Whistle Blower

Having a profession as public relations is a job that is also requires the person to build a good relation, not only with internal but also external people around the company. There are some type of works that should be done by a public relation practitioners, one of them is clarified a problem, rumor or crisis that been happened in a company. This usually called as a whistle blowing.

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” (Yann, 2014)

A crisis that happen to a company can happen anytime, and in this situation public relations has a job to analyze and be aware with every little thing that might make company’s good reputation becomes bad. Whistleblowing is when someone reports suspected wrongdoing in our company, and the whistle blower can be anyone from outside or even inside the company. Officially this is called ‘making a disclosure in the public interest’.

I’ll take an example of Solaria case related to the whistle blower. In early August 2013, an issue about Solaria came up to the public. The rumor was arise by an article in www.arrahman.com with a headline “Solaria sudah haram, arogan pula” this article telling a story about an accounting lecturer, Prof. Tjiptohadi Sawarjuwono, Ph.D. from University of Airlangga (UNAIR), who was wanting to open ‘franchise’ Solaria Restaurant in his hometown. But unexpectedly, he said that the owner of the Solaria said he must use the pork fat in some of Solaria menus. Then the lecturer was shock and tell the owner that its haram, but the owner of Solaria answered him with a very arrogant way “Here, in Solaria, we usually use that (the pork fat). You know we don’t put a Halal logo in our restaurant, but if you don’t want it then it’s ok with me.”

After that article published to the public, people finally realized that in every Solaria restaurants do not have a Halal label. These things made people in Indonesia, who are majority are Moslem, trust that issue and choose not to eat in that restaurant. But, at that time, the public relations from Solaria restaurant did a quick respond towards the rumor that happened to them. Their statement to respond about the false information from the article is;

“From 1995 until now, Solaria is not a franchise business. Until today, there is only one person who actually own and has responsible to all of 130 Solaria stores in Indonesia, it is also one of the factors that makes the price of food in Solaria relatively low-priced but not ‘cheap. Because of this rumor, we are now is in process to get the Halal certificate from MUI. We believe that all the raw materials Solaria uses are already using halal products, either ice cubes or spices that imported are all Halal. You can check it if you want.” - Mr. Dedy Nugrahadi, Operations Manager of Solaria.

According to Solaria case, a public relations practitioner should always give their attention to things that might damage the company reputation. Even before the crisis becomes big, they also should give a quick respond to clarify the whistle blowing. They also should make a Crisis Management Plan (CMP) which contains some steps that will help the public relations staff as anticipation when the crisis strikes.

Dika P. Fauzia Putri

1501197111

References

Arrahmah.com,. (2014). Solaria sudah haram, arogan pula. Retrieved 7 November 2014, from http://www.arrahmah.com/news/2013/08/26/solaria-haram-arogan.html

Yann, A. (2014). What is Public Relations? PR Definition: PRSA Official Statement. Prsa.org. Retrieved 7 November 2014, from http://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/publicrelationsdefined/#.VFw3FPmUeSo