One of the active debates going on in the world of work right now (given the horrible state of the economy) is whether flexible work (aka "telecommuting" or "web commuting") is a useful alternative to layoffs and other ways of cutting operational costs.

I'm clearly a believer in flexible work - and there's lots of evidence that flexible work programs do help reduce costs and maintain the corporate culture and capability in the face of tough times.

But recently Kevin Powell (a senior architect and researcher at the General Services Administration) pointed me to an article published in the Washington Post suggesting that many employees are getting nervous about the "out of sight, out of mind" problem at a time when their companies are actually laying people off  ("As cuts loom, will working from home lead to a layoff?" - free registration may be required to access the article).

Here's the basic theme:

In good times, workers frequently seized the opportunity to use "flex time" and family leave, to telecommute and to take paid sick days. But, according to workplace consultants, human resources specialists and employees themselves, those days are slipping away. More workers are giving up those arrangements, or resisting asking about them in the first place, out of fears that doing so will make them appear less committed to their work and therefore more expendable.

I can certainly understand the employees' fears, but they should be unfounded (not that that they are, of course).

In fact, we recently "went public" at the 2009 IFMA Industries Forum conference with a story about a client we've worked with for almost three years that has realized more than a 40% return on investment, higher productivity, with no loss of employee engagement (see "Getting Real:  Transforming the Workplace at SCAN Health" on the Future of Work blog for the full story).

In my humble opinion, flexible work is actually a far better solution for companies than layoffs (assuming that there's enough work to be done). Layoffs are far more expensive than most managers realize, and the employees who leave take incredible working knowledge (and good will) out the door with them.

Add to that the damage that layoffs do to an organization's culture and its commitment to the future, and I'll bet that keeping people around, even if on a part-time basis, is a far more cost-effective strategy than wholesale layoffs.

For more of that kind of thinking - and to counter the WaPo story, see "Rethinking Redundancy," by Bay Jordan, that appeared in the January 2009 Future of Work Agenda newsletter.

And then there was the story in Business Week back in late February titled Telecommuting:  Once a Perk, Now a Necessity. That article also mentions SCAN Health, and suggests that flexible/mobile work programs can be a very effective means of reducing operating costs.

But we usually focus mostly on the corporate benefits of telecommuting, even though there are many positive aspects to it for employees too. But,  unfortunately, those employee fears that it's the first step towards a layoff are very understandable, because far too many managers still don't "get it."

It's an unfinished story, but I certainly find it disappointing that so many companies still seem to want to take the easy way out.

Photo by: rbrwr

James Ware is a cofounder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work.  He has more than 30 years experience in research, executive education, consulting, and management, including five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Read his blog at