The 3 step process for correcting internal comms mistakes

Mistakes happen in any line of work. It’s how you fix them that matters.

Jessica Onick, former senior director of internal communications at GitHub and founder of Jessica Onick Communications, told Ragan that she’s had to clean up plenty of mistakes during her career, from misstated facts to announcements that missed the mark.

A confusing benefits announcement and a typo in the weekly newsletter are both mistakes, but they don’t need the same response. Onick said the first thing comms pros need to figure out is how much harm the error can cause.

“Not every correction needs to be a communications moment,” she said. “There are some things where issuing the correction is just going to create more confusion, and we can just let it lie. It needs to be proportionate to the risk that was created in the original communication.”

One situation that did need a bigger response involved a new benefits program. The program was good, but the way they explained it wasn’t.

“The mistake that was made was not in sending out incorrect information,” Onick said. “It was in sending out confusing information. And then you get employees who are up in arms: ‘Wait a minute, this is about my money and my healthcare. I don’t understand what’s happening.’”

Here’s how you can set up your internal comms correction process step by step.

1. Before anything goes wrong, agree on who signs off on corrections

Internal communications teams are often small, even at large companies. That makes it important to settle the biggest question in a correction plan before you need the answer.

“The top priority is who the decision maker is,” Onick said. “In a situation where we have a factual error, maybe it’s the communications leader, with the facts provided by the person who owns that program. In a more risk-heavy situation, it’s the C-level leader in charge of that part of the organization. If it’s a benefits program, your CHRO is your decision maker.”

Onick recommended sorting potential mistakes by type, naming who owns each fix and walking leaders through the plan. That keeps you from making it up as you go, and it can pay off the moment something goes wrong

2. Fix the small stuff fast and acknowledge the big stuff first

Once you know who is calling the shots for the corrections, evaluate the mistake. A wrong date or a wrong number in a memo is among the easiest messaging errors to fix. Onick said the goal is moving quickly without introducing a second mistake.

“Accuracy matters more than speed, but speed does matter,” Onick said. “Verify that information with whoever is in charge of it, get it validated and then get a correction out as quickly as possible. If it’s an intranet post or a message that can be edited, fix the original. If everybody needs a completely new set of information, send it out by email.”

Bigger mistakes flip the order of operations. Onick said that when the stakes are high, communicators shouldn’t wait for a formal, corrected version of the message before saying something.

“Employees are frequently faster than the communications machine,” she said. “So the first thing to do is issue an acknowledgment: ‘We hear you, we know there’s some confusion, and we’ll get back to you by the end of the week. Don’t make any decisions yet.’ That is the most effective move you can make.”

When the full correction does go out to employees, keep the apology short.

“We’re not going to go down this whole rabbit hole of being defensive and explaining ourselves,” she said. “We’re just going to get the correct information in front of them so they can make the right decisions.”

3. In the meantime, write for your leaders

Getting a leader to put their name on a correction can take a bit more work. Onick said a short draft helps, and so does telling them up front what you’re not going to ask them to do.

“I’m never going to put you in a position where you’re apologizing for something we don’t need to apologize for, or where our correction puts the business at risk,” she said. “We’re always going to protect the business, and by extension, we’re going to protect you.”

She added that internal corrections go beyond any one leader or any one mistake. They come down to what employees learn from how you handle it.

“Correcting the record is not the same as correcting your reputation,” Onick said. “Trust is built when employees know they can believe what you say.”

Sean Devlin is the senior internal communications editor at Ragan. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.