【中英双语】五招打造更包容的混合工作制

5 Practices to Make Your Hybrid Workplace Inclusive

随着疫情限制措施放宽，我们迎来了一个新的工作方式：混合工作制。然而，新变化可能导致新的不平等，甚至拉大已有差距。为了在实施混合工作制时确保公平、业绩最大化和维系文化凝聚力，雇主需要在设计混合工作制政策和探索新工作方式时考虑以下五个实际维度的包容性。 As pandemic restrictions ease, it’s clear that one big change to the way we work is here to stay: hybrid working. However, these environments run the risk of creating new inequities and exacerbating those that already exist. For employers to ensure fairness, maximize performance, and maintain cultural cohesion in hybrid work arrangements, they need to consider these five practical dimensions of inclusion when designing hybrid policies and navigating new ways of working.

招聘与远程入职

Recruitment and Remote Onboarding

2020年的招聘和入职培训转为线上，许多新员工在接受工作前从未见过同事本人。许多人力资源管理者认为，未来还会继续线上面试应届生。这种方法的好处是：首先，降低了经济条件有限、可能无法为工作搬家的毕业生的入职成本。此外，可以借机审视现有的入职流程，并考虑新团队成员带来的不同经验、背景和期望。 With recruitment and onboarding practices shifting to virtual in the last year, many new hires had never met their future teams in person before accepting their jobs. Many HR decision-makers believe they will continue interviewing graduates virtually in the future. This approach has benefits: First, it reduces the cost of entry for graduates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who may not be able to relocate for a job. It also provides an opportunity to review existing onboarding practices and take into account the different experiences, backgrounds, and expectations new team members bring in. 为了打造更一致的入职体验，我们可以借鉴疫情居家期间人们接收信息的最佳方式，从中汲取经验。例如，将教学转移到线上的大学发现，将长时间的课程切分成大约15分钟的分段教学效果最好。公司可以录制一套短视频，涵盖入职的所有方面，比如工作电脑设置和入职流程，然后集中新员工开一次会，让五人或以下的新员工组成小组，针对视频提出问题。短视频和研讨会相结合既可以确保入职体验的一致性，也可以照顾到个人需求。 To create a more consistent onboarding experience, we can take lessons from what we learned during the pandemic about how people best received information while at home. For example, universities that moved their teaching online found that chunking long lectures into approximately 15-minute bursts worked best. Firms can create a catalog of short videos that describe all aspects of onboarding, such as walkthroughs on how to set up technology and navigate processes. The employer can then bring together new joiners for a session where they ask questions about the videos in small groups of five people or fewer. Together, the video catalog and intimate seminar set the scene for a consistent onboarding experience while catering to individual needs. 职场成功的一个重要条件是，有完成工作所需的技术环境和培训。远程办公突显了技术能力的价值，而在家工作时启动电脑、运行相应程序已经成为一项必备技能。对于不太懂技术的人来说，建立一个临时家庭办公室并不容易。甚至还有一些员工可能没有必需的设备或无力承担费用，这就暴露了经济差距。疫情暴发前，公司IT技术人员通常会为员工设置笔记本电脑、电话和显示器，排除网络或软件问题，并在听到“我该怎么做？”时施以援手。让员工在入职时选择自己的技术水平，可以帮助雇主决定和安排远程IT协助，为员工提供相应的帮助。 An important part of being successful at work is having the right setup and training to do your job. Remote work places increasing value on being technically capable, and getting up and running when working from home has become an essential skill. For those who are less tech savvy, setting up a makeshift home office did not come naturally. Others may not have even been provided with the necessary equipment or have the means to purchase it — exposing an equity gap. Before the pandemic, an onsite IT technician would typically set up an employee’s laptop, phone, and monitor; troubleshoot any network or software issues; and generally be on hand for those prevalent “How do I do…?” questions. Giving people an option during onboarding to self-select their level of technological savviness can help employers determine and schedule remote IT assistance so employees are provided for. 此外，员工入职后接受的培训可能因上司的个人素质而产生差异。在办公室里，新人更容易潜移默化地了解信息和工作方式。远程工作者的学习曲线可能比经常去办公室的人更陡峭，因此可能被贴上能力或效率不如现场办公同事的标签。 Furthermore, once in the role training may be inconsistent and dependent on the quality of one’s manager. In an office, it’s easier to pick up information and the ways of working via osmosis. Remote workers’ learning curve could be steeper than those who go into the office frequently — and thus they might get labeled as less competent or productive than their onsite peers. 公司可以实行搭档制度，将新人和更有经验的员工配对。老员工负责回答日常问题，传递公司信息，这样有助于确保远程办公的员工不错过现场办公的益处。 Companies can implement a buddy system, pairing new starters with a more experienced employee. This person becomes the go-to for the day-to-day informal questions and company information, which helps ensure that remote employees don’t miss out on the informal learning those in the office benefit from.

共同协作

Working Together

物理距离会影响心理距离。同处一片屋檐下更容易确认同事状况。通常情况下，大家一眼就能看出负责财务的莎拉这一天过得怎么样。员工与工作区域或部门以外的同事交流，对组织运作有积极影响，还有助于提高效率。与电子邮件和即时通信工具相比，这些私下交流对企业文化和职能部门的贡献更大。 Physical distance can lead to psychological distance. It’s much easier to check in on colleagues when sharing a physical space. Often, one glance is enough to tell if Sarah over in finance is having a bad day. Office exchanges with colleagues outside immediate working areas or departments have a positive effect on organizational functioning and can impact effective performance. These informal communications contribute to an organization’s culture and functionality more than communication tools like email and instant messaging do. 对此，一种解决方案是“打开”虚拟办公室的门。过去，一扇敞开的门意味着你可以走进去和同事交谈。没有看到明确的信号，其他人可能不会主动打扰同事。远程办公时员工可以利用实时状态栏。一条“欢迎找我聊天！”的信息，加上一个表示有空的绿圈，相当于为沟通亮起绿灯，可以缩小距离感。公司也可以通过虚拟会议室来营造归属感和共享感。虚拟会议技术将线上会议室打造得栩栩如生，这项技术的蓬勃发展也为雇主提供了越来越多的选择。 One solution is to open the virtual office door. In the past, an open physical door signaled that it was okay to walk in and speak with your colleague. Without visible cues for how busy a colleague is, people might hesitate to reach out to them. When working remotely, make use of the trusty status bar. A message like “Open for chats!” along with a green status circle gives permission to bridge the distance gap. Companies can also develop a sense of place with virtual reality and virtual meeting rooms to create a sense of belonging and sharing. The virtual meeting technology space is burgeoning, giving employers more and more options for how to bring these rooms to life.

解决矛盾

Resolving Conflict

混合工作制的另一个影响是潜在的沉默霸凌。虽然远程工作的一个优点是在某种程度上缓解办公室霸凌，但也可能导致更多人际冲突，一个人感到被边缘化后可能更难发声。失去这些人的观点会导致团队整体表现下滑，特别是在高度复杂或需要创造性的任务中，备选方案和讨论才是关键。 Another inclusion impact of hybrid working is the potential for silent bullying. While one advantage of remote work is that it’s somewhat easier to avoid the office bully, a downside is that it can also lead to more interpersonal conflict in general. When someone already feels marginalized, it may be harder for them to speak up. Losing those perspectives decreases the quality of a team’s performance, particularly on high-complexity or creative tasks where alternatives and discussion can be pivotal. 营造一个鼓励所有人勇敢发声的环境需要提升员工的心理安全感，如此一来，当出现人际冲突时，员工才敢站出来说话。对于这个问题，一种方法是展现健康的冲突，让员工觉得可以在一个高效、没有评判的区域开展必要的艰难对话。毕竟，参与理性辩论是健康的行为，它表明团队中的成员能够持有相互冲突的观点，这样是没问题的。 Fostering an environment where all voices are heard requires increasing psychological safety so that your people feel they can speak up when there’s interpersonal conflict. One way to do this is to show what healthy conflict looks like. Employees must feel they can have the necessary hard conversations in a productive and judgment-free zone. After all, engaging in civil debate is healthy! It shows that people within teams can hold conflicting viewpoints, and that that’s okay.

凝聚团队

Team Cohesion

此外，在经济不确定时期，员工更有可能遵循某些相似点而在内部形成小团体。虽然这些小团队内部更让人有归属感，但对业务的影响就不那么积极了。小团体可能将他人排除在关键对话之外，不愿分享信息，甚至可以决定重要项目或客户分配给谁。当其他人远程工作时，回到办公室的团队成员可能会形成一个“小组中的小组”，而在家的成员较少参与解决团队问题或分享知识，可能会被认为不如在办公室的同事。 Additionally, in times of economic uncertainty, employees are more likely to form in-groups, usually along some dimension of similarity. While the impact of these in-groups on belonging may be obvious, the business impacts are less so. Unfortunate side effects include exclusion from key conversations and reluctance to share information. These groups can even dictate who gets assigned key projects or accounts. Team members who return to the office while others work remotely might form a “group within a group” where those at home are less involved in resolving team issues and knowledge sharing and can be seen as less helpful than colleagues in the office. 打破小团体的一个有效方法是，通过识别“薄弱纽带”，确保信息在组织中大范围通畅流动。在社会网络中，纽带是人与人之间的关系，其强度取决于交流的时间、频率和亲密程度。比如同个团队同事之间牢固的纽带是人际网的一部分，且对建立团队内部的凝聚力很重要。熟人或点头之交的薄弱纽带也不应被忽视，因为它们对于整个组织的信息传播至关重要：这种纽带可以在两点之间提供独特联系，充当信息孤岛间的桥梁。 One effective way to break up these in-groups is to ensure information flows smoothly and diffusely through an organization by identifying “weak ties.” In social networks, ties are the relationships between different people, and their strength depends on the amount of time, intensity, and proximity between people. Strong ties, such as those between colleagues on the same team, form part of dense networks and are important for building intra-team cohesion. However, weak ties, such as acquaintances or casual contacts, should not be overlooked, as they’re critical in diffusing information throughout organizations: They provide unique connections between two points, acting as a bridge between information silos. 在团队中，确保人们不会归因错误，即将个人或同事的失败归因于所处环境，居家办公者将失败归因于配置，也很重要。物理距离较远的人更难互相理解对方处境，所以要鼓励员工解释自己的行为，这样有助于其他同事理解他们的处境，打造更强的团队凝聚力。 Within teams, it’s also important to ensure people don’t fall into the fundamental attribution error, where personal or co-located workers’ failures are attributed to the situation while the failures of those working from home are attributed to their dispositions. It’s harder to understand the context of people who are far away, so encouraging people to provide an explanation for their actions can help others understand their situation and build stronger team cohesion.

晋升

Promotions

研究表明，当上司和下属同为男性时，下属与上司越亲近，升职率越高。这可能是由生产力和可见性的关系引起的，虽然这种联系并未得到明确证实。归根结底，决定薪酬、晋升和机会的是上司对下属生产力和绩效的信任。在后疫情时代，我们很可能会看到远程办公者和在办公室工作、有机会与老板面对面的人之间，存在难以解释的差距。 Proximity to managers has been shown to increase promotion rates when men report to other men. This may be caused by a perceived relationship between productivity and visibility, even though no such relationship has ever been established. In the end, it’s the beliefs about productivity and performance that determine pay, promotions, and opportunities. In a post-pandemic world, we may well see unexplained gaps between those who work remotely and those who get onsite face time with the boss. 生产力及绩效会因个人所处环境存在很大差异，例如你可能在附近的咖啡店时更有创意。在工作场所摆放植物可以提高注意力，在通风和空气质量好的地方工作也可以提高工作效率。 Productivity — and therefore performance — varies widely based on one’s environment. For example, you really are more creative in the neighborhood coffee shop. Having plants in the workplace can improve attention and productivity levels. And working in a space with good ventilation and air quality improves performance. 在混合工作制下，家庭环境将对工作成果产生重要影响。经济条件好的人可能有一个专门的家庭办公室，而其他人更有可能在合租公寓里一个不太理想的地点工作。同一空间中，随着办公人数的增加，人均占用面积减少，可以预期工作效率会下降。这也引发了另一个问题：Wi-Fi之争。在一项针对微软员工的内部研究中，59%的人表示，为了避免连接中断，他们不得不启用手机热点。办公环境中是否有小孩也会影响工作效率。一项研究显示，有育儿责任的女性中85%表示，育儿在一定程度或很大程度上增加了工作难度，育儿男性中则有70%有同感。 In a hybrid working world, one’s home environment will play a starring role in terms of output. Those with money and privilege likely have a dedicated home office, whereas others may be more likely to be in a shared apartment and work from a less-than-ideal space, like the kitchen counter. As the number of people working together in a space rises and the square footage per person decreases, a decline in productivity can be expected. This also causes another problem: the fight for Wi-Fi bandwidth. In an internal study of Microsoft employees, 59% reported having to use their phone as a hotspot in order to avoid connection disruptions. Whether children are in the working environment also impacts productivity. According to one study, 85% of women with childcare responsibilities reported that their caregiving responsibilities were making it somewhat or much more difficult to attend to work, as did 70% of men who were caregivers. 混合工作制下，奖励机制也会随之改变，有些奖励机制可能会将部分员工排除在外。谁受到了关注？为什么产生这种变化？在面对面的办公场所中被认为有价值、值得褒奖的特质，在远程工作中可能不再有效。例如，在远程办公环境下，可能少有人愿意沟通和主动建立社交关系。 In a hybrid world, it’s also natural to see shifting reward mechanisms, some of which can leave people out. How has who gets paid attention to and why changed? Traits that were perceived as valuable in an in-person office and subsequently rewarded may not be as effective virtually. For instance, having a greater willingness to communicate and feeling comfortable initiating social relationships may be harder to see in remote environments. 留意奖励机制改变所产生的影响，一种方法是审查晋升对象和原因——并确保其他员工也清楚这些。这样做可以实现两个目标。首先，你会开始发现倾向于特定群体的一些模式。其次，让员工注意到公司在监督得到晋升的人，也会鼓励管理者公平分配。 One way to keep an eye on the impact of shifting reward mechanisms is to audit who gets what and why — and make sure people know about it. This accomplishes two things. First, you’ll start to see patterns emerging that favor one group over others. Second, drawing attention to the fact that this monitoring of who gets promoted is happening encourages managers to pay attention to their allocations. 制定混合工作制和政策时，管理者要意识到混合工作制可能导致或加深不平等现象。在设计时充分考虑以上实际层面的包容性，对于创建一个公平的组织至关重要。 As you craft your company’s hybrid work plans and policies, be aware of the inequities hybrid work can create or make worse. Designing with these practical dimensions of inclusion in mind is critical for creating an equitable organization. 格蕾丝·洛丹是伦敦政治经济学院行为科学副教授，是偏见、歧视和技术变革影响方面的专家。特蕾莎·阿尔梅达是“包容行动”的行为研究员。琳赛·科勒是应用行为学家，为财富500强公司提供员工敬业度方面的咨询。 格蕾丝·洛丹（Grace Lordan） 特蕾莎·阿尔梅达（Teresa Almeida） 琳赛·科勒（Lindsay Kohler）|文   柴茁 | 译  蒋荟蓉 | 校  孙燕 | 编辑