Lessons in crisis management: Academic recommends transparency from leadership
The higher ups at Slater and Gordon came under fire this week after an alleged email – purported to have been sent by the company’s interim Chief People Officer – was sent throughout the company.
When something like this happens, how should the employer respond? They should be prepared, for one, according to Senior Lecturer at Deakin Business School, Florian Klonek.
“That cat’s out the bag – they need to prepare themselves for turbulence. I mean, it’s kind of expected in situations like this. Now, it’s all about managing what you can: What do they know about the crisis? Was this a lack of competency that led to this allegedly happening? Are hackers involved?” he said.
The time has now passed for anything to be done to stop this from happening – but there is a learning phase, Klonek said.
“The employer should ask themselves, ‘How do we do deal with that differently in the future?’ There are steps that they could take that would help mitigate some of the of these things and make them more resilient or bounce back more quickly.”
The email included information about employee details – such as salary information - as well as well as critical comments of senior executives of the law firm, describing staff as “senile and needs to retire”, and “lazy and unmotivated.”
If this is true, Equity Theory is something to look at here, said Klonek.
“Essentially, it's saying that people compare the efforts they put into work with the rewards or the outputs, and having access to salaries is one form that they can look at rewards. So, if this [private information] were to get out, it could cause both an emotional and physical reaction – workers won’t be happy and might actually work less because they know they’re not being paid enough in comparison to a colleague.”
Transparency is the key, he said.
“Giving people a good reason as to why they’re earning what they are can help them make better sense of the situation. It’s critical once the crisis has happened, because everyone is in shock and they're trying to understand what’s going on – so having a leader make sense of it all can help deal with the initial shock.”
Apologising, Slater and Gordon CEO, Dina Tutungi, said in a statement that the “malicious email” was sent by someone impersonating a staff member.
“We understand the upset and distress this has caused, and we are conducting a forensic investigation to find out how this occurred. I want to assure all of our employees that they will be provided every support possible.”
Tutungi said the email was not sent by the interim Chief People Officer Mari Ruiz-Matthyssen, and contained ‘many disparaging, false, and deliberately misleading claims.”
The matter has been referred to police through the Australian Cyber Security Centre, she said.
“We are fully committed to supporting our staff through this time, and meeting all our legal and regulatory obligations, including the reporting of privacy breaches and any necessary compliance steps.”
