Newsweek has a great article about how the down economy is actually helping change the culture of corporate America, by encouraging more flexible workdays:

Now, one in five Americans works mostly nonstandard hours—nights, weekends, or rotating shifts. Experts believe that statistic will balloon in coming years as the Great Recession accelerates a cultural shift in the corporate world, allowing more employees to tailor their work schedules to preference, position, and personal life.

One explanation for this shift has to do with changes in industry, as the economy becomes “less reliant on manufacturing and more dependent on so-called knowledge-based industries,” that don’t require rigid shift schedules.

But another explanation – not mentioned directly in the article – but discussed by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book Womenomics is that more “employers are introducing alternative work schedules, furloughs, unpaid vacation time, and reduced schedules specifically in response to the economic situation.  These firms see flexibility as a way to keep up morale and avoid mass layoffs.”

The fact is employees value time and flexibility, often as much as money.

Certainly, professionals often have more choices – and more flexibility – than other workers.  That’s why men and women benefit when we allow employers and employees to enter freely into contracts that suit both parties’ needs.

Too often we’re eager to regulate the workplace to make it more “fair.” But in reality anti-discrimination legislation and other burdensome regulations actually end up making the cost of employment higher and reducing flexibility.  And that’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it…

Determining the message can be especially tricky, when everyone claims to be on the same side. That’s what I learned today at a conference on immigration reform organized by the Independent Women’s Forum and Georgetown Law School.

As most debates over immigration are, it was a hot-tempered conversation.  But I’ve never seen so much agreement from people who claim to disagree with each other.  That’s because both sides alleged the new Arizona law has been mis-characterized by the press and were now trying to set the record straight.

It’s clear that getting the message out quickly, clearly, and accurately can be an uphill battle. Too often the facts are distorted, the picture is watered-down, and the debate has been lost before it’s even made it to the courtroom.

At the White House Writers Group we take care to make sure we get ahead of the media train so that we’re setting the agenda, not the other side.

Typically companies in Toyota’s position clam up.  Statements are defensive and evasive.  Maintaining such a posture during the long life of a litigation will leave a company’s reputation in badly compromise.

Yet public opinion studies have shown that companies that publicly speak to their problems — that defend themselves but also acknowledge faults and both pledge and work to fix them — build the trust of customers, suppliers, and potential jurors.

Toyota was slow to grasp its problem and engaged in denial for too long.  But now it has put corporate reputation first.  It is right to do so.  And it likely to do better in court as a result.

We don’t wait until the week before the trial or the oral arguments to brief key reporters.  We go to them months before and walk them through the issues in the case.  We get them fully up to speed — early.

Then we keep in touch.

This way, when the action heats up, they will already know our side of the story and our chances of favorable or at least balanced coverage go way, way up.

Even reporters inclined to dislike our corporate clients appreciate being treated with professional respect and, in most cases, respond accordingly.