I sat across from a friendly HR Guy at Company XYZ, contemplating how to ask what class of hotels and grade of air travel I’d be allowed to book without sounding like an expense account whore.
I was up for an executive position with an American media company that’s gotten lots of attention for its global expansion. While the job was U.S.-based, it required international travel.
Lots of it. Up to 50 percent annually and mostly on my own, supporting two dozen foreign offices.
Since XYZ touts its employee lovefest culture -- with fitness classes, day care, community service and even a roaming masseuse -- I came up with what I assumed would be a welcome door-opener.
“So what’s XYZ’s contingency plan for employees caught in international crisis situations?” I asked.
If this had been a cartoon, the guy’s jaw would’ve hit the desk in slo-mo and his eyes would’ve unspooled with that Boing! noise.
They had nothing.
No plan.
And apparently never considered creating one.
That’s despite the fact that XYZ generates enormous revenue because of its international reach and promotes it to shareholders and creative talent. It produces in exotic locations. And XYZ has many American citizens holding business, sales, operations and admin jobs in foreign countries.
Any discussion as to whether my job level would guarantee me the Carlton instead of the Noga Hilton in Cannes was now irrelevant. Then HR Guy made it worse: He recounted how XYZ had to evacuate one of its stars from a dangerous situation.
At that moment, I wondered if XYZ would do as much for me on a moment’s notice, since I lacked a famous face or fan base.
When I met later with another XYZ executive, she got defensive and argued that since it wasn’t a news organization, it had no reason to have considered such plans. I pointed out that the businesspeople at Mumbai’s Taj Hotel last November or on the Tube in London in July 2005 weren’t journalists, either.
Needless to say, I didn’t end up at XYZ.
But I recalled those conversations when news broke that Current TV’s Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced by the North Korean government to 12 years’ hard labor in prison. And I wondered whether the drastic changes in media and entertainment -- companies chasing non-U.S. revenue-building and cost-cutting opportunities, endless layoffs creating a new subculture of freelance unaffiliated journalists and the emergence of ambitious start-up companies with little structure, systems and policies -- are putting countless others at risk.
Having worked at a major news organization with correspondents around the world, I know firsthand the depth of work that goes into advance contingency planning. It’s a complex, time-consuming project requiring a dedicated internal team to work up contacts, tactics and communications, then regularly update them. And ultimately, the final document can only serve as a good jumping-off point since no situation ever plays out as expected.
But the process forces a company to undertake the thinking and debate that need to be in its rear-view mirror before a crisis explodes.
