5 Misconceptions About Remote Work对远程办工的五个误解

文/卡拉·L.米勒 译/张梓晴

By Karla L. Miller

I used to fit my life around my job.Now I’m accustomed to fitting my job into my life.

2 Two years of working remotely has caused that shift, and I don’t know if I’m even able to go back to the way I juggled work and life before. I guarantee I’m not the only person feeling that way.

3 According to the Pew Research Center, only 23 percent of workers in jobs that could be done from home were frequently working remotely before the coronavirus pandemic. During the pandemic, that number peaked at 71 percent and is currently at 59 percent.While a majority of those workers early in the pandemic said they were working from home because their offices were closed, the proportion has flipped, and now the majority say they’re working from home because they want to. Remote work has evolved from a rare ad-hoc accommodation to a preferred way of life.

4 Of course, certain concerns about the downsides of remote work keep surfacing.

我过去总是在工作中生活。但现在我更习惯于在生活中工作。

2 两年的远程办公促成了这一转变，我甚至不知道自己能否再次像之前那样兼顾工作和生活。我敢保证我不是唯一有这种感觉的人。

3 根据皮尤研究中心的数据，在新冠疫情之前，可以在家完成工作的人，只有23%经常性地远程办公。疫情期间，这个数字达到了71%的峰值，而目前为59%。虽然他们其中的大部分人在疫情初期表示，他们在家工作是因为办公室关闭，但是这个比例反过来了，现在大部分人说他们在家工作是因为想在家工作。远程办公已经从一种少见的临时通融方案演变为一种首选的生活方式。

4 当然，对远程办公弊端的担忧也不断浮现。

Remote work makes it too hard to manage and measure performance.

5 As with most managerial challenges, the solution comes down to training. In a report for the New America Better Life Lab, formerjournalist Brigid Schulte, author of “Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love,and Play When No One Has the Time,”offers an extensively researched toolkit to help managers and businesses adapt to a “corona-normal” way of work that is effective and equitable.

6 Instead of focusing on employee—face time and attendance—Schulte says managers need to be trained to focus on performanceto measure performance. As we’re learning from discussions of shorter workweeks, time spent on the clock is not necessarily the most accurate indicator of productivity. “This is a pivotal moment for business executives,organizational leaders, and managers to reimagine work,” says Schulte.

In-person work is crucial for facilitating random encounters that lead to innovation.

7 It may seem that inspiration, like lightning, strikes unpredictably. But there are ways to create favorable conditions for inspiration besides physically herding everyone into one location for days on end and hoping for sparks.

远程办公让绩效难以管理和衡量。

5 和大多数管理难题一样，最终的解决方案还是培训。前《华盛顿邮报》记者布里吉德·舒尔特，同时也是《不堪重负：如何在有限的时间里好好工作、恋爱和玩耍》的作者，在为新美国美好生活实验室撰写的一份报告中提出了一套经过广泛研究的方法，帮助管理者和企业适应一种公正有效的“新冠常态”工作方式。

6 舒尔特认为管理者需要接受培训，把衡量绩效的关注重点放在员工的产出，而不是员工的投入——坐班时间和出勤。正如我们从缩短一周工作时间的讨论中了解到的，工作时长不一定是衡量生产力最准确的指标。“对于企业高管、组织领导和管理者来说，这是重构工作的关键时刻。”舒尔特说道。

到岗工作是促使创新灵感迸发的关键。

7 灵感似乎像闪电一样，突如其来。但是除了让所有人聚拢在一个地方一连几天，还有一些方法可以为产生灵感创造有利条件。

8Defined, intentional brainstorming sessions with a structured agenda create space to focus and build on ideas that might otherwise flare out. Open chat time before or after virtual meetings offers everyone informal access to leaders. Internal communication channels and discussion boards like Slack can stand in as virtual hallways and water coolers. This opens the floor to everyone who has ideas—not justthosewith the loudest voicesor thechutzpahto buttonholeleadersin passing topitch their ideas.

Truly committed workers will want to return to the office. Those who don’t are less engaged or don’t want to work hard.

9 Multiple studies showing at-home workers put in more hours than they did at the office would suggest otherwise.

10 It’s not that people don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to work harder than is necessary to get the job done. Getting up early for work has a purpose if you’re speaking with people in a different time zone or if that’s when you’re at your sharpest. But having flexible hours serves a purpose, too: minimizing fatigue and schedule conflicts.

8 界定明确、有目的的头脑风暴加上条理清晰的议程可创造空间让人集中捕捉和拓展可能转瞬即逝的种种点子。虚拟会议前后的开放式聊天时间让每个人都能以这种非正式的形式接触到领导者。内部的沟通渠道和讨论区（例如Slack）可以作为虚拟走廊和茶水间取代现实环境。这让每个有想法的人都能自由发言——不只是那些嗓门最大或不管不顾拦着领导推销自己想法的人。

真正尽心尽力的员工会想重返办公室，而不想回办公室的人没有那么敬业或者不想努力工作。

9 多项研究表明，员工在家工作时投入的时间比他们在办公室要多。

10 不是人们不想努力工作，而是只想付出必要的努力完成工作。如果你要和不同时区的人交谈，或者早上是你头脑最敏锐的时候，那么早起上班是有意义的。但是灵活的上班时间也有意义：最大程度地减少疲劳和日程冲突。

11 给工作施加无助于提高绩效的不必要的设想和期望（通勤、早起、领带、高跟鞋、无议程的周会）会削弱员工的积极性。

11 Tacking unnecessary constructsand expectations onto a job that do nothing to enhance performance (commute,early start time, neckties, high-heeled shoes, agenda-less weekly meetings) is what sapsengagement.

Hybrid workplaces create a multi-tier reward structure where in-person workers receive more opportunities than remote workers.

12 Not if you don’t let them. It’s true that promotions and opportunities are often heavily influenced by proximity bias and familiarity bias, relying on subjective measures like “visibility”and “cultural fit.” But that’s passive,lazy management. Good management means quantifying expectations, measuring output rather than input, and getting to know workers well enough to match them with appropriate projects and goals regardless of how often you see their faces.

13 Multi-tier structures already existed in the pre-pandemic office. Workers who were being talked over in meetings, subjected to microaggressions,or having their time and concentration hijacked by passersby were already at a functional disadvantage. Hybrid and remote work can help minimize those disruptions, and virtual interactions can help put workers on more equal footing.As Schulte puts it: “Everyone’s head is the same size in a virtual window.”

混合工作场所创造了一个多层级的奖励结构，到岗员工能比远程办公的员工获得更多的机会。

12 如果你不让这样的事情发生，就不会发生。确实，晋升和机会往往深受邻近性偏见和熟悉度偏见的影响，依赖于主观的评判标准，例如“可见度”和“文化契合度”。但这是被动、懒惰的管理。良好的管理意味着量化期望，衡量员工的产出而不是投入，充分了解员工，使他们与合适的项目和目标相匹配，不管你多久见到他们一次。

13 多层级的奖励结构在疫情前就存在于职场了。那些在会议上被讨论、受到微歧视、时间和注意力被旁人占用的员工已经处于工作劣势。混合和远程办公有助于最大程度地减少这些干扰，虚拟互动有助于员工处于更平等的地位。正如舒尔特所说：“在虚拟窗口中，每个人的头像都是一样的大小。”

Remote workers become disconnected from their colleagues.

14 Digital communication channels can compensate for much of the day-to-day hallway and water-cooler chatter, and they are accessible to everyone regardless of location, status, mobility or other obstacles. But they can’t provide the full 4D immersion of nonverbal human communication, and they don’t work as well for new hires who lack established connections.

15 Periodic, planned in-person gatherings (under coronavirus-safe conditions) can help revive or kick-start connections that solidify over time through follow-up conversations, collaborations and one-on-one meetups—much the same way pre-pandemic networking events and conventions did.

16 In many cases, the problems cited with remote work—“presenteeism,” inequality, disengagement, lack of visibility—existed with the in-person model.Remote work, properly implemented, is increasingly an essential feature of the workplace. We just need to learn to use it properly. ■

远程办公者渐渐与同事脱节。

14 数字通信渠道可以很大程度上弥补无法在走廊和茶水间日常闲聊带来的影响，而且每个人都可以使用，无论他们的位置、身份、活动能力或者其他障碍如何。但是这些数字通信渠道无法提供人类非语言交流的完整4D沉浸感，而且对尚未建立起人脉的新员工来说不太管用。

15 定期、有计划的面对面相聚（在保证防疫安全的情况下）有助于恢复或建立联系，通过后续的对话、合作和一对一会面，随着时间的推移，这些联系得以巩固——和疫情前的社交活动和会议产生的效果几乎一样。

16 在很多情况下，针对远程办公提到的问题——“假性出勤”、不平等、不积极、缺乏可视性——在到岗工作中也存在。妥善执行的远程办公正在成为职场的基本特征。我们只需要学会正确地利用它。 □