2020年经济学人 巴托比专栏--被疫情颠覆的日常,远程办公是我们最后的倔强(2)

Despite its advantages, a remote workforce¹, or one consisting of more outsiders, brings challenges for managers, as the third report demonstrates. The CMI surveyed 2,300 managers and employees. The results highlight just how important effective communication, and concern for workers’ well-being², is to good management. They also unearthed³ an interesting difference of perspective: nearly half of senior executives thought they were engaging employees more in decisionmaking since the pandemic, but only 27% of employees agreed.

正如第三份报告所显示的那样，尽管有其优势，但远程办公的劳动力或更多受雇的外部员工给管理者带来了挑战。特许管理学院调查了2300名经理和员工。研究结果突显了有效沟通和关注员工福利对良好管理的重要性。他们还发现了一个有趣的观点差异：自从新冠疫情以来，近一半的高管认为他们让员工更多地参与了决策，但只有27%的员工表示同意。

The survey also shows that the experience of remote working has not been uniform. Of those working virtually, 69% of women with children want to work at least one day from home when the pandemic ends, compared with 56% of men with kids. These women have had less contact with managers during the lockdown than their male peers have had, suggesting they have been neglected.

调查还显示，人们对于远程工作的体验并不统一。在那些线上办公的员工中，69%的有孩子的女性希望在疫情结束后每周至少有一天居家办公，而有孩子的男性的占比只有56%。与男性同事相比，这些女性在封锁期间与管理者的接触较少，这表明了女性受到忽视的情况。

Strikingly, 48% of British staff from minority ethnic⁴ backgrounds thought that workplace culture had got better during the crisis, against 34% of all employees. This suggests something was wrong with office culture beforehand: the CMI survey found that black employees were more likely than any other ethnic group to feel their manager did not trust them to undertake their role.

值得注意的是，48%有少数族裔背景的英国员工认为，危机期间的职场文化有所改善，而在所有员工中，这一比例为34%。这表明之前的职场文化出了问题：特许管理学院的调查发现，相比任何其他种族的员工，黑人员工更容易感到管理者对他们工作能力的不信任。

So managers have a lot more work to do in responding to the pandemic. Executives need to tailor their behaviour to individual employees’ needs. Ironically, though managers may have feared that remote working would allow employees to slack, it may be that managers have not been up to the challenge. Bosses may have spent too much time videoconferencing and not enough speaking directly with subordinates.

因此，管理者在应对疫情方面还有很多工作要做。高管们需要根据员工的个人需要调整自己的行为。具有讽刺意味的是，尽管管理者可能担心远程办公会让员工懈怠，但这可能是因为管理者没有准备好应对挑战。老板们可能花了太多的时间在视频会议上，而没有足够的时间直接与下属交谈。

Ask someone what it is like to work at a firm and they may respond by saying what the offices are like—whether they are cramped⁵, in a nice location and so on. In a world of remote working, employees may stress instead how the employer communicates with them. Not so much “management by walking around” as management by phoning—or Zooming— around. Time to get dialling.

询问某人在公司工作是什么感觉，他们可能会回答说办公室是什么样子的——办公室是否拥挤，办公位置是否良好等等。而在远程工作的世界里，员工可能会强调雇主是如何与他们沟通的。与其说是“走动管理”，不如说是通过打电话或Zoom管理。又到了拨号时间。

1 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

2 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

3 unearthed   

出土的（考古）

参考例句：

• Many unearthed cultural relics are set forth in the exhibition hall. 展览馆里陈列着许多出土文物。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

4 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

5 cramped   

a.狭窄的

参考例句：

• The house was terribly small and cramped, but the agent described it as a bijou residence. 房子十分狭小拥挤，但经纪人却把它说成是小巧别致的住宅。
• working in cramped conditions 在拥挤的环境里工作