How to deal with a crisis

A putco bus that crashed into a house





A crisis is an unplanned event that can take place in any organisation unexpected. Crisis management is one of the essential components of the public relation practitioner and in practice must be used as comprehensive and meticulous as possible.

The benefits of a good public relations practitioner and crisis management can literally save lives, save money and save organisation from devastation any organisation should be prepared to face any crisis that takes place in an organisation.

On March, 28 2012 a Putco bus crashed into the bedroom of Motswiri 44 and his girlfriend Mathabiso Kamandi 33 at Soweto in Dobsenville killing two people, thirty six injured and four seriously injured. The bus driver apparently lost control of the bus. The Putco marketing team did a good job by dealing with the matter as soon as possible by offering to rebuild the houses that were damaged by the bus. Most company fail to manage crisises due to the fact that they donot know how to handle  a crisis.  Even thou the company cannot bring back the lives that were lost at the scene but the organisation managed to protect its image.

There are ten factors that each and every organisation needs to be considered when dealing with a crisis.for more infor

v  Strong leadership

v  Swift decision making

v  Prompt effective action on behalf of any people affected

v  Proactive action to mitigate any environmental impact

v  Clear, proactive and continuous communication

v  Robust crisis plans with clear roles

v  Ensure your crisis management team regularly trains and rehearses together

v  Good spokesperson

v  Effective spokesperson

v  Do not be afraid to say sorry

I hope that most organisations will learned how to deal with a crisis by considering the ten factors of dealing with a crisis.

The Violation of Human Rights



students figthing for the struggle in 1960
source from:http://todayinafricanamerican history.com



There have been a lot of events in relation to the violations of human rights recently. The question is. Do South Africa citizens know they rights?  On 1960 the police killed people at Sharp Ville who were participating in a protest against the past law. This people died fighting for the rights that we have today. It is surprising that after 10 years of democracy, there are people whose rights are still being violated.

Human rights day is a day that is about educating all South Africans about their rights and obligations, to make all citizens aware of their rights. Thandi Modise was at Groot Marico near Zeerust she addressed 1000 people about human rights day issues that ranged from service delivery to human rights violations, especially on farms and domestic workers as they are facing a lot of eviction and violation to their rights as this people did not know there rights.

There are a lot of campaigns that are involved in helping people to be aware of their human rights such as campaign such as the 16 days of activism for women and children campaign is there to help people to.  for more infor 

v  To help people to be able to speak out.

v  It also helps people from the donations they receive from the nation.

v  Seek to help if you are emotionally and physically abused

v  Seek to help people who have been sexually abused

v  Help children who have been abused.

Let us work together as a nation to generate an increase level of awareness amongst South Africans compaigns that are the to help people whose rigths are beign violated. Let us work together to encourage people to be active in such campaigns that will help and protect their rights from being violated.  

How can taxi drivers improve their Behaviour




Overload taxi
source:http//www.carmagblog.co.za/wp





Professionalism is very important in every organisation especially in terms of behaviour.  Taxi drivers are well known as reckless drivers who do not respect the rules of the road and the rights of other road users.

Even though taxis might be an informal industry I belief that they need public relation practitioner skills with the regards to the recent events  that involves taxi drivers. On March 7, 2012 a pedestrian was knocked off by a taxi and then he was beaten by the taxi driver for no reason and on the March 12, 2012 a motorist was also beaten by a taxi driver because the driver did not stop when the taxi driver asked him to stop. What I want to know is that what has happened to the right of pedestrians and other road users.

Skills that public relations practitioners can help taxis drivers with is to.

v  Help to develop their communication skills.

v  Help them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers and other road uses.

v  Help to create a better image of their organisation.

There is campaign that has been started to initiative striving to enhance road safety by addressing rewarding road safety amongst our minibus taxi driver, which the brand house number one taxi driver campaign which started in 2004

The brand house number one taxi driver campaigns objectives is to. (for more infro)

v  To motivate drivers not only to respect their passengers, but to respect the rights of pedestrians as well as other road uses.

v  This campaign is also aimed at providing the image of the taxi industry by prioritising the training of advanced in driving skills as well as customer care.

v  The brand house initiative posed opportunity for partnership between business and private sector to invest in the taxi industry and help to develop skills.

There are campaigns that are there trying to help with creating a better image for taxi drives but they are not doing enough and I think that they should give public relations practitioners a chance to deal with this issue   







 
    Why the e-tolling system

          in South Africa.

 

E-tolling is an equitable method for motorist to pay only for the used referred to as the “user- pay” principle. The e-toll road system was introduced on the 14 April 2009 by the South Africa roads networks managed by the South Africa road agency (SNARL) ltd. The SNARL introduced the open road e-tolling system as an approach that enables the individual design of each road needs based on the needs of that particular section of the road.

 The main reason why the tolling was introduced is because roads are our main artery of economy competitive, growth and development and building roads costs billion of money. Roads also need to be maintained on a regular bases because of environmental factors that damages our roads such as weather, ultraviolet radiation, overloading etc. Toll roads will assist us in meeting the demand of social services, which are important for the growth of our country. (http://www.arrivealive.co.za/pages.aspx?i=2731)

On March 7, 2012 the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu ) called for a nation stay-away against the proposed toll roads. The feedback from the government is that it will stay committed to the introduction of the e-tolling despite Wednesday’s national strike.(http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/content.aspx?id=167011).  So we as a nation should consider the importance of the e-tolling, and how we will benefit from it.

The importance of the e-tolling system

v  The tolling enables SNARL to provide roads sooner than the traditionally funding these roads.

v  Tolling delivers the much needed infrastructure dedicated sooner than later.

v  Tolling ensures dedicated funding for road maintenance of the road. 

The tolling has a lot of benefits that we are not aware of.

The benefits of the e-tolling system

v  Toll roads ensures a highly quality road network in addition to contributing to improve road safely.

v   Toll roads generally reduce travelling distance and result in substantial saving on running cost of your vehicle and much valued travel time.

v  Tolls link the benefits for the road user with its fees by charging users only indirect relationship to how much of the road they use.

v  Safely engineered roads which require less maintained roads.

Toll facilities offer value and choice. It is not a must to travel on these roads but if you want to travel on a better road, free flowing traffic road and save on your car maintenance than you should consider using the toll roads. let us work together as a nation and help in developing our countrys roads by suscribing to the e tolls.