D4: This course
Running head: CRISIS MANAGEMENT APPLICATION ASSIGNMENT 3 1
CRISIS MANAGEMENT APPLICATION ASSIGNMENT 3 2
Crisis Management Application Assignment 3
Tia McSwain
Louisiana State University of Shreveport
Crisis Management Application Assignment 3
Dealing with crisis is one of the most sensitive tasks I have dealt with as a leader in current place of work. From experience, I learned that crisis can easily paralyze operations and if proper caution is not taken and in a fast pace it can make a company to incur millions of losses at the end of the financial year. As learned in the course, a crisis is a situation that disrupts daily operations unexpectedly (Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2013). However, in as much crisis are hard to avoid entirely, crisis management strategies are in place to help handling crisis as they arise. Sometimes crisis management processes are length, tedious, and demanding and requires caution and care to make sure that a crisis have been resolved amicably and that good results from the resolution are long-lasting.
Sometimes mid last year, I was faced with a crisis that the company management expected me to handle professionally and ethically. At some point I felt like my abilities and skills as a leader are being tested but going with the situation that the company was facing, I had no other option but to offer my best in terms of advice, time, and attention. The company that I work for deals in the production and packing of dairy products and I was the manager in charge of the production department. It was on a Monday morning when I reported to work only to find that six of production team employees had boycotted work. on calling them, one of them informed me that for over an year, they have complained to the human resource manager that they were the only underpaid company staffs and that no action had been taken and hence it was time to take action. They made me understand that it was their legal right to fight for their rights something that I agreed but shared an opinion that boycotting work without informing me first was not a wise thing to do.
Sadly, with at least six members of a team absent, it was evident that the day’s work would be interfered with. I hurriedly made a decision to call back some of the employees that were on leave and others that had worked over the night to perform the tasks that could have been performed by the six employees (Bundy, et al., 2017). The idea worked somehow as production levels were lower that day by at least 4% instead of the expected 10%. It was only three days later that I came to learn that the company branded products were flooded in the market. Upon a thorough investigation with the help of other top management officials we learned that the six employees had started their production plant and were using the same packing as our company and could supply to the company clients as if it was the company was doing the supply. Sadly, the products were substandard and within a day, clients started complaining to our clients who are in this case retail shops and supermarkets that after consuming our labelled products, they had health issues and even some were admitted in hospital.
Within three days, our supply contract had been cancelled by over 200 retail outlets a move that negatively affected the business in terms. Additionally, the company incurred a huge loss as some of the products are highly perishable and a lot went into waste. As a leader, I used the contact of the one team members that we communicated with to have the law enforcers track them and have them arrested in order to stop the production and supply of substandard products. Secondly official communication was sent through emails to all retailing and wholesale outlets informing them of a substituted product and the action that the company was taking (Coombs, 2014). Thirdly, as a company we took the responsibility of owning up the mistake, apologized to the public, and assured them that the matter has been addressed as a way of damage control. It took the company over three months to get back to normal daily sales and recruit new employees but the good thing is that despite enormous loss and tarnished brand image, the company has overcomed the crisis.
Bundy, J., Pfarrer, M. D., Short, C. E., & Coombs, W. T. (2017). Crises and crisis management: Integration, interpretation, and research development. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1661-1692.
Coombs, W. T. (2014). State of crisis communication: Evidence and the bleeding edge. Research Journal of the Institute for Public Relations, 1(1), 1-12.
Crandall, W. R., Parnell, J. A., & Spillan, J. E. (2013). Crisis management: Leading in the new strategy landscape. Sage Publications.