遠程辦公VS雅虎集結號
The future of telecommuting
遠程辦公的未來Corralling the Yahoos
雅虎“集結號”Technology allows millions of people to work from home. A big tech firm is trying to stop them
由於科技的發展，數百萬人可以在家辦公。但某家大型科技公司卻意欲阻撓。
“YOU can’t have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you,” writes Marissa Mayer, the boss of Yahoo, in a blurb for a book called “Rebooting Work”. But not, it seems, if you are a Yahoo employee and working from home is really important to you. As part of her efforts to reboot the ailing internet firm, Ms Mayer has decreed that from June all the company’s staff will be expected to come into its offices to do their jobs.
“你不可能擁有想要的一切，但可以擁有對你真正重要的東西，”這是摘自雅虎總裁瑪麗莎·梅耶爾（Marissa Mayer）爲《重啓工作（Rebooting Work）》一書所寫的內容簡介。但如果你是一名雅虎員工，而在家辦公對你又很重要，那這句話似乎就不符合實際了。爲一整公司頹勢，梅耶爾作出了諸多努力，其中就包括從六月起，要求公司所有員工都必須到辦公室辦公。The news of Ms Mayer’s ban on telecommuting surfaced in the form of a memo to employees sent by Yahoo’s head of human resources. It was promptly leaked to All Things D, a technology-industry blog, and unleashed a fevered debate in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Supporters saw it as the brave act of a boss determined to rid the company of slackers. Critics lambasted the firm for an antediluvian attitude towards the workplace.
雅虎的人力資源部主管以備忘錄的形式向員工傳達了梅耶爾的遠程辦公禁令。消息很快就泄漏給了科技博客All Things D，並在博客圈和推特上引發熱議。支持者認爲，這是梅耶爾掃清公司“懶蟲”的果敢行爲。批評者則猛烈抨擊，認爲雅虎公司對工作場所的認知過時了。Among the latter was Sir Richard Branson, a British entrepreneur who wrote in a blog post that the decision was “a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever”. “Yours truly has never worked out of an office,” added the bearded boss of the Virgin Group, “and never will.” On the other side, Donald Trump, an American television showman and property magnate, tweeted that Ms Mayer was “right to expect Yahoo employees to come to the workplace vs. working at home.”
英國企業家理查德·布蘭森爵士（Sir Richard Branson）就是批評者之一，他在一篇博客中寫道，該決定“對當今時代而言是一種倒退。現如今，遠程工作更方便，工作效率也比以往要高”。“在下可從沒在辦公室工作過，”維珍集團（Virgin Group）的這位大鬍子老總補充道，“而且永遠不會。”而另一邊，美國電視主持人兼房地產大亨——唐納德·特朗普（Donald Trump）在推特上表示，梅耶爾女士的做法“合情合理，應該讓雅虎員工來工作場所工作，而不是在家”。The decision touched a raw nerve in Silicon Valley because it is in the midst of a bout of soul-searching about the workplace. Why, many people are asking, have so few women risen to the top of the tech world? (Ms Mayer herself is a rare exception.) The news has also triggered a broader discussion about how much freedom workers should be given to decide where to spend their working hours.
該決定觸到了硅谷的痛處，因爲硅谷正對工作場所問題做深刻的反思。很多人在問，爲什麼到達科技世界頂端的女性這麼少？（梅耶爾女士本人是個罕見的例外。）這則消息也激起了更深的討論：員工在選擇辦公地點時應該擁有多大自由?Fans of telecommuting point out that it is on the rise almost everywhere. A survey of over 11,000 workers in 24 countries published last year by Ipsos, a polling firm, found that almost a fifth of respondents who said they are connected online to their workplaces telecommute frequently; 7% of those polled said they worked from home every day.
遠程辦公粉指出，幾乎所有地方都在推廣這種工作方式。去年，民意調查機構益普索斯（Ipsos）對24個國家的1.1萬多名員工做了調查，發現在那些自稱與辦公室聯網的受訪者中，經常遠程辦公的人幾乎佔到1/5；7%的人投票說他們每天都在家辦公。That fridge looks tempting
家裏的冰箱看起來很誘人Ipsos also discovered that telecommuting is more prevalent in emerging markets than in rich ones, but it is growing in the latter, too. According to figures published last October by the US Census Bureau, American workers who spend most of their time toiling from home rose from 3.6% of the workforce in 2005 to 4.3% in 2010. The bureau also noted that home-based work in computer, engineering and science is rising particularly fast, growing almost 70% between 2000 and 2010. Given that many technology firms produce the devices and software that make working from home a breeze, it seems sensible to let their employees use them.
益普索斯也發現，與發達國家相比，遠程辦公在新興市場更普遍，不過它在發達國家也是處於日益增長的趨勢。根據美國統計局（US Census Bureau）去年十月發佈的數據顯示，2005年時，在家辛苦工作的人佔美國勞動力比重爲3.6%，2010年則上升到4.3%。統計局也提到，電腦、機械和科技行業的居家辦公率增長得尤其之快，在2000至2010年間幾乎上升了70%。許多科技公司所生產的儀器和軟件都是爲居家辦公服務的，考慮到這一點，讓自己的員工“現創現用”似乎也是明智之舉。Why, then, has Ms Mayer put telecommuting on hold at Yahoo? The leaked memo said the habit has slowed the firm down and made it harder to have serendipitous meetings that can give birth to new ideas. Yet plenty of innovative technology firms such as Facebook move pretty fast while allowing some people to work from home. Banning telecommuting outright punishes good employees as well as bad, says Joan Williams, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
那麼，爲什麼梅耶爾女士不讓雅虎員工採用遠程辦公的形式呢？那份泄漏的備忘錄中提到，這種工作習慣已經拖延了公司發展的進程，而且如果想隨時召開能夠催生新點子的會議，難度會更大。然而不少像臉譜網（Facebook）這樣的創新科技公司允許員工在家辦公；儘管如此，他們的發展也相當快。加利福尼亞大學哈斯汀斯法學院的教授瓊·威廉（Joan Williams）表示，將遠程辦公“一刀切”，懲“惡”的同時也罰了“善”。A growing body of evidence suggests it harms productivity, too. A recent study by academics at Stanford University and the University of Beijing reports the results of an experiment at CTrip, an online travel company in China that is quoted on America’s NASDAQ stock market. The firm split some of its call-centre workers into two teams. One team worked at home for nine months; the other in the company’s offices. At the end of the period, the academics found the telecommuters had handled calls more efficiently, taken fewer breaks and had been 13% more productive than their peers. Job satisfaction was also much higher among the home workers.
越來越多的證據表明，坐班工作也會降低生產力。斯坦福大學和北京大學的學者最近做了一項研究，彙報了對攜程旅行網（CTrip）的實驗結果。攜程旅行是一家在美國納斯達克（NASDAQ）上市交易的中國在線旅遊服務公司。公司把呼叫中心的一部分員工分成了兩組，一組在家工作了九個月，另一組則是在辦公室。實驗期結束時，學者們發現遠程工作者處理客戶來電的效率更高，休息次數更少，比另一組的生產率高出了13%。在家辦公的員工工作滿意度也更高。Admittedly, Ms Mayer’s staff are highly skilled people, such as programmers, who may need more face time with colleagues. They may also telecommute in exceptional circumstances. But insisting that everyone normally show up is risky at a time when tech firms are ruthlessly poaching talent from rivals. Since she took over at Yahoo last July, Ms Mayer has pushed her battered firm’s share price up 35%. Her latest decision could put those gains in peril.
無可否認的是，梅耶爾的員工都是像程序員這樣的高技術人才，他們可能需要更多與同事會面的時間。在特殊情況下，可能也會遠程交流。但現在很多科技公司都在拼命從對手那裏挖人，如果這個時候執意讓所有員工都正常出勤，是有風險的。自從去年七月梅耶爾接管雅虎以來，這家受到重創的公司的股價在她手上已上漲了35%。而她最近的這項決定可能會讓這些收穫付諸東流。
