160: The Best PR Response for a Rogue Employee Who Makes News

Last week I was on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Boston and right before takeoff I made a point to listen to the pilot's pre flight announcement.

Currently showing winds from the northeast at about 10 miles an hour. Good visibility, overcast guys, and right now looks like last reported temperature showing just about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. We'll talk to you more once you get up in here. Just wanted to say a quick good afternoon and welcome aboard.

I noticed at the end something was missing. Welcome to a podcast where we create indestructible reputations by helping communicators create the right message at the right time and deliver it in the right place. This week, who is Brandon and why did he cause so much trouble for Southwest Airlines? On this episode, let's talk about the best PR response for rogue employees who make the news. Last Sunday evening, I was celebrating my Halloween by celebrating at a Halloween parade with my teenagers. And every year at this parade, there are a group of people who collaborate on a dance to Thriller and it's a costume themed dance. And this year it was the Roaring twenties. So while we were waiting on the parade route for it to start, I was on my phone and I was searching for the final score of the Patriots game. We had left the house at the fourth quarter and my son wanted to know the score. So I was on my phone and as I was looking, my notifications started popping up from Twitter. I was being tagged on a story about Southwest Airlines. My first thought, what now? This was after the Southwest Airlines mess of two weeks earlier when there were rumors of a vaccine walkout that had caused a high volume of canceled flights and it was not due to an employee walkout, but over the weather. No one ever really nailed that down for us. So Southwest Airline didn't want to attach the true reason behind the flight delay. I think they wanted people to assume it was weather, but we never really knew. But for many people, PR people in particular, it's a letdown. We kind of feel like Sally on Halloween, I was robbed. I spent the whole night waiting with the Great Pumpkin when I could have been out for tricks or treats. So it turned out it was a Southwest problem, but it was a different Southwest problem that was happening on Twitter on Halloween night. The incident that I was being tagged to happened the previous Friday morning when an AP reporter on a Southwest Airlines flight heard a pilot sign off the greeting to passengers over the plane's PA system with let's go, Brandon. By coincidence, that Associated Press reporter was already working on a story about the Phrase's popularity. Side note, when she asked for comment from the pilot, she was threatened with being thrown off the plane. That reporter knew there was a story there in some passengers. It was reported that when they heard that they audibly gasped. So people knew even though the video was a little distorted, they knew precisely what he was saying. So the backlash on social media quickly spread and it spawned a trending boycott Southwest hashtag with calls to fire that pilot from east. You know, some part of the population, others celebrated it. Now, for those of you not familiar with the let's go Brandon phrase, it goes back to October 2, when a stock car driver named Brandon Brown won his first NASCAR Xfinity series race. And in a post race interview aired on NBC, the reporter could hear the crowd chanting in the background. And so the reporter had said, oh, they're chanting let's go Brandon. When actually the crowd was yelling f you Biden. And that's the G rated version. Just like let's go Brandon is the G rated stand in for dropping the F bomb about President Biden. So it's political in nature. So. And of course you knew it was going to leak at some point. The video showed up on TikTok. And you know, remember, the reason why there are so many crises or issues that happen on a plane is because everyone, especially before takeoff, is sitting on their phone and they are at the ready to hit any type of record button. Now I'm going to play the clip for you. It's not easy to hear it at the end, but so listen to the very end of the clip. Here you go.

Good visibility, Mostly clear skies, 77 degrees. Thanks for coming out. Flying to Southwest Airlines. Welcome aboard and remember, let's go pro.

I'll play it one more time. Listen to the last words.

Good visibility, Mostly clear skies, 77 degrees. Thanks for coming out and flying to Southwest Airlines. Welcome aboard and remember, let's go pro.

So whether it's a flight from ABQ to Hou or a Franklin Templeton employee walking her dog in New York City's Central park and then calling the police over a birdwatcher who had asked her to put her leash on her dog, and to this week or last week when a a former radio host, now realtor, entered the Buffalo Bills game with a fake vaccine card and tweeted about it, if you weren't familiar with that story, just go ahead. On Google, employees going rogue is not new. It happens all the time. What is is when employees go rogue and then it goes viral. So when an employee hits out Intentionally, either against their employer or something they've done on their own actions for their own causes, the company's reputation is going to take a hit. And the impact of that problem is that employees stories like this for companies, they're twofers because not only is the company in the news, so is the employee. So you have a two track story. So what you want to do, the outcome that we're looking for is we want to disassociate your brand from the employee's actions. And we want to do this as quickly as possible. Let's discuss three steps communicators can take when an employee goes rogue in a very public way. If you are a communicator listening to this episode right now, ask yourself, what would I do if this happened at our company? If your answer is I don't have the faintest idea, that's an honest answer. But that's not a good answer because what that likely means is that your company does not have a crisis plan. So step one is get out your crisis plan. Step one A. If your company does not have a crisis plan, get a crisis plan. So go to this plan. Look up the section about the employees and what to do when a rogue employee or some employee causes a crisis of their own doing. Then immediately assemble the team. Every crisis plan should have a crisis team. Now you'll likely toss the ball to human resources and leadership. You're going to work with them to determine what what the policies are. What do you have in place for an employee event? You are going to know precisely what the policies are when employees speak out negatively on behalf of your organization. Now again, here's the kicker. You should already know what it is because there should be a policy in place that you, the communicator, already has access to and awareness of. But you want to make sure that you connect with people who know the up to date policy and make sure that it is clear in that policy. What are the consequences when this happens? All of the writing should be there. None of this should be new. Also, it should be assumed that the employee who went rogue did it with full knowledge of the consequences because they were given clear instructions on the expectation of their conduct while working for that company. And that should have happened when they were hired. It should have been included in an employee manual. They heard about it. They heard about the policy at a staff training. They also have full access to company policies. If this is all in place, this is going to help you with your response. Now when news of the rogue employee gets back to you then you need to go back to that leadership again. That includes hr to clearly define the company policies. So next, follow your plan, which will likely tell you how to assemble. You'll need to know how to do that for step two, because step two is, is the response. A rogue employee's actions are usually bold, and those bold actions bring lots of interest. So your response needs to be executed perfectly. So start by drafting a media statement and decide on the appropriate communication channel. The first place you might want to go would be a friendly news source or a key news outlet where you have a good relationship with reporter because you'll want to send the full statement. So it could be because you have that existing relationship with the reporter, or it could be a publication that relates to your industry. It could be trade, it could be local, you know, wherever it makes sense to send that statement via email. Then you want to follow it on social media. And in most cases, you've heard me say this many times before. It's Twitter. And this is the reason why organizations should have a Twitter account. Don't think about all the work that goes into Twitter. Think about the benefit of Twitter. And this is the primary benefit is when you have to post a statement. Now, Southwest Airlines sent their response to Forbes, where it was later included in a story about the incident. So the story itself wasn't just the response. It was an embedded in a story about the entire incident. The Southwest response read in part, Southwest does not condone employees sharing their personal political opinions while on the job serving our customers, especially when comments are divisive and offensive. Southwest is conducting an internal investigation into the recently reported incident and will address the matter directly with any employee involved. This was, according to an email. The airline apologizes for this event, an action that was not reflective of the Southwest hospitality for which we are known and strive to provide each day on every flight. So there is where they tucked in part of their mission statement. Now, still no word at the time of this recording for where we all are in this investigation. We don't know the Southwest investigation. We don't know the process. We don't even know if the pilot was spoken to. But we do know that Southwest has left the response there. We're investigating. Southwest executives are likely crossing their fingers right now just hoping it will go away and that another story will pop up in its place. Now, that's likely. There will always be a story that comes along that might diminish some of the interest. But unanswered stories never really go away. The statement on Twitter was posted on October 31st. Likely at a time that they were actively monitoring what was happening on social media. They were social listening and looking for the sentiment. Were people against Southwest? Were they curious? Were they just neutral or were they supporting what was happening with that pilot? They were actively watching. That was very likely. Their statement we know many of you have heard about recent statements that may have been made on a Southwest flight and we wanted you to hear directly from us. So that was the tweet itself. And then the statement in there is the Southwest team takes pride in providing a welcoming, comfortable, safe and respectful environment for the millions of customers who fly with us each year. Southwest does not condone employees sharing their personal political opinions, so on and so forth. You can see it on Twitter if you go to southwestair. Now as a side note here, Southwest Airlines only follows one person on their Twitter account. Can you guess who it is? It's Gary kellyary Kelly. He is the chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines. Isn't that interesting? And his bio said people are our greatest asset. I highlight them here. Followoutwest Air for official updates. Hook em horns. That's interesting. Only the CEO next Step three this involves keeping a lid on the story. You want to plug all leaks by issuing an internal response along with the public response. So your employees should be instructed on what to say and what not to say. If someone is approached in person, either by email or social media, tell them they need to refer all inquiries about this incident to the leadership team or whomever is noted on your crisis plan. It could be communications, leadership, hr, whichever department it is, make sure that it is clear to the employees, to your employees that they are not allowed to speak about it. But it is important. Don't tell them only they're not allowed to speak about it and leave it there. You want to give them language for how they're not supposed to speak about it. And you can say something along the lines of this is not under my purview. If you have any questions you can go here, you know, to this leadership team or this isn't something that I discuss at my level at the company but if you need more information you can go here. Something like that. Just provide them with a statement and then you are going to ride this out. And that includes monitoring the incident for as long as it takes. Two weeks is a good time. Always look at that two week time frame because in that window that's when you're gonna see who is following up on this story. It is true that you're going to get a bump in news stories right after an incident happens. But it's also true because of social media and the lag of when stories pop up on social media. That usually takes 48 hours. And in this case, that's how it happened. It was a Friday incident, but the buzz was happening on Halloween and that's when Southwest Airlines needed to send a response, and that's when they did on social media. So you want to watch the patterns that happen there and keep monitoring what is happening, because there could be other stories that come from this. Now, as you know, in every episode I'd add an indestructible PR response tip that makes the episode extra. The tip is this. Remember the word contain, as in keep this crisis contained. There is no guarantee that your PR response is going to work, that it's going to stop the backlash, or it's even going to calm it down a little. Keep the message simple, clear and concise. Ensure that there is no room for misinterpretation. And the delivery of this message needs to be surgical in its precision. Watch everything and what everyone says about you, because these stories are two pronged. Because when you have no control over what that employee is doing, you're going to have no control over what they're going to do next. So keep watching. That's all for this week on the podcast. Please share this episode with any communicator who you may think might find it helpful. That allows me to help more people, which always is my goal. Another way is reaching out to me on Twitter and let me know what you think. You can find me at Molly McPherson. Thanks for listening. That's all for this week. Bye for now.