One of my APAC communications responsibilities was to lead the crisis communications teams during unexpected situations. During these times, I often worked closely with the APAC President, my own line manager the SVP for HR, the APAC security manager, relevant internal subject matter experts, respective local teams closest to the crisis situation as well as agencies and consultancies.
I would divide these crisis communication activities into two categories. The first category was related to Schaeffler’s hostile takeover of the Continental Group in 2008 and its post-merger integration (PMI) activities in the following years. The second category of crisis communication activities would be unexpected crisis situations such as natural disasters, industrial accidents, labour disputes etc as outlined below. However, I have not been able to provide examples of all the crisis communication activities in which I was a lead or was involved in except for the ones from 2009 to 2011.
2009 Schaeffler becomes the majority shareholder of the Continental Group
In 2009 when I joined the company, Schaeffler was reeling from a 12 billion Euros hostile takeover of the Continental Group. Schaeffler had several plants in China, India and Korea and a total of 12,000 employees in the APAC region and they needed transparency and clarity during the merger with Continental.
In reality, our merger communication was completely lead by our German headquarters necessarily so as they were on the frontline. My responsibility was however, in close alignment with our APAC management, to distribute consistent and clear key messages, offer regular and accurate merger updates and ensure that our managers were enabled and equipped to explain implications and impact for the employees and to answer questions and receive feedback.
Instead of being reactive, I went beyond to develop a post-merger integration (PMI) communication proposal for our APAC management’s perusal. However, the merger was an extremely sensitive issue for our headquarters in Germany and it wanted to have a fair control on the information and pace of delivery.
Furthermore Schaeffler, as a family business, was notorious for being secretive at that time with regards to sharing information regarding business performance. As such it was very conservative in its communication policy with regards to sharing information with media, customers and sometimes even staff. As such we drastically reduced our own APAC PMI ambitions but relied on my proposal as a compass for our reduced PMI activities in the region.
2010 Thailand Floods
In 2110, Schaeffler Thailand was affected by the Thailand floods created by the monsoon rains. It was the worst flood in Thailand in 50 years. There were no casualties amongst our employees but 15 of our employees’ homes were damaged. Our Thailand and Singapore colleagues and ourselves monitored the situation closely, offered crisis management support and also ran a relief program to support our impacted colleagues and the Thai people.
2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
Our company in Japan, Schaeffler Japan had about 100 staff in the Tokyo office when the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred in 2011. Although Tokyo was 240 km away from Fukushima, there were concerns that the winds might carry radioactive particles to Tokyo. Soon Lufthansa airlifted our German employees out of Tokyo while our Japanese employees braced themselves for the risks ahead.
Schaeffler Asia Pacific set up a dedicated room in Shanghai office to manage this crisis. It was headed by our APAC security manager and I joined the team to lead the crisis communications for about three weeks, away from my daily work. As the crisis unfolded, we followed up on news channels, did extensive research on contamination by radioactive winds and monitored weather reports especially wind conditions. We also sent out regular internal bulletins (see above) to our employees in Tokyo and ensured that they received words of encouragement and motivation from leadership in Japan as well as from APAC office until the crisis situation subsided about four weeks later.
2011 Joplin Tornado
Schaeffler companies around the world were requested to support the Joplin Tornado disaster relief. Our APAC President had close ties to USA and wanted to support the Americans in some ways. A donoation drive as conducted in the APAC region, not only to support Schaeffler employees in the affected areas but all Americans. Thus I wrote and circulated letters requesting employees to support in the relief program (see below).
2011 New Zealand Earthquake
A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit New Zealand close to the densely populated Christchurch city. Our APAC office carried out a relief program to help our New Zealand employees and I supported to write the letters, circulated them and ensured that it received the support it needed from all management colleagues and staff from the APAC region.
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