Crisis Communication

More and more international and Estonian companies are moving in a direction where the entire work of a communication department is outsourced to an agency. Is this decision justified, and in that case, what is the key to smooth cooperation?

In October 2017, 27 of 64 employees of the Rakvere meat plant’s slaughterhouse organized an illegal shutdown requiring a 50 to 100% increase in wages. The negotiations did not bring the parties closer together, not even with the intervention of the Public Conciliator. On December 14, 2017, the company announced an increase in the total payroll fund of the company by 5% in the spring of next year, to which the union responded with an announcement that an indefinite strike would start from February 6, 2018. The strike involved some twenty workers, but it lasted more than two months and became the longest downtime in Estonia. The increase in the payroll fund in the spring, as planned, put an end to the strike. The media covered every step of the half-year crisis extensively, often as headlines.

Entrepreneurs often ask us how to understand when a situation is a crisis that needs to be resolved using crisis communication techniques. Today, a crisis is defined as any case that the public perceives as a crisis. And oh, how people love crises! Especially ones they understand well.