Crisis management

'And so we had to design at Delta early-out programmes, on top of outplacement. So, for example, early-out programmes where we would say - elect early retirement and we'll give you a five-year pension credit. We would say, we believe that the demand wouldn't stay low forever, just in this crisis. We won't be in this crisis forever, business will come back. We didn't want to let all our employees absolutely go off and away from Delta. And there were certain numbers of employees, based on their age and demographics, that were able to go on the 'follow' programmes we designed. So the human resources consultants - Mercer was one of them - were always at Delta during that period of time.'

She adds: 'I think we must remember that most companies, at least most thinking companies, don't think of their human capital assets as assets that can be merely disposed of, and then be able to be received back. The churn factor is very high. So being much more thoughtful about how you flex your work force to a situation like this will pay massive dividends when growth returns.'

Ms Burns, who started out with Arthur Andersen in Atlanta out of university, rising to become the firm's first female partner in the southern US, is certainly not unfamiliar with tackling corporate crises. One could well say that she chooses to walk straight into one - as she did at Mirant Corp.

But the lessons and skills in crisis management were honed at Delta. Her 18 years at Arthur Andersen were 'a period of growth', she says. 'Arthur Andersen took a kid from college who went to school in the deep south of the United States of America and helped train and grow that kid into a business person.'

She did consulting on both tax and HR issues, 'serving clients, identifying solutions to address issues of the day, watching legislative change and being responsive to legislative change on behalf of clients - very similar to much of what Mercer does today'.

After 18 years, she took those skills 'and a lot of great relationships' to Delta at the start of 1999, and learnt more about perseverance and 'staying calm and collected in a crisis'.

It was an interesting transition, she says. 'In 1998, Delta's net income after taxes was well over US$1 billion. So, very profitable, very successful airline. In 1999, I believe the number was in the order of another billion dollars. In 2000, we had about US$897 million in profit after tax. I remember the numbers because it was pretty impressive. In an airline, if you were generating that kind of income, you were generating very significant cash, very strong. It meant you were able to invest and grow. It was a pretty powerful place to be, pretty exciting times. So my first two and a half years at Delta were in that phase.