Maverick Indonesia June 30, 2025
Many crises are played out over social media these days.
When that happens, organizations find it very difficult to control the narrative of the polarized netizens, especially if it involves an emotional issue and a large corporation or brand.
Outrage and cancel culture come together to support the perceived David against the perceived Goliath, facts are deprioritized or ignored and the groundswell builds and builds, until it finally breaks when the netizens tire of the issue and turn their attention elsewhere.
What can organizations and brands do in such situations, when whatever they say would almost certainly be ignored or misinterpreted? Hunkering down and waiting for the storm to pass before communication is one option.
Another option, one that is not often considered by many organizations, is to turn to its employees. Some organizations employ thousands of employees. These employees each talk to their families and friends and they use social media.
They would be a great resource for a crisis-hit organization, yet are rarely factored into their crisis communication strategies because of the fear that they may say the wrong thing.
Are organizations missing out on not using their loyal employees to help them during a crisis?
They certainly are, said internal communication expert Dr Kevin Ruck on the sidelines of the recent AMEC Global Measurement and Evaluation Summit in Vienna on 10-12 June 2025.
The public tends to trust employees rather than the top executives of an organization to find out what happened during a crisis, he said.
This is because employees come across as more authentic in today’s communication landscape where trust is in short supply, said Ruck, a co-founder at the UK-based PR Academy, the editor and co-author of ‘Exploring Internal Communication’ and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Communication Management.
During a crisis, people are getting different stories from different people and social media influencers, chief executives and the organizations themselves. It is important to remember that the employees are part of the organization too” and can be a very powerful and trusted source of information, he said.
This is because what the employees say has the sound of authenticity to it, he added. To unlock the potential of employees adding a powerful voice during a crisis, however, organizations need to trust their employees.
“In my experience, employees do not generally go out to say anything negative or bad about their organization unless they’ve been particularly upset by the organization. Occasionally, they may say things that are not what you hope they would say but it is still authentic,” he said, adding that “My personal view is not to try to control what they say but to allow them their own discretion to just be themselves.”
So what do you think? Should employees be “mobilized” to tell the organization’s side of the story during a crisis? Or should they be just informed of what’s going on but not be encouraged to say anything in their conversations with others and on their social media feeds?
Written by Ong Hock Chuan, Maverick Indonesia’s Managing Partner
