2020年经济学人 巴托比职场专栏--疫情将加速人们工作方式的变化(1)（在线收听）

Business

来源于《商业》版块

Bartleby

巴托比职场专栏

It’s cold outside

外面很冷

The pandemic will accelerate changes in the way people work

疫情将加速人们工作方式的变化

Crises offer the ultimate test for organisations. Under the pressure of a pandemic, many ?rms will change the way they operate. Three trends that were already in train may be accelerated. First, the way that meetings are undertaken. Second, the way that teams are organised. Third, the widening divide between company insiders, namely full-time employees, and outsiders, such as freelancers and contractors.

危机是对组织的终极考验。在疫情的压力下，许多公司将改变其经营方式。已经在酝酿中的三个趋势可能会加速。第一，开会的方式。第二，团队的组织方式。第三，公司内部人员（即全职员工）和外部人员（如自由职业者和承包商）之间的鸿沟日益扩大。

So many meetings have been conducted via Zoom and other apps that bosses may decide that this is a better approach than gathering everyone together in one fusty room. One estimate is that 2.1m people downloaded the Zoom app on March 23rd, the day Britain went into lockdown and the World Health Organisation warned that the pandemic was “accelerating”. Even when people start returning to o?ces, many of those who did not catch the virus will be nervous about being in close proximity to their colleagues.

许多会议都是通过Zoom和其他应用程序进行的，老板们可能会认为这比把所有人都聚集在一个破旧房间里更好。据估计，有210万人在3月23日下载了Zoom应用程序，这一天，英国进入了禁闭状态，世界卫生组织警告称，新冠病毒大流行正在“加速”。即使当人们开始返回办公室办公时，许多没有感染病毒的人也会在与同事亲密接触时感到紧张。

Remote meetings have drawbacks. Conversations can be clunky and stilted, and not everyone (including Bartleby) welcomes the need to be on camera. So physical meetings will not disappear altogether, but they will be a smaller proportion of the total.

远程会议有不足之处。交谈可能显得笨拙、生硬，不是每个人(包括本专栏记者在内)都不喜欢面对镜头。因此，实体会议不会完全消失，但在总数中所占的比例会更小。

Another change will be a greater focus on communication between key employees. Worker interaction involves a lot more than meetings. Traditionally, people have popped over to each other’s desks for a brief chat. Often, these exchanges are all the more useful when they involve someone from a di?erent department. Such informal interactions are not currently possible.

另一个变化将是更加注重关键员工之间的沟通。员工之间的交流不仅仅是开会。传统的形式是，人们会匆匆走到彼此的办公桌前进行简短的交谈。通常，当涉及到来自不同部门的人员时，这些交流就更有用了。这种非正式的交流目前是不可能的。

Email chains are an imperfect and cumbersome substitute. In the crisis, many ?rms have turned to apps like Slack, which allow teams to communicate on a dedicated forum. Stewart Butter?eld, Slack’s chief executive, says the company started to detect a signi?cant pickup in teams being created in South Korea and Japan in the middle of February. A bigger surge in business began in the week of March 9th, a hint that companies were beginning to take social distancing seriously. All told, use of Slack increased approximately 20% between February 1st and March 25th, while simultaneously connected users increased from 10.5m on March 16th to 12.5m on March 25th.

电子邮件链是一种不完美且笨重的候选产品。在危机中，许多公司转而通过使用像Slack这样的应用程序实现团队在一个专门的平台上交流。Slack首席执行官斯图尔特?巴特菲尔德表示，公司从2月中旬开始发现，韩国和日本正在组建的团队数量显著增加。3月9日那一周，公司的业务量出现了更大的增长，这暗示着公司开始认真对待社交疏远的情况。总的来说，在2月1日到3月25日之间，Slack的用户增加了约20%，同时已连接用户从3月16日的1050万增加到3月25日的1250万。