents of the University Hospital. In addition to this, interpretive approach has been used for data analysis. For the collection of primary data, interview has been conducted by both the communication professionals and the crisis managers at the hospital, to reach the conclusion of the research.
A sample size of 24 individuals had been taken among, which 8 were the communication professionals, and 16 were crisis managers (Heide and Simonsson, 2013). The questions asked in the interview were semi-structured consisting 24 questions. The interviewer took 1 to 1.5 hours for conducting interviews with each individual. For analyzing the data collected through interviews, some themes and patterns have been developed by the researcher.
4.One of the major findings of the research study is that the University Hospital is suffering due to crisis like; issues related to the safety of the patients admitted to the hospital, conflicts among the different staffs, and technical errors. This crisis sometimes forces the staffs in the hospital for not detecting the actual issues in the health of the patients. The other finding of the research study explains that after the merger of the two hospitals, there had been changes in the management of the hospital (Heide and Simonsson, 2013).

The top communication professionals were assigned some other duties and were not involved in the development of strategies for the crisis management. The third finding reflects that the United Hospitals need to implement a strong system for the management of crisis. According to the interviewees, the internal communication channels are useful for the crisis management.
5.Management of crisis is a very important and crucial activity for every organization, and effective strategies need to be developed for its management. The communication professionals are responsible for developing these strategies. The findings of this research study have explained that the businesses should focus on developing the effective strategies for the dissemination of information in the whole organization. For the distribution of the information, intranets should be used because this technique is beneficial for the management of communication crisis in the organization.
In addition to this, it is important for the organizations to implement the fastest means of communication in their business processes, so that all the employees in the organization can have access to the required information and the information can be transmitted in the appropriate manner to all departments (Heide and Simonsson, 2013). It should be ensured that the all the discussions in the organization related to crisis management should be distributed to all active groups and proper interaction with employees at levels of management should be maintained and feedback should be received timely.

For the effective management of crisis, the businesses need to keep the records of previous internal crisis communication situations, take lessons from them and then develop the strategies for the future management of crisis. The communication manager needs to take the contribution of the employees from different departments before developing the strategies. Along with this, the communication managers are liable to make the employees at the organization aware about the steps that should be taken at the situation of crisis and to prevent the occurrence of crisis.

Heide, M., and Simonsson, C. 2013. Developing Internal Crisis Communication. Clinical Cancer Investigation Journal 19 (2), pp. 128-146.