Practice makes perfect.. and saves lives

When US Airways flight 1549 glided down onto the Hudson river last month, the well rehearsed plans of the airline's crew came good. All passengers and crew were evacuated swiftly and safely.

How does an airline prepare for such situations? And how can you, as a travelling passenger, get involved in such exercises (should you wish to do so)?

Click here to read the story from the Wall Street Journal.

Traumatised staff turn HR into ER

With the current raft of redundancies, one aspect that is often overlooked is the impact of these cuts on the survivors: those left behind to keep the business afloat. Bereft of their friends and colleagues, and often doing the work of two or more of their ex-office buddies, these employees need careful and sympathetic management to ensure they remain productive and healthy.

But does the average HR manager have the skills needed to fulfill this role? John Philpott from CIPD argues that these skills are more important than ever at this time. Indeed we at docleaf have been responding to increasing requests for staff training in this area.

Click here for the article in HR Review and contact us here to get information on our training courses.

Saving the business; old heads don't always work best

At docleaf we deal with a wide range of crises. Most of our work involves the protection of people and reputations. It was enlightening therefore to stumble across this article from Accountancy Age. It describes the issues faced by a business in financial crisis - and guess what? They are almost a copy of those that impact an organisation in the crises we get involved with; decision making, speed of action and available cash reserves to see your plans through.

Read the article by Smith and Williamson here and contact us here to get information on docleaf's crisis management solutions.

Be more productive - just say no

In these difficult times, you may be less inclined to say no to your boss and tell him that you have too much to do. Will being seen as uncooperative leave you vulnerable?

In this BNet post, CC Holland argues the opposite. By actually being honest about the work you can do, and explaining politely but firmly when you are asked to do something beyond your capacity, you are increasing your productivity and reducing the risks of stress and its related downsides.

Read the article from BNet here:

docleaf Briefs

An Austrian woman has begun a 500-day jail sentence for ignoring parking tickets and failing to pay a cumulative fine of around 24,000 euros. (Reuters)

They said the 38-year-old civil servant from the southern city of Graz was jailed after ignoring 700 attempts by local authorities to notify her of the fines over a 2-year period. "Of course we have had people ignore three, four, five or even 10 reminders, but 700 ... that is unheard of," said police official Herbert Mattersdorfer.

A police spokesman said that under Austrian law, the woman could only spend 42 days at a time in jail for this offence, so her term would be split into several stints behind bars.

And finally... a tragic but captivating tale of scorned love(?) from China. A married tycoon who could no longer afford to support his five mistresses during the economic slowdown held a contest to decide which one to keep, local media reported Tuesday. (AFP)

The contest took a tragic turn when one of the mistresses, who was eliminated based on her looks, drove her former lover and the four other women off a mountain road in an apparent fit of anger, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Initially, it was thought to be an accident, but then details of the bizarre contest emerged in a letter left by the dead woman, a 29-year-old former waitress surnamed Yu, the newspaper said.

The woman met the entrepreneur, surnamed Fan, at the restaurant where she worked in the coastal city of Qingdao in 2000 and became his lover, the report said. Fan later introduced her to the four other mistresses -- two of his employees and two former clients -- with all given a 5,000-yuan (733-dollar) monthly allowance and rent-free apartment, the report said.

However, when Fan's business ran into tough times, he decided to lay off all but one woman, the report said. Fan hired an instructor from a modelling agency to judge a private contest he held at a hotel in May.

Yu was eliminated in the first-round beauty competition and a woman surnamed Liu eventually won after dominating the drinking round, the report said.