The case of Gozdni gospodarstvo Postojna, where the media began to report on the appalling conditions in which subcontractor employees work, was the starting point for the September Fundamental Breakfast. The March raid in the business unit of Gozdni gospodarstvo Postojna (GGP), Marof Trade, or the related companies Floles and Poslovni sistem Veles (more than 50 employees of the tax administration participated in it with the help of police officers), revealed numerous serious violations in the employment of foreigners. . There are about 200 of them employed there, there were about 60 of them on duty that night, and some of them were treated literally like slaves by the employers, according to the findings of the investigation. The GGP management answered questions from the media in the style of "we are not responsible for the way we work for subcontractors" and eventually (most likely mainly due to media pressure) terminated the contract. Why wasn't that a good tactic? Because the GGP no one believes they did not know about the situation, because at least the media have been warning about it for some time, and because the state authorities have also taken action. Their reputation was severely damaged by this. If someone is your subcontractor, then (also) in terms of communication you can’t ignore the impact their bad practices have on you. One of the more important parts he deals with the public relations profession is crisis communication and this is the segment where cooperation between the communicator and compliance and risk experts is crucial. Even more important is the time when to start cooperating, namely it is necessary before the crisis occurs. You are the one in the company who knows especially well what are the problematic situations that the organization may face, and the communicator needs to be involved in the work team early enough to help prepare a crisis communication plan. Once the crisis is underway, there is no more time to prepare a strategy - it’s like drawing a fire route when a building is already on fire.

8 rules of crisis management

The onset of the crisis is a stressful time for all involved and organizations instinctively want to avoid the situation and (in my experience) are looking for ways to avoid responsibility - which was also the case with the GGP. However, only one tactic is possible here, which is related to taking responsibility and the truth. The most important thing is to follow these guidelines:

1. Communicate about the crisis accurately, openly and remain open to stakeholders.
2. Communicate quickly to maintain a proactive response to the crisis.
3. Maintain flexibility consistent with a relative degree of uncertainty and ambiguity.
4. Keep a close eye on media announcements and the reactions of various stakeholders.
5. Maintain the consistency of the message with a credible (specific) speaker (usually leadership).
6. Use the crisis team to coordinate and decide on crisis responses.
7. Participate in crisis planning to establish and maintain a crisis response capability.
8. Establish positive stakeholder relationships and the organization’s pre-crisis reputation.

So what could leaders do in the case of GGP? We should have acted before the story leaked to the media, as it is already clear from the media reports that the information did not "fall from the sky", but was a "public secret" for a long time. The least we could do - which anyone who gets information about possible irregularities from their subcontractors - can do is to check the matter and act on the organization’s values. I don’t know a company that would want to be associated with employee slavery, however, if the numbers still force it into this field. Siemens, for example, has a simple policy in the decision-making process:

• is it good for Siemens?
• is it consistent with Siemens and my own values?
• is it legal? Is it ethical?
• am I willing to answer for it?