As the one-time corporate communications director for a Fortune 300, I confronted just about every possible public relations issue involving the corporate sector. But one of the most interesting came during A recession several years ago when the company was laying off small numbers of people at every location except the corporate headquarters in Stamford, CT..
Times were admittedly tough and we were doing everything we could to support a dealer network with the “good news.” So, I really broke out the aspirin when the business reporter from the local newspaper told me she had received a call from one of the company’s senior executives telling her we were about to lay off hundreds of people at the corporate headquarters.
She said the senior executive asked to remain anonymous and was the layoff true.
First of all, I knew every senior executive in the company. I reported to the chairman of the board at the time. It was unlikely that any executive would have called any reporter. And second, it was unlikely that as head of corporate communications, I would not know about impending layoffs.
So, I told the reporter first that I had NO “no comment.” Anyone in our business knows that if I had said “ no comment” it would have been immediately used in a story with the allegation from the anonymous executive.
She immediately became frustrated and told me I couldn’t have no “no comment.” I laughed and assured her I knew she was right. And I asked her the following: “Do me a favor and call that executive here at work to confirm that they gave you the information. If they did, give me a couple of hours to find out what’s going on and I’ll make sure to get back to you with a response before your deadline.” I had known her for three years and was pretty sure she’d agree to my request.
She did. Because within five minutes of our conversation, I got another call-this time from our senior vice president of human resources. The SVP told me she had received a call from the reporter, asking her to confirm the layoff information she had received from my senior exec the night before. Five minutes later, I also got a call from the reporter who told me the senior vice president’s voice was clearly not that of the person who had fed her the information and it was apparent to her the SVP had never called her in the first place.
The SVP made it clear that she had convinced the reporter there were no impending layoffs (some actually did come months later). And to this day I’m not sure how she did it, but the SVP was able to track the call to a disgruntled employee who had been fired for completely different reasons. This was their way of trying to get “even” with the company.
Either as a client or an agency, you probably won’t run into a situation exactly like this. But you may run into similar circumstances with disgruntled ex-employees. Know your facts. We didn’t have “hundreds of people” at the corporate headquarters so something wasfishy from the start.
Buy some time–the media will usually give you that much. And be ready to respond.