Communication key in times of crisis

OPEN and transparent communication is key in a time of crisis such as the world is facing at the moment on the economic front.

This emerged from a recent discussion on the recession facilitated by Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (Prisa).
Improvement in communication is especially important since it has emerged that a large part of the crisis has been brought about through a lack of communication and transparency, especially in the banking sector.
Robin Sherbourne, group economist at Old Mutual Namibia, said large bonuses for executives and fuzzy regulation had been partly responsible for the crisis.
David Nuyoma, CEO of the Development Bank of Namibia (DBN), said ‘confidence of the people is key’ in managing such a crisis.
He said a large part of the downturn can be attributed to a lack of transparency.
To his end, Nuyoma said the DBN was working hard on being transparent to the extent of providing extensive disclosure of the pay packages of key personnel.
He accused some institutions of having ‘indecent haste to have a local recession declared’, which would ‘not be good for Namibia’.
Nuyoma said communicators should remind the world that Namibia has a very stable financial system and that the ‘investment Namibia offers is very stable’.
One of the key concerns for Namibia, according to Sherbourne, is that it will lose a large chunk of foreign investment because of the crisis.
A negative picture of the economy might further exacerbate this process.
Nuyoma also reminded participants that Namibia has many large infrastructural projects in the pipeline to offset the impact of the crisis.
On the corporate communications front, Bank Windhoek spokesperson Riaan van Rooyen said the objectives of public relations should be adapted to the crisis.
He said one key aspect should be to look at possible crisis scenarios before they occur.
Also, he said internal communication at companies needs to change.
For example, it might be less important now for employees to know whether they are getting promoted than whether they are keeping their jobs at all.