Lessons from the Domino’s Rogue Employees Incident
April 17, 2009 | Written by Yan Shikhvarger
[also posted on SocialMediaToday.com]
There are too many “life” recording devices, information sharing platforms, and people to control for an organization or corporation. What happened to Domino’s with “rogue” personnel posting content of inappropriate and damaging activity is not too different from what lead to the exposure of Abu Ghraib abuse in 2004. The point is that these incidents are likely to happen as they reflect not only deeper underlying issues such as mismanagement and organizational practices, but now more than ever actions of individuals can have a huge impact. These incidents also tend to skew in a negative direction as it is much more likely that something shocking and inappropriate will get more attention than potential positive stories.
It is necessary for any organization to accept that a similar incident may happen to them at any time. It is impossible to have 100% satisfaction from all company stakeholder groups and focusing on draconian prevention practices will not likely work. These incidents again show that it is necessary to cultivate a positive social media presence not just to drive revenue and other goals but as a risk management tactic in case of crisis. Preparing a tiered social media crisis plan should be on the agenda of most companies and only serve as another reason to develop a social strategy.
Tags: digital business trends
Comments (2)
April 17th, 2009 at 5:30 pm Posted by Justin R. Buchbinder
Yan,
I couldn’t agree more. Furthermore, I feel that – whether they had a plan in place or not, Domino’s was quick to the frontlines – thanking the blog that posted the video publicly for informing them of the incident, dropping the important talking points (100+ k employees, a billion countries, delicious fresh [...]) and they even had a boringly realistic message from some dude in the C-Suite.
Considering the horror of the incident, I’m impressed with their response!
JR
April 21st, 2009 at 2:04 pm Posted by Tyler Pennock
The good news is that many of the comments on YouTube and other social media outlets seem to be favorable to Domino’s – recognizing that one isolated incident is not indicative of the entire company. For all of social media’s ability to tear down an organization, I believe it also has the ability to support and strengthen a company through a crisis. My best is that Domino’s will bounce back better than ever because of this.
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