Just as the doom and gloom of escalating layoffs continue to send shivering ripples of fear throughout the work force, along comes happy news, yes, just in time for the holiday season. In reading the NY Times’ front page this morning,  in which it wrote, “some companies are nipping at labor costs with measures less drastic than wholesale layoffs,” I found renewed hope in Corporate America.  Apparently certain companies are looking at alternatives to massive layoffs and doing something about it.

For instance, according to the article, Brandeis University proposed that the school’s 300 professors and instructors give up 1 percent of their salary, while Dell extended unpaid holidays, Motorola cut salaries, Honda offered voluntary unpaid vacation time and Nevada Casinos offered a four-day workweek.

Just consider, that instead of adding thousands of people to the unemployment lines, which in turn would cut badly into consumer spending, not to mention the emotional toll of “pink slips”, these companies have asked all of their employees to join together in making it possible to ward off layoffs. How admirable is that?

But I believe that it is not just altruistic on the part of these companies.  It is simply smart. They know the value of keeping a productive and loyal labor force and it will be companies such as these that will be in the front lines when the economy roars back.

According to the NY Times, there are also many midsize and small companies trying tactics that nip and tuck, but don’t immediately slash the work force. Corporate America can take note and follow the lead of these exemplary companies.   If enough companies move in that direction, Corporate America will be doing its part in helping the economy sputter back.

It’s a funny thing about empathy.

We can read about a famine that has affected millions in Rwanda, or about the more than 100,000 Iraqis that have lost their lives in the six-year war or the thousands of wounded American soldiers — and we are aghast, and deeply sorrowed.

But frankly, we then move on with our own private lives.

However, when we watch the 4-year old girl who got blinded in a Baghdad suicide bomb attack, in which she also lost her mother as seen on CNN, or the mother living in an SUV in Los Angeles with a sick child, our hearts cry out at the human tragedy and we can relate personally to it. With a shudder, we recognize that, but for the grace of God, it could be us. The human element is such that we can have a deeper emotional connection to the plight of a single human being, child or not, than vast numbers that make the news.

It is easy to understand. Large numbers don’t have a face.  Large numbers become somebody else’s problem.

So too, are the numbers of layoffs in the work force.  Just consider the daily numbers in the news. Today maybe 12,000, tomorrow maybe another 6,500, and next day or month, what numbers will we hear about?  But it is just numbers and they too, become faceless.

Journalists have always known this. They have a way of telling a story that puts a face on the problem. PR professionals can take note. It is about the human element, yes, even in the corporate world.

The holiday season always offers a pause for reflection.  This year it can be about extending the human capacity for empathy.

Couldn’t resist the following observation…

Not since the 50’s was a shoe used so publicly as a prop, as the one that was so unsuitably hurled at President Bush yesterday in Baghdad.

The last time a shoe made the international news (other than fashion, of course) was back in the Cold War days when the then, Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, came to the US and made a historic appearance to address the United Nations and famously took off his shoe and slammed it on the podium in front of him, followed by waving it above his head in an uncontrollable show of rage against the US.  Actually, history has proven that he made a laughing stock of himself, but the shoe legend continued for decades.

And now, we have another shoe, front and center in the news.

What’s with this shoe business?

Which brings up the point about diplomacy and dialogue, which I believe, can fend off a shoe flying rage and bring rational sense to the world.  Look, we have choices.  The upcoming holidays can give us pause for reflection in the face of all the predicted doom and gloom, joblessness and despair.  We can refocus on ideas and the human intellect, the great differentiator in the animal kingdom and see the light, no, create the path to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway, thoughts for holidays…

It seems that the 24/7 time frame for the workplace is alive and well and needs careful attention…no sleeping dogs here…

Just consider the recent Twitter conversations that bubbled up surrounding Ford’s letter over copyright violations, which was picked up by a fansite, which then caused several other fansites to have ‘hissy fits’ thinking that they would be affected by whatever triggered the letter in the first place.  That whole brouhaha was about misinformation and jumping to conclusions, but had Ford’s Scott Monty not been on Twitter and dealt with it transparently and intelligently right then and there, the brewing controversy could still be spewing.

So, how does one stay at the helm 24/7?

It is a matter of re-allocating marketing dollars, allowing for a new line item – more people.  Social media is seen as an inexpensive tool to reach audiences.  But the format also allows for rumors to fly, for misinformation to spread, for misperceptions to be formed. The real costs lie in manning the social media ‘rudder’  — people.  It is a matter of having watchdogs on hand to take care of a company’s back – and yes 24/7.

Anyway, our industry could be in the position of delivering more jobs.  Wouldn’t that be a great turn of events?

As reported by John Hendren on ABC World News with Charles Gibson, (12/7/08), President-Elect Obama, in an interview with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press, dismissed comparisons to the Great Depression, saying “I think it’s important for us to remember that, as tough as times are right now …, they’re nothing compared to what the greatest generation went through.”

So I got to thinking… Why not look back into history to see what sacrifices were both demanded of, and made by, the greatest generation and then take an example from it as to how courageously and intelligently we can meet the challenges that are predicted for all of us for ’09 and beyond?  What’s stopping us from rising to the opportunity today of becoming the next edition of the “greatest generation?”

I say that for fear of tomorrow, we are handicapping ourselves today.

Of course, I can only speak in specifics within our industry.  For example, just last week I spoke to a colleague, who is a PR industry leader and owns her own PR firm on the east coast, who said that she projected a 25% drop in clients in ’09.  Maybe…

Look, there’s no question that clients’ budgets are, or will be, slashed.  But those of us who will remain relatively unscathed when we crawl out of this recession (whenever that may be) will have had a constructive plan as to how to manage our businesses through the recession.

Just as we expected from the Big Three to have a plan to deal with their restructuring before given a handout, so should PR agencies lay out a plan as to how to do more for our clients, with less and accept the financial consequences with courage and smarts.  As partners with our clients, we have the responsibility to design a plan for guiding them through the present economic minefields, strategically figuring out what is to be done with those slashed budgets, while still maintaining a company’s PR momentum — as intact as possible.

As an agency, it is also our responsibility to have an internal plan, one that does not immediately consider layoffs as an easy solution to revenue cuts (which will only contribute, in its own small way, to the downward spiral of the economy and the upward spiral of unemployment ranks), but rather a plan that includes sharing the financial burden across the firm, with each staffer accepting their own small part.  Moreover, if there are extra professional hours to be had from clients’ budget cuts, this would be a good time to stop the hand-wringing and swelling fear and put those hours to use in a way that gives back to society, and yes, without revenue. It is a contribution to society that will surely pay off.   This is not altruistic, just an insurance option for survival.

Is it about sacrifices? Yes.  But as history attests, it’s how we deal with it.  Maybe our generation will yet earn a position side by side with the “greatest generation.”  It would be an honor.

Only time will tell, but the opportunity is there…

Much ridicule has been heaped upon the ill-fated trip that the Big Three took to Washington DC to ask for a hand out.  No need to add to that…

However, until I read John Steele Gordon’s column in Forbes entitled “The Marie Antoinettes Of Detroit,” in which he commented about the private jet trip as the “dumbest public relations move since Marie Antoinette suggested the French peasantry eat cake,” did I realize that curiously enough, in all the conversations surrounding that extravagant lifestyle show of these three Big Honchos, did I hear any mention or criticism of their PR team.  Could it be that the culture of arrogance that has permeated those companies has also influenced their PR advisors, leaving their own reality check on a back burner?  What were they thinking?  As President-elect Barack Obama put it in a recent Barbara Walters interview on ABC, “what tone were they listening to?”

It would seem that they could have dusted off some basic PRisms, and used them to calculate some strategies such as:
1.    Consider every action taken by a corporate leader against the worst possible scenario and then devise strategies to head off any potential criticism or disaster.
2.    Pre-determine desired response and then plan how to achieve it.

Now comes the news that GM has pulled its advertising for the SuperBowl because its has no new cars to roll out.  Really?  If memory serves me correctly, there have been several seasons when they had no new cars to roll out, but kept their ad schedules intact.

Here’s a suggestion: adhere to the law of the jungle – survival of the fittest or, in other words, adapt or loose.  It may be the best of all times to humanize the big behemoth and do the obvious – lead by example.