Crisis management dealbreaker for global chief communications officers

The Rising CCO survey, conducted online from January to March 2012, finds that chief communications officers have lost confidence in dealing with crises and feel less prepared than in the past when dealing with a problematic situation.

Nearly two-thirds of global CCOs said that crisis management experience is today’s prerequisite for success. The requirement has nearly doubled since the survey debuted in 2007 when 33 percent said the same.

Crises come at a high cost to organisations that deal with them. Most CEOs (74 per cent) spend time resolving them and it takes approximately 15 months on average to overcome the damage to corporate reputation. Such crises beget a host of other issues, such as more media scrutiny (60 per cent), more governmental scrutiny (51 per cent) and reduced employee morale (42 per cent).

George Jamison, who leads Spencer Stuart’s corporate communications business, said: “Crises take time to fade and CEOs want the best talent with them in the bunker when they find themselves in the media and political spotlight.”

In particular, preparation to manage a crisis that stems from social media is lagging in Asia-Pacific, where only 29 per cent of CCOs believe their companies are equipped to handle such a threat, compared to North America (53 per cent) and Europe (32 per cent). However, when social media is involved in a crisis-making event, CCOs said it was more likely to help resolve the crisis than make it worse (34 per cent vs 22 per cent respectively).

“It is encouraging to see that global CCOs are embracing social media’s ability to temper a crisis and consequently diminish additional reputation loss,” said Weber Shandwick’s chief reputation strategist Leslie Gaines-Ross.

Corporate social responsibility is also critical as a reputation safeguard, as agreed by nearly eight in 10 global CCOs. For this reason, approximately half say the need for a dedicated CSR communications professional is growing. Nearly four in 10 have either hired individuals with CSR expertise during the past year or plan to hire such employees over the course of the next year.

In North America, CCOs are expected to be on top of social media, but in Europe there are higher expectations from top management about corporate reputation. In Asia-Pacific it is media coverage sentiment.

All three regions rank favourable media coverage and employee engagement as top criteria for evaluating communications effectiveness. However, North Americans also weigh in the CEOs' opinions, European CCOs regard quantitative awareness and attitudinal data as highly important, and Asia-Pacific CCOs take into consideration awards and recognition.

The Rising CCO survey, now in its fourth year, examined 142 participants from companies based in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. The majority work in global Fortune 500 companies.