如何轉變我們的工作方式：上四歇三是否可行？
How to transform the way we work: scrap Fridays
導讀:一周的最後一個工作日是漫長艱辛的。但是，使用技術實現智能工作可以縮短員工的工作時間-並使公司獲利。紐西蘭一家公司已完成「上四歇三」制度試運行，並對成果表示樂觀。
The worst time in the world to get anything done is on a Friday afternoon. Shoulders drop, spirits rise, thoughts inexorably start drifting towards a sunny beer garden. Suddenly, nothing seems so urgent that it couldn』t probably wait. Wise employers have long learned not to fight the Friday feeling.
世界上完成任何一項任務最糟糕的時刻就是在周五下午了。肩膀下垂，精神飛揚，思緒無情地開始漂向陽光明媚的啤酒花園。突然間，似乎沒有什麼比這更急不可待的了。明智的僱主早就學會了不要和周五的感覺作鬥爭。
Even in the workaholic 1980s, Fridays used to be dress-down days, the one-time buttoned-up bankers were free to wear their chinos. And despite the fact that millions no longer work Monday to Friday, they』re still the day of choice in many offices for working from home – the one time you can reliably get a seat on a commuter train, or a space in a railway car park.
即使在工作狂熱的20世紀80年代，周五一度是人們著便裝的日子，一貫衣著考究的銀行家可以自由穿著斜紋棉布褲。儘管數百萬人已不再從周一到周五一直工作，周五依然是許多辦公室員工選擇在家工作的一天-這天你可以放心地在通勤列車上找到座位，或在鐵路汽車公園找到空位。
Meanwhile the cereal giant Kellogg』s is into its 15th year of 「summer hours」, an ingenious scheme that allows office-based staff to knock off at lunchtime on Fridays in July and August. It』s more than worth the company』s while, apparently, thanks to savings from reduced absenteeism and the fact staff tend to work twice as hard on Friday mornings to get everything done before the weekend. But what if a four-day week could one day become the norm, all year round?
與此同時，穀物巨頭Kellogg』s進入「夏令時」的第15個年頭，這是一個精巧的計劃，允許辦公室工作人員在7月和8月的周五午餐時間下班。顯然，公司是非常值得這麼做的，在於曠工下降會帶來節省，也基於工作人員在周五早上傾向於比平時勤勉兩倍的工作態度在周末前完成所有工作。 但是，如果全年一周只工作四天成為常態會怎樣呢？
Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand company managing wills and estate planning, made headlines around the world this week by offering hundreds of staff?just that. Those taking part in the experiment were paid for a five-day week, but allowed to clock up only four days』 work so long as they got an agreed amount done in the time.
Perpetual Guardian是一家管理遺囑和財產規劃的紐西蘭公司，本周允諾其數百名員工一周只用工作四天，成為轟動世界的頭條新聞。那些參加實驗的人每周都拿到五天的薪水，但他們只要完成額定任務，就只需工作四天。
Unsurprisingly the number of employees who felt they had a good work-life balance shot up from just more than half to over three-quarters: stress levels fell; feelings of stimulation and commitment at work rose; and staff felt generally happier with their lives. But crucially, the firm reckons productivity also grew by 20%, thanks to staff working more efficiently while they were actually there. At any rate it seems to have worked out well enough for the company』s founder, Andrew Barnes, to announce that he wants to see the experiment extended throughout the company.
不出所料，那些認為自己能很好平衡工作與生活的員工人數從僅僅過半上升到四分之三有餘：壓力水平下降; 工作中的激勵感和承諾感上升; 員工普遍的生活幸福感強了。但至關重要的是，該公司承認其生產率也提高了20％，這要歸功於員工在實際工作時更有效率。無論如何，對於該公司創始人安德魯·巴恩斯（Andrew Barnes）而言，這似乎已經做得很好了，他宣布他希望這個實驗進而可以跟進到全公司。
And who doesn』t dream, in the dead zone that is a hot Friday afternoon, of something like this? One in 10 Britons not only want to work fewer hours but would take a pay cut to do it, according to the Office for National Statistics – a trade-off that is particularly alluring for working parents. Somehow four days feels just part-time enough to ease the nagging guilt about not seeing the kids, but not so part-time that you』re out of the work loop.
在周五下午炎熱的死亡區，誰不夢想這樣的事情？十分之一的英國人不僅希望減少工作時間，而且不惜以減薪為代價，據國家統計局的數據顯示—這對於在職父母來說尤其具有吸引力。不知何故，工作四天感覺像是兼職，足以緩解因為沒有看到孩子而感到煩人的內疚感，而又不至於讓你感覺已脫離了工作周期。
But this goes much further than parents, or indeed Fridays. Older people who don』t want, or can』t afford, to stop working completely are often looking for a way of gradually tapering off their hours. Four-day weeks are taking off too among doctors, teachers and other well-paid professionals juggling impossible demands all day long, who use them as a way of coping with stress and avoiding burnout.
但這不僅僅是對於父母而言或簡單的周五工作了。不想或不能承受完全停止工作的老年人經常在尋找逐漸減少工作時間的方法。 醫生、教師和其他整天都在處理不可能要求的高薪教授都在要求為期四天的工作，用作應對壓力和避免倦怠的方法。
Even if you have to mark papers or chase up hospital referral letters on your day off, that still beats working five days and through the weekend. When the King』s Fund surveyed trainee doctors recently, it found only a third were planning to work full-time even straight after qualifying; they』d seen how intense older doctors』 working days had become, and worried about making mistakes under that kind of pressure. No wonder the New Zealand experiment has touched a nerve.
即使你必須在休息日標記文件或追查醫院推薦信，仍然好過工作五天甚至周末加班。King』s Fund最近調查實習醫生時發現，只有三分之一的人計劃在直接取得任職資格後全職工作; 他們看到了老醫生工作日的緊張程度，並擔心在這種壓力下會犯錯誤。難怪說紐西蘭實驗已經觸到了關鍵話題。
The old dream of more time, meanwhile, now comes tinged with a new economic urgency. What we now think of as a 「normal」 weekend is at least in part a legacy of the Great Depression, which created an urgent need to share out what paid labour there was and helped shrink what had previously been a six-day standard working week into five. If doomsday predictions about machines gobbling up human jobs faster than they can be replaced are borne out, governments may soon be faced with equally pressing reasons to spread work around rather than let resentment fester between those who have too much of it, and those who don』t have nearly enough.
與此同時，渴望擁有更多時間的舊時夢想如今看來略帶新的經濟緊迫性。我們現在認為的「正常」周末至少部分是大蕭條的遺產，其創造了一種對有償勞動力進行分配並幫助縮短之前為期六天的標準工作周為五天的迫切需要。如果世界末日關於機器取代人類工作的速度超過機器能被取代的預測得到證實，那麼政府很快就會面臨同樣迫切的理由來推廣工作，而不是在那些有太多工作的人和那些幾乎沒有足夠工作的人之間累積更多怨恨。
But if the optimists are right, and technological advances do eventually unlock the sort of increased prosperity they sometimes have in the past, then arguably the case for using that wealth to open up new choices is even greater. (And it is all about choices, of course; nothing』s stopping anyone from spending weekends in the office if that』s what they really want.)
但是，如果樂觀主義者是正確的，技術進步最終會釋放他們過去不時出現的那種日益繁榮，那麼可以說利用這些財富開闢新選擇的情況就更多了。（當然，這完全關乎個人選擇;如果在辦公室度過周末就是他們真正想要的，那沒有什麼可以阻止他們那樣做。）
Key to the success of the New Zealand experiment was employees coming up with suggestions for working more efficiently, including automating some tasks that had previously been done manually.
紐西蘭實驗成功的關鍵是員工提出了讓工作更有效率的建議，包括自動化一些他們之前手動完成的任務。
It』s a timely reminder that technology doesn』t always have to be the enemy – that if used wisely it may sometimes allow humans to do more interesting things with their lives both at home and at work. Stripping routine, boring chores out of otherwise interesting jobs could at least free up those lucky enough to have them to spend more time doing the things machines don』t excel at but humans find satisfying – such as exercising complex judgments or interacting face to face. We could use the insights provided by big data, meanwhile, to work smarter rather than harder.
這是一個及時的提醒，即科技並不總是必須成為敵人-如果明智地使用科技，它有時可以讓人類在家庭和工作生活中做更多有趣的事情。免去例行公事和無聊雜務，轉而就可以稱為有趣的工作至少可以讓那些足夠幸運的人騰出時間，進而可以花更多的時間去做機器不擅長但人類覺得令人滿意的事情-比如去做複雜的判斷或面對面交流。與此同時，我們可以利用大數據提供的見解來更聰明地而不是更努力地工作。
來源：愛語吧英語頭條
TAG:英語頭條 |