Layoffs, underemployment and a still-meager safety net aren’t hurting only U.S. workers. The failure to provide much economic security for average Americans is likely to wound companies and the economy overall. It’s probably doing so already.

What I’m getting at is the way shell-shocked, struggling individuals may make less-than-optimal choices because they’ve become so risk averse. When people pick jobs out of fear or an obsession with financial safety, they often end up in positions where they don’t thrive. And by passing on a job that would have been a better fit but may have entailed a bit less money or more risk, they deny that firm an engaged, enthusiastic employee. It’s suboptimal all around.

Even top performers are saying security is a top priority. In fact, they want it more than do employees overall, according to a recent survey by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Job security was cited as a reason for joining an organization by 37 percent of top-performing employees.

That made it the second-ranking reason after “nature of work” for top performers. Thirty-three percent of all employees cited job security, tying for second place. Employers, meanwhile, appear clueless about this stability focus: Security didn’t make the top-five list for employers when asked why employees join an organization.

The recent career deliberations of a friend flesh out the point. He had two job offers in hand: a stable job he didn’t think he’d love and a position at a startup that is riskier but the kind of work he’s been fantasizing about. He eventually went with the startup, but came very close to turning down his dream job.

In particular, at one point he felt he couldn’t take the post without a guarantee of severance pay in case the job fell through. This demand, which the startup would not agree to, is unusual for midcareer business consultants like my friend.

But it is understandable given his recent economic experience. After losing his job nearly a year ago, he has been unemployed or underemployed as an independent consultant despite holding an advanced degree with a focus on China from an elite university. Without work, he has faced the loss of a cherished private school for his kids, home foreclosure and strained relations at times with his spouse.

And yet a dispassionate look at my friend’s work situation showed him getting an increasing number of consulting projects, two recent full-time job offers (the ones he was weighing) and growing economies in both the U.S. and China. His prospects would be good even if the startup flopped in a few months.

In other words, he was approaching his job choice with the scars of economic insecurity distracting him. And they came close to keeping him from a choice likely to benefit both him and the startup.

The severance issue was not my friend’s only concern with the startup job, but it was a major one. Eventually, he dropped that demand and took the leap. But how many of the country’s millions of unemployed and underemployed are going for the safer bet? How many will go for the safer bet in the months and years ahead?

Yes, we’ve made some improvements to the safety net. But jobless payments remain proportionately lower than those during the Great Depression, and health care continues to be a concern for many.

Companies overall were quick to ax employees during the recession. And they are rehiring slowly.

If economic life for Americans is akin to climbing a mountain, we’ve allowed that journey to become very hazardous, very slippery. It’s easy to lose your footing or get knocked off your feet and tumble down far. Firms want people who are eager to take risks and rise to new heights. But don’t be surprised if battered and bruised Americans instead seek refuge in low-lying caves—to the detriment of all.

Recent reports about workplace morale make it clearer still that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of the disposable employee.

Employees feeling more secure on the job are much more satisfied with their work, according to a study published last month by job board SnagAJob.com. The survey of about 1,000 U.S. workers found that 52 percent reported a decline in job security compared with a year ago—and of those, just 49 percent expressed happiness with their jobs. Of those who think their jobs are more secure, 70 percent say they are happy at work.

Job happiness is a close cousin to employee engagement—the commitment employees feel to their employers and how much extra effort they give. Employee engagement data in recent months has been mixed but on the whole indicates a decline. And drooping engagement weighs on the bottom line.

Earlier this year, the Corporate Executive Board said the percentage of employees showing high levels of discretionary effort had dropped from 17.2 percent in 2005 to 6.5 percent, and that the decline in engagement is decreasing overall productivity by 3 to 5 percent.

A new report from staffing firm Randstad, on its surface, finds a countervailing trend. Employee morale in the U.S. is at its highest since 2004, says the survey of about 2,200 employees and some 830 employers. What’s more, 57 percent of employees say they are loyal to their firms, up 8 percentage points from last year.

But Randstad finds rockiness amid the rah-rah. Just a quarter of employees say their companies are loyal to them. And, the report notes, a morale boost is typical in a recession.

“This isn’t really a picture of satisfaction,” the study says. In the wake of widespread layoffs, “remaining workers are happy to have their jobs, but they feel the loss of their workplace families,” the report says. “They are optimistic about their futures, but the feeling is slipping every year.”

Americans’ resiliency has been battered by three decades of firms treating employees as disposable, as author Louis Uchitelle puts it.

It’s as if workers want to love their employers, but keep getting spurned by firms fundamentally focused on short-term results in a cutthroat global economy.

It’s a testament to Americans’ hopefulness and sense of dignity that, if anything, workers want more from workplaces these days. The Randstad survey found that 80 percent of employees say their ideal employer “cares about their employees as much as their customers,” up from 66 percent last year. That was the top response, tied with “delivers on its promise to customers,” which was up 15 percentage points from last year. It seems that in the wake of fraud in the housing and financial fields, workers are putting a higher value on a firm’s integrity.

Employers shouldn’t guarantee employment, as they all but did decades ago. But they can back policies to strengthen our still-skimpy safety net. And they can handle their workforce with greater care.

Even if we’re headed toward organizations with a smaller “core” of employees, those workers likely will perform best with a degree of job security and a culture of true respect for customers and workers.

Consultants Laurie Bassi and Dan McMurrer see demographic and other trends pushing organizations to be “worthy.” I’ve called for a “21st century connection”  with workers.

Another way to frame the issue is to move to seeing employees as “recyclable.” That is, don’t trash them to make the quarterly numbers. Do your best to keep them, and keep helping them upgrade their skills to fit your changing business needs.

Companies hoping to thrive in the recovery ahead would do well to get out in front of the pendulum’s return. Ever more data indicates the era of the disposable employee is coming to an end.

A new picture of the economy is emerging, one that may threaten large organizations when it comes to talent.

Companies keep cutting workers during the recession, and indications are they won’t rehire many during a recovery. A report this month from consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide finds that 43 percent of firms expect a permanent decrease in staff size in three to five years compared with pre-economic crisis levels. Twenty-nine percent expect a permanent increase in staff size, and 28 percent expect no change.

What this means is a large pool of “unintentional entrepreneurs” is forming and will grow. Many high-quality people may choose never to return to the large companies that cut them loose and now show disdain toward hiring them.

Earlier this year, Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson saw an economic tectonic shift in the works. Bigger corporations, he argued, have to make bigger, riskier bets with lower payoffs. And amid fast-paced change, larger organizations are likely to become less flexible given increased regulation.

“[T]he next new economy, the one rising from the ashes of this latest meltdown, will favor the small,” Anderson wrote in May.

Many top employees could be headed to new startups. Earlier this year, the Corporate Executive Board research firm found that one in four high-potential employees plan to quit over the next 12 months. As disturbing, the report found that disengaged workers are 31 percent less likely to quit than they were in 2006.

No wonder the study found that engaging employees was the top priority for this year among global heads of HR.

The recession could be propelling the workplace toward a future envisioned by experts polled by Workforce Management last year: clusters of core employees and satellites of transient talent helping with short-term needs.

What is a Global 1,000 company to do? In general, large firms will want to get their culture headed in the right direction—toward a team orientation and history-making mind-set described by authors Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright in their 2008 book Tribal Leadership.

But in the wake of heightened distrust toward business and the apparent rise in employee disengagement during the downturn, U.S. companies may first need to establish a new kind of compact with workers.

More than a specific contract with an individual or bargaining unit, I’m talking about the overall principles that guide a firm’s relationship with employees. In the last three decades, the compact has shifted from one grounded in a degree of economic security for workers to one more about arm’s-length, transactional ties with employees. Layoffs became ubiquitous and health care and retirement risks were pushed onto employees in the quest for higher profits.

But it’s becoming clear that this treatment of workers has its limits. An employee-employer bond built for lasting success, it seems to me, would include a bias toward sustained connections, transparency, shared decision-making and concern for the “whole” worker—including their overall economic security and the well-being of their community. These principles should lead to trust, engagement, productivity and even greatness.

Creating such a 21st century connection with employees is a major undertaking. But especially if small becomes huge in the economy of tomorrow, large organizations will need to think big today.

Recent grim economic news amounts to a test for companies regarding their workforces.

Will firms take a short-term, panicked approach, axing people and valuable programs to shore up earnings over the next several quarters? Or will they act according to a long-term vision, where they live up to claims of treating people as “their greatest asset” even at the expense of short-term profits?

The stakes are big, and could well determine which firms emerge as the places with the most employee engagement, the best ability to attract talent and the greatest sustainable performance.

Signs of a double-dip recession or protracted downturn include the June employment situation. U.S. job losses in June outpaced those in May, reversing several months of improving payroll job declines.

It’s hard to judge how employers have handled the economic troubles so far with respect to their people. On the one hand, there’s evidence firms rushed to cut employees—72 percent of firms surveyed by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide in April had laid off employees or otherwise reduced their workforce.

But there also are indications of sound responses. A May report from consulting firm Towers Perrin (which plans to merge with Watson Wyatt) found that 74 percent of employees agree their company’s structure facilitates efficient operations, up from 66 percent in the last quarter of 2008 and 58 percent in the first quarter of 2008, “suggesting the latest rounds of restructuring have been done thoughtfully and in a manner that doesn’t automatically demand doing more with less.” In addition, company interest in furloughs—which can preserve morale if used instead of a layoff—has grown.

Towers Perrin found that employee engagement globally held steady between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of this year. But polling firm Gallup found a slight drop in engagement among U.S. workers between July 2008 and March 2009.

And the Corporate Executive Board research group found that the percentage of employees globally displaying high levels of discretionary effort dropped sharply between 2005 and the first quarter of 2009.

By now it’s pretty clear that engagement can be a key to company success, and a management model focused on engaged, involved employees seems likely to be the best bet for tomorrow’s fast-paced global economy.

In this light, trimming jobs from already lean firms is risky. Gallup has found that organizations with a layoff or downsizing saw the level of “actively disengaged” employees rise by 3 percentage points, to 24 percent.

It’s possible to avoid an engagement drop with a layoff, says Jim Harter, chief scientist for Gallup’s workplace management and well-being practice. Experts including Harter suggest management explain the rationale for any downsizing to employees.

Some companies may have to cut people in the coming weeks or months just to stay afloat. There are no easy answers in this ugly economy. But it may be time to suck it up and hold on to the employees that firms profess to value so highly. The long-term payoff—in engagement, in reputation and in performance—could be much bigger than the short-term pain.

Growing attention to furloughs in recent months suggests some companies are getting back to basics about how to treat their employees.

Reducing workers’ scheduled hours can help businesses cut costs amid the recession. But furloughs also preserve ties with employees in an old-fashioned way that may pay off today.

An April survey of U.S. companies by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that 17 percent had used mandatory furloughs, up from 11 percent in February. Another 4 percent expected to implement a mandatory furlough sometime in the following 12 months.

Framed as an alternative to layoffs, furloughs can play a big role in bolstering morale. That’s a point I make in a paper that will be available later this month as part of a webcast on furloughs. In the course of writing that paper, I learned that door and window manufacturer Pella has utilized mandatory and voluntary furloughs this year.

In some cases, noble intentions motivated employees. “People are saying, ‘I can afford to take some time off, because I’ve got a co-worker with young kids to feed,’ ” company spokeswoman Kathy Krafka Harkema told me. “It’s really brought out the best in people.”

In a way, furloughs are from an earlier era. They’ve been used for decades in manufacturing and in the airline industry to deal with slumping demand. But furloughs—and the ways they keep employees and firms connected through hard times—fit today’s growing recognition of the power of relationships.

Furloughs are of a piece with new corporate social networks designed to strengthen ties among co-workers and forge them with alumni, as well as with the rise of LinkedIn and Facebook as recruiting and business development tools.

I recently heard interesting comments on the significance of social networking and employer-employee bonds from Allen Stone, an HR professional with 40 years in the field. Stone said he sees the explosive growth of Twitter and the like as a consequence of younger people seeking out secure relationships. He says they often didn’t have them in their families, and now struggle to find them with employers.

“The younger generation will move around every two to three years just looking for that stability because they didn’t have it in their homes,” he says. “That’s what they’re looking for—those connections. We all look for that.”

Stone, who was laid off from a mining company this year and is looking for work, says a major challenge for companies coming out of the recession will be to restore a sense of loyalty. Companies “can’t afford the continued chaos of people leaving,” he says. “We need to get back to the basics.”

The furlough is a form of those basics. So is providing a degree of employment stability for workers, so they feel secure enough to focus on their work and inspired to put in extra effort for the firm.

Is your organization getting back to people management basics?