Crisis Communications Training Toolkit. Module 1: Stages of a crisis
Successfully managing a farm crisis usually starts with identifying a threat that may or may not be manifest, causing a disruption that affects the farm business, staff health and safety, production and supply chain.
Module 1 will help you understand the stages of a crisis.
Threats that become real take many forms. Farmers often fear that there will be a farm accident, biosecurity incursion or a natural disaster event that not only interrupts production, but threatens life, farm safety, business viability and the welfare of staff, family and ownership. In some instances, severe breaches of legislation or farm accidents can lead to court actions, jail time or financial penalties.
Module 1 is designed for farmers to identify key risks, plan their preparation, response and recovery, in other words, plan for the worst and hope for the best.
At the completion of Module 1, you will have:
- identified key farm risks
- identified the stages of a crisis
- completed a list of key contacts for your communications plan
- completed a Response Action Plan.
The five stages of a crisis
1. Pre-crisis: Plan for the worst and hope for the best
The first step in developing a Communications Plan for crisis scenarios is to prepare for the worst. Whatever the incident is you fear most, might never happen. The incident could be a catastrophic flood, biosecurity incursion next to your property, a farm accident. Any of these incidents can damage your business reputation.
As a farm owner, or person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), you carry a legal responsibility, known as a primary duty of care, to your workers, clients, visitors and volunteers. According to the Queensland Government Work Health and Safety Act 2011, to meet a duty of care, business owners must:
- provide a safe work environment
- ensure safe use, handling and storage of machinery, structures and substances
- make sure your facilities are well-maintained and at an acceptable standard
- give your workers any information, training, instruction or supervision needed for safety
- keep an eye on the health of workers and conditions at your place of work
- keep an injury register
- have a workers' compensation policy and a return-to-work plan.
The techniques you put into place ahead of any incident will assist you and your workers to mitigate the risk, confront the event if and when it happens, manage the response and recovery. Most importantly, preparation will enable you to control the narrative and key messages you want to have communicated to your farm workers, suppliers, clients, neighbours, family, authorities and media.
By identifying the risks facing your business, you can put plans in place to minimise the risks of them occurring. One such plan is a Crisis Response Action Plan to enable you to communicate the right message to the right people if those risks eventuate.
Task:
Complete the identifying business risks and managing reputation worksheet.
This worksheet will assist you to identify:
- the risks to your operation which carry consequences for your reputation
- mitigation strategies for these risks
- who will be impacted if the risk eventuates
- who to call for assistance,
- your key messages to be communicated.
Click on the Farm Business Resilience Program – select your industry’s risk assessment checklist.
2. The crisis event
Crisis response action plan – this worksheet should be used for each risk scenario you have identified. It will help you:
- identify the signs and gather information to tell you it is time to act on your crisis plan
- prioritise your immediate actions in the event of a crisis, and
- develop a contacts sheet for trusted people you should call for help.
3. Response to the unfolding crisis
Stages of a crisis - this worksheet will prompt you to think about the evolving challenges and questions you will face as a crisis unfolds, from your first response through to management, recovery and resolution.
This worksheet should be completed for each of your risk scenarios. It will challenge you to:
- develop a support team
- gather factual information
- identify key stakeholders
- plan for regular communications briefing
- identify who can help with response and recovery activities.
4. Management of the crisis communications
This phase of the crisis may take an extended period of time, especially if the crisis or business disruption involves investigation by authorities or court proceedings. Managing the key messages of your communications, appointing a spokesperson, or including advice from an industry body or a professional crisis communications consultant may be considered during this phase.
Materials provided in this training program assist in the management of the crisis communications and includes a template for a Communications plan on a page. This one-pager is a summary of your communication goal, key messages, action plan, monitoring and evaluation of the success of your communications.
Task:
Read communications plan on a page, noting the headings, prompts and evaluation questions. Use materials in this training program to work towards completing this Plan.
This worksheet provides you with:
- a summary of the key goal, objective messages and written action plan
- action Plan of activity, target audience, method, timing and responsibility.
5. Resolution and recovery
This phase of recovery may include a debrief of key personnel and a review of communication responses after the crisis has been resolved. This phase may include practice of a scenario exercise for key management or all staff.
Task:
Read the crisis communications health check worksheet.
This worksheet provides you with:
- topics for include in a debrief of your situation and review of your business communications strategy.
- If there is no disruption or crisis, it is recommended to review these topics annually along with your business plan.
Quick access to worksheets
Identifying business risks & risk assessment checklist
The identifying business risks and managing reputation worksheet will assist you to identify:
- the risks to your operation which carry consequences for your reputation
- mitigation strategies for these risks
- who will be impacted if the risk eventuates
- who to call for assistance,
- your key messages to be communicated.
Find your risk assessment checklist on the Queensland Government's publications portal.
The crisis response action plan
Download the crisis response action plan.
Stages of a crisis worksheet
Download the stages of a crisis worksheet.
The communications plan on a page worksheet
Download the communications plan on a page.
The crisis communications health check worksheet
Download the crisis communications health check worksheet.
Case study
On Saturday 23 March 2019, more than 100 animal activists gathered outside Lemontree Feedlot on Queensland’s Darling Downs. With only Saturday staff on site, owner David McNamee was having lunch with his family when he noticed cars and buses pulling up at the front gates. Watch the full video.
Scenario exercise
Introduction – setting the stage
A scenario exercise is a commonly used discussion-based activity, using a relevant situation that may occur within a designated timeframe.
Participants are expected to have some familiarity with the situation being tested or the plans being exercised. Participants may include farm owners, key personnel, stakeholders, external facilitator, industry association contacts or extension officers.
Here we nominate a hypothetical scenario based on a common agricultural threat or risk. We use the Toolkit worksheets to test, exercise and improve the response to the situation.
Preparation for the exercise is as important as the exercise itself, as participants need to be aware of what is required of them before, during and after the exercise. To set the stage, topics for a pre-exercise briefing may include:
- Aims, purpose and objectives
- Roles and responsibilities of each participant during the exercise
- Information, communication tools and technology to be used
- Action in the event of unforeseen circumstances
- Post-exercise de-brief and actions arising from the exercise.
Use the scenario exercise to integrate lessons into the worksheets. For example, refining your key messages, adding names to the key contacts list or using the risk matrix to identify the likelihood and consequence of this specific hypothetical situation occurring in your farm business.
Source: Good Practice Guidelines, The Business Continuity Institute/The BCI Forum Limited. Published 2017.
Hypothetical scenario: Animal welfare
It’s early November on your cattle property in Western Queensland. To ensure cattle have adequate water for a predicted dry summer season, and to keep up to date with the latest technology, you install a remote monitoring system for the water troughs on the property.
You are planning a family Christmas holiday at Cottontree on the Queensland Sunshine Coast. In the lead-up to the holiday, you continually test the remote monitoring and physically inspect the water troughs. Confident of the technology, you go away for a week to the Sunshine Coast to escape the summer heat.
However, during the week, there is a network failure of the monitoring system at the farm. By chance the network failure coincides with a breakdown in a critical water pump.
You are unaware of this breakdown until you return to the farm and discover 20 cattle dead beside a dry water trough, with many more head that are desperately thirsty.
What is your response?
Task:
Refer to the worksheet, identifying business risks and managing reputation to respond to the following questions:
- What is your first response when you discover the dead animals and thirsty livestock?
- List all relevant stakeholders, including authorities, who you need to inform and why they need to know.
- What is your key message to each of these stakeholders?
- What mitigation strategies can you use to ensure this doesn’t happen on your property?
Assuming the media find out about the loss of animals, use the interview preparation worksheet to prepare key messages, bridging phrases and answers to unwanted questions.
Real-life examples
Review the following articles for real-life examples:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-18/queensland-mass-cattle-deaths-aaco-wagyu-thirst/105044162
Extra resources
Glossary of terms
Download this glossary of terms pdf for your reference.
Well done! You've now completed module 1.
Before moving onto module 2, please fill in and submit the feedback form below.