As the stream of grim economic and job market news continues, let me throw out an idea I’ve been mulling for a while.

Maybe we need a new metaphor for the way we help workers struggling without a job. Instead of calling it a “safety net,” perhaps we should call it a “safety harness.” By harness, I’m thinking specifically of the gear used by rock and mountain climbers—the belt and straps attached to a safety rope that keep you from falling too far in case you lose your footing.

I think the economic safety harness is a better metaphor because it highlights the responsibility of the individual to get to where they’re going financially. Yes, they may fall—because of their own misstep or economic winds beyond their control—and need the steady hand of society to keep them from tumbling to disaster. But the individual will have to return to the mountain face to continue their ascent.

The economic safety net connotes a kind of passivity. It highlights social cushioning and assistance rather than individual initiative. Indeed, the circus imagery conjured up by a safety net suggests the economy amounts to a tightrope or trapeze act fraught with immense risk.

It’s true that economic risk is increasing for workers around the globe. But the safety net metaphor may exaggerate the peril and the role of luck while downplaying people’s power to control their economic destiny. As a result, I suspect, the phrase itself figures into the reluctance of conservatives especially to provide more generous unemployment benefits.

In my view, an economic safety harness would include expanded unemployment benefits as well as sound training programs, health insurance and decent retirement benefits—a combination which would give people the confidence and tools to take risks and keep climbing toward prosperity.

As it stands, leading economists consider our safety system for displaced workers to be skimpy. Fortifying it is an urgent task. Not only is the job market deteriorating for workers, but increases in unemployment benefits appear to be particularly effective at jump-starting the economy.

The U.S. economic stimulus package—centered on tax rebates—did not extend jobless benefits. There’s been talk about taking that step in a second stimulus plan. But the Bush administration has signaled its opposition to an additional package.

In other words, the administration isn’t eager to improve the “safety net” that catches workers. Would things be different if the president were asked to strengthen the “safety harness” that helps workers stick to their economic journey?

Here’s one explanation why software firm SAP has become one of the world’s leading technology companies over the years: it is a great place to work.

SAP recently was named Germany’s best workplace in the category of companies with more than 5,000 employees by the Great Place to Work Institute Germany. The award marks the fourth consecutive year the Walldorf, Germany-based firm has taken top honors in the contest. SAP, which is one of the biggest sellers of HR software in the world, also was honored as one of the 25 best companies to work for in Japan this year.

If there remain doubters that a positive work climate corresponds to sound business results, consider a recent study from a University of Pennsylvania researcher. Finance professor Alex Edmans found that companies cited as good places to work earn stock returns that are more than double those of the overall market. In particular, companies on Fortune magazine’s annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America between 1998 and 2005 returned 14 percent per year, compared to 6 percent a year for the overall market.

SAP has its critics, and it is locked in a fierce battle with Oracle in the business software market. But over the long haul, it seems to have learned how to adapt. For example, SAP’s old reputation for arrogance (as in, SAP means Shut Up and Pay) has faded and the firm has become a much humbler organization in tune with today’s business focus on collaboration.

Part of SAP’s software success involves learning from its own experience. In an interview a couple years ago, SAP HR head Claus Heinrich told me his operation acts as a lab for the firm. Heinrich has pushed SAP software product managers to include features ranging from a 360-degree feedback process to online pay stubs.

Another key, it seems, is treating its talent as a top priority. As long as SAP keeps winning prizes as a great place to work, I wouldn’t bet against it remaining in the top echelon of the tech world.

As U.S. political leaders hash out how to rev up the economy, they would do well to strengthen the country’s economic safety net at the same time.

Amid housing and financial sector woes and reduced job growth, it’s clear the economy is facing a slowdown if not a downturn.

President Bush last week called for a stimulus package that includes tax incentives for American businesses to invest in their firms this year as well as tax relief for consumers.

“Letting Americans keep more of their own money should increase consumer spending, and lift our economy at a time when people otherwise might spend less,” Bush said in a speech.

That sounds great on the surface. But an across-the-board tax break may not be as effective in sparking spending as help given specifically to low-income or middle-income people, and to people out of work. According to a New York Times report last week, economist Mark Zandi has estimated that increases in unemployment benefits produced about $1.73 in additional demand for every dollar spent, while tax rebates to all citizens generated about $1.19 for every dollar spent. Reductions in tax rates produced just 59 cents per dollar.

Better unemployment benefits dovetail with calls from some leading economists for a stronger safety net. A sturdier net with improved unemployment benefits and training options not only has moral implications but economic growth potential. That can come in the form of both higher-skilled workers and a greater public appetite for global trade, if economic dislocations aren’t devastating.

According to a report last year from the Pew Research Center, just 59 percent of Americans have positive views of trade. That was the lowest figure of 47 countries highlighted in the study on economic globalization. What’s more, the report found that Americans are less supportive of international trade and multinational companies than they were five years ago.

Global trade, despite its downsides, is a powerful engine for generating prosperity. So is a better-trained workforce.

A stronger safety net, therefore, may be more than just a key to short-term economic growth. It could underpin long-term success as well.

A recent article in The New York Times made the case that Denmark’s high income taxes—which underpin a sturdy economic safety net—are pushing young Danes to leave the country.

The story and related concern about the country’s labor supply raise questions about Denmark’s economic “flexicurity.”

Flexicurity refers to a system that gives companies a fair amount of freedom to hire and fire but also provides significant economic security to workers in the form of unemployment and welfare benefits.

Denmark is part of a broader Nordic pattern of paying out substantial unemployment benefits. A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development research group found that Nordic countries provide levels of unemployment benefits that typically are above 70 percent of average after-tax earnings. The report found that the comparable “index of generosity” in the U.S., Greece, Turkey and Italy is below 30 percent.

Denmark also does a lot to help unemployed people get back to work. This includes training programs, subsidies to employers that hire an unemployed person and even grants to fund an unemployed individual’s startup business.

Denmark’s system has the backing of a major industry association, the Confederation of Danish Industries. “The Danish example shows that labour market flexibility and job security are not contradicting terms but go hand in hand,” the Confederation says on its Web site.

And Danish flexicurity has produced impressive results: an egalitarian society with a high-octane economy. Denmark’s economy “barreled ahead in 2006 by 3.5 percent, one of the best performances in Western Europe,” The New York Times says. “The country is effectively at full employment.”

But a cost of the success is high taxes: The marginal tax rate paid by those making more than about $70,000 is 63 percent, according to the Times. The Times story profiles a Denmark-native software engineer who lives in Germany in part to avoid Danish taxes. It also warns of a looming labor shortage in the country.

The Times story comes on the heels of an OECD report last month that cites labor shortages in Denmark. “[W]age growth is now gaining momentum,” the report says, “and loss of competitiveness is expected to weigh down on growth in the coming years.” It predicts Denmark’s GDP growth will slow to less than 1 percent in 2009.

To improve the labor situation, the Confederation of Danish Industries has called for steps including lower taxes, removal of early retirement subsidies and a more effective public sector.

Meanwhile, OECD says one in three of its member countries—which are primarily developed nations—has cut unemployment benefits in the past six years with a view to encouraging unemployed people to find jobs. The pressure is clearly on Denmark to do the same.

Years ago, the Vikings from Denmark and other Scandinavian lands were famous for imposing their will on other parts of the world. Now, in a more peaceful era, how will this small nation respond to the global economic challenges facing it? Will Denmark persuade others to follow its flexicurity lead? Will it follow others in unraveling the safety net? Will it find a new way?

A clear picture is emerging: Art works when it comes to creating a healthy workforce.

In the latest evidence that the world of art can play a vital role in fostering successful workers and a healthy economy, consultant Robert Fritz reports on a Swedish training program. Fritz, a composer and filmmaker as well as a business advisor, writes in his November newsletter that the program took troubled young people and gave them opportunities to write, direct, produce, shoot and act in their own original films.

Because shooting a film requires a sense of the overall outcome, it helped program participants develop a long-term mind-set, Fritz argues. The project also encouraged teamwork and objective, critical thinking, he says.

“Very few approaches have worked with this population,” Fritz writes. “A success rate of even 25% is considered remarkable. Yet, through involving these people in the creative process through filmmaking, over 70 percent of those who participated in the course ended up with jobs or went back to school to get degrees to further their ambitions.”

The filmmaking training program echoes the thinking of author Daniel Pink, whose 2005 book A Whole New Mind argues that artistic, holistic abilities are becoming crucial for success in today’s world. Then there’s scholar Richard Florida, who has made the case that artists are part of a new “creative class” of people with a profound effect on society.

Despite all the data showing that drawing, dancing, drumming and the like are key today, the arts still get short shrift. The impressive program in Sweden, for example, got axed this year, Fritz reports.

“It is hard for most politicians to understand the power of the creative process and how, through learning its principles, some of the most disadvantaged members of society can be transformed into productive contributors,” he writes.

Let’s hope more leaders see the big picture of how the arts fit into the economy.