Crisis Management Plan for Lynas Corporation: A Comprehensive Report

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Crisis Management Report: Lynas Corporations
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Introduction
The best definition of crisis could be sudden uninvited events or scenarios that could
significantly affect the organisation’s ability to conduct business activity. In addition to this,
crisis can even injurious to the company’s reputation. In this report, the crisis management is
elaborated in context of Lynas Corporation. It is a mining company that extracts rare metal
oxides from earth and processed it in order to add value to the bottom line of the company. Its
industrial plant is located in Kuantan, Malaysia. The clients of the company comprise heavy
metal industries, high powered magnets, oil industries, motor industries, etc. This report talks
about crisis management team and plan. Moreover, it highlight the need of communication
during crisis, training, and reviewing.
Initiating Crisis Management
It is advised to the Lynas Corporation management to keep their focus on the market pressure
along with the production schedules. They need to have a proactive strategy to handle the
crisis. The senior executives are solely accountable for the crisis that might hit the company.
The first step should be determining all sorts of crisis that can hit the company (He, 2012).
These comprise natural disaster, financial downfall, labour strikes, changing technology,
legal and environmental constraints set by the government, accident during mining process,
etc. The site manager and executive must be well-prepared for the potential crisis. There
should be a crisis management and communication plan (CMCP) that has to be implemented
and evaluated regularly (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer, 2014). The first significant step in the
direction of CMCP is endorsement of CEO. This is necessary for the thorough
implementation of the plan at all levels of organisation.
Lynas Corporation’s management should incorporate the advice from government authorities,
human resource officer, finance manager, operation manager, and legal representative. This
would ensure that all the areas of the organisational functioning has been covered (Elsbach,
2012).
Aims, Objectives, and Scope
Aim of the CMCP is “to manage the crisis with utmost professional behaviour to make sure
the health and safety of the people working in the organisation and the local community and
minimise the effects of mining on the environment.”
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Objectives:
 To provide support to those who got adversely impacted by the operations of the
company.
 To assist the news media and the stakeholders by furnishing them with accurate
information and facts.
 To maintain shareholders and customer’s confidence in the company and continue to
carry out the company’s operations safely and effectively.
Scope of the CMCP is that it covers all the potential crises, such as industrial emergencies,
natural disasters, accidental events, medical emergencies, legal threats, workplace issues,
political insecurities, etc.
Crisis Management Team Organisation
It is important for the Lynas Corporation to protect its employees from such crisis, to take
remedial steps to nullify the negative aspects, and to establish the safe working environment
for everyone. The organisation of the crisis management team depends on the organisational
structure. Carroll & Buchholtz (2014) highlighted that crisis management must be flexible so
as to deal with varying events and their consequences. The core team should not have large
size and it should have a chairperson, crisis coordinator, administrative supervisor, and legal
counsel. The team can be further modified, if needed. The team should be answerable to the
CEO of Lynas Corporation who is further responsible to answer the Board of Directors.
The local crisis management team (LCMT) is the team formed for each operation or project
undertaken by the company. This supersede the responses in emergencies. This is responsible
for the in-situ crisis management and for communication operation during crisis. It is
important to note that the roles and responsibilities of team member is specific to the projects
and to the CCMT too.
Crisis Management Plan
The following part talks about the various stage of the crisis control or management plan. It is
clear that the off-site crisis are handled by the CCMT and on-site by LCMT. The stages are
elaborated below (Speakman & Sharpley, 2012):-
Notification: This stage is all about releasing the notification throughout the organisation.
This is done through emails and voice notes.
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Assessment: this is the stage of collecting information and data associated with the crisis and
its impacts. This process requires skilled personnel as if this goes wrong, then the whole
crisis management plan might fail.
Anticipation: There should be a well-structured anticipation software or method that assists
in predicting the potential risks and damages. This would help in taking measures and
preparing plans accordingly.
Crisis Protocol: for the management plan, it is essential that company formulate protocols
for a large range of crises that bother the company. The protocol might comprise the
environmental damages, industrial accident, natural disasters, workplace issues, medical
emergencies, etc.
Formation of Crisis Control Centre: Lynas Corporation should form the designated centre
to manage and gather information regarding a crisis situation. In addition to this, such centre
can also handle the virtual crisis too.
Communication during Crisis
The internal and external communications can make the situation worse during the crisis
which negatively affects the public and the other important stakeholders of the company
which damages the overall reputation of the company. This situation makes pressures in the
company for protecting their reputation by giving the statements to the public and speaking in
the media.
Objectives- To handle the above situation the team of the crisis management should adopt
the four objectives of communication. These are mentioned below:
 Implement efforts that generate trust among the public and shareholder on the
company ability to managing the crisis effectively and efficiently.
 It is important for the company to directly communicate with important communities
and employees.
 Assist social media to focus on the positive actions of the company.
Accidents in mining are the big news that provides damage not only to the property but also
to the environment and the humans and the social media actively try to cover the whole
incidents. With this, the company spread its message and information with this source
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(Dorward and Kling, 2018). Iynas Corporations provide up to date and accurate information
to the stakeholders with regular updates. Communication with the communities of interest
assists in providing regular updates that assist the company to alert the community about the
situation of crisis and the ways the company resolve the crisis.
For achieving the company objectives the three main strategies are formulated. These are
mentioned below:
 For ensuring the communications timely, the company publishes the templates by
defining the scope and objectives of the Crisis development plan of the company. It is
essential that the company release the information by handling the crisis information
timely and accurately (Robinson and Thelen, 2018).
 For detecting the unbalanced and inaccurate coverage, it is important that the
company provide correct information.
 It is important for the company to communicate actively with the coordinator and
communications personnel for establishing the services of monitoring and respond to
the information for monitoring the external actions.
Training and Reviewing
Training
It is important that any emergency plan will be properly tested by understanding the specific
roles and responsibilities in the plans of crisis management. For testing the plans of the
company it divides into four main categories are explained below:
Recommend the techniques of management that provide the opportunity to the personnel’s to
realize the characteristics of crisis and handle such crisis (Abualenain, 2018).
It is important to analyze the situation and made discussions before taking any actions. This
exerted pressures on the managers to handle the complex situation by building teams and
provide the an opportunity to raise the issues as per the perspectives of the outsiders.
For practicing the crisis management plans of the company to bring out the group people by
building the crisis situation by involving the actors reordered audio, television pieces and
telephone calls.
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Review
To site the emergency plans of response and the local crisis management plans should be
reviewed on a regular basis so as to fulfill the operations needs so that the company reflects
its operation effectively.
To resolve the situation of crisis, the team of the crisis management should conduct the
analysis on the effectiveness of implementing the plans of crisis management (Hung-
Baesecke, et. al., 2018). This includes by analyzing the ways how the crisis will be avoided
or reduced and what is better during the response of the initial crisis. It also includes the
assessment criteria of the media and social coverage. This all can be accomplished by taking
the under mentioned initiatives:
 Through interviews with the external stakeholders
 Assess the relation with the media
 Appreciation
 Conduct a survey in the internal stakeholders
Conclusion
With the above-mentioned discussions, it is concluded that the Iynas corporations must take
effective and efficient plans to assist the company to overcome with the threats related to the
crisis and take effective measures to reduce its impact over the communities includes external
and internal stakeholders. The company has to develop the strategies by closely monitored
the actions that need to be taken by the company and raise confidence among the
shareholders to face such a situation. The above crisis management plan assists the Iynas
Corporation to protect the reputation of the company and maintain the confidence among the
public by maintaining the critical situations and in the first few hours of the crisis.
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References
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