How Better Routines Create Happier Workers

从工作的日常入手提升员工幸福感

 

Is there a word less likely to quicken the blood or stir the soul than “routine”? Routines are dull, familiar, mechanical, uninspiring. We get “trapped” in them at work, and “break out” of them when we go on holiday. If routines were people, they would be the Jane Austen characters Mary Bennet or Charles Musgrove: dependable but dull.

 

还有什么词语能比“日常生活”更难以令人热血沸腾、兴味盎然的呢？日复一日的生活是枯燥、熟悉、机械、无趣的。我们会在工作时“陷”它之中，又在度假时“摆脱”它。如果日常生活是人的话，他们应该是简·奥斯汀（Jane Austen）笔下的玛丽·贝内特（Mary Bennet）或查尔斯·马斯特洛夫（Charles Musgrove）那样的人物：可靠但乏味。

 

But as the pandemic has shown us, routines are essential if we are to lead enjoyable lives, be productive and be fulfilled. As we return to something more akin to normal, we have a chance to create new routines, not just return to old ones.

 

但是，正如这场大流行病向我们展示的那样，如果我们想要过上愉快的生活、工作高效且感到满足，常规的工作生活作息是必不可少的。当我们回归到更接近正常的状态时，我们将有机会创造新的日常，而不仅仅是回到旧的日常。

 

For many of us, pre-pandemic life was shaped by busy work schedules and deadlines, school calendars, spouses’ commitments, pets’ needs, holidays and so on. Keeping all this running was essential for having anything resembling work-life balance. But too often it did not work. Even at the best of times, a huge amount of labour is required to patch the gaps between school, childcare, work and home, while also playing the role of ideal worker. No wonder burnout and stress were at epidemic levels before the lockdown, or that more than 90 per cent of workers want the option to continue working from home, even though many struggle with aspects of remote work.

 

对于我们之中的许多人来说，疫情到来前的生活是由繁忙的工作日程与截止日期、学校日程表、对配偶承担的义务、宠物的需要、节假日等组成的。要想在工作和生活之间取得平衡，保持这一切的运转是必不可少的。但工作与生活往往难以取得平衡。即使在最好的时期，人们也需要花费大量的精力满足学校、育儿、工作和家庭之间的需要，同时还要扮演理想员工的角色。难怪在因疫情而实施封锁之前，倦怠和压力大已经是普遍现象，也难怪逾90%的员工希望选择继续在家工作，尽管许多人在远程办公的各个方面都存在困难。

 

For our own good, we should not go back to business as usual. So what makes for better routines?

 

为了我们自己好，我们也不应该再像过去一样。那么，怎样的日常生活更好呢？

 

Some companies have successfully moved to four-day weeks or six-hour days, without cutting salaries, productivity or profitability. They can teach us a lot about routines, work-life balance and the future of work. Before the pandemic, I studied a number of these companies, located in a variety of industries around the world. Since then, I have followed the movement towards shorter working hours as it has spread to local governments, primary schools, homeschoolers, even medical schools and nursing homes.

 

一些企业已经成功地在没有降低薪水、生产率或盈利能力的情况下，改为一周工作4天，或是一天工作6小时。关于日常生活、工作与生活的平衡以及未来的工作是什么样的，这些企业可以给我们很多启示。在疫情到来之前，我研究了许多这样的公司，它们分布在世界各地，涉及众多行业。自那时起，我一直在关注这场缩短工作时间的运动，因为这场运动已经蔓延到了地方政府、小学、选择在自己家里教育小孩的家庭，甚至是医学院和疗养院。

 

The first lesson is the most obvious. Routines with shorter hours are good for people and companies. When they work less, people are happier, healthier and better able to juggle competing demands. But they also become less stressed and happier at work, too. This boosts companies’ bottom lines. Their workers are more productive, they have lower staff turnover and they save money on everything from recruiter fees to electricity. Shorter working weeks also help companies address problems relating to burnout, recruitment and retention, and career and business sustainability.

 

第一点启示是最明白不过的。缩短工作时间对个人和企业都有好处。当人们的工作量减少时，他们会更快乐、更健康，更能兼顾各种不同的需要，在工作中他们也会变得更轻松、更愉快。这将有利于企业的营收。在这些企业中，员工的工作效率会更高，员工流失率会更低，而且公司能够节省从招聘费到电费等各种开支。缩短每周工作天数还有助于企业解决员工倦怠、招聘和留用、以及职业生涯及业务可持续性等问题。

 

Companies that adopt shorter working hours also demonstrate the value of boundaries between work and non-work time. Shorter workdays are divided into periods of deep focused work and group activities such as lunches and afternoon fika, the scheduled coffee breaks that are an important part of Swedish working life. Separating these two sounds unfriendly, but clearly delineating work and social time actually makes people more productive, and deepens friendships in the office.

 

此外，缩短了工作时间的企业还证明了在工作时间与非工作时间之间划定界限的价值。在缩短了工作时间的工作日，可以把时间分成两部分，一部分是高度专心工作的时间段，一部分是允许集体活动的时间段，如午餐和下午的咖啡时间（fika），后者是瑞典人生活中的重要组成部分。把这两个时间段分开听起来不太友好，但是清楚地划分工作时间和社交时间实际上会提高人们的效率，加深办公室内的友谊。

 

They also improve routines by matching the kind of work people do to their changing energy and attention levels through the day. Before the pandemic, most companies treated time like factories did in the industrial revolution: every hour of the day was equal. But knowledge work is sensitive to people’s daily circadian rhythms.

 

这些企业还按照人在一天内不同时候的精力和注意力水平让他们处理不同类型的事务，以此来改善日常工作安排。在疫情爆发之前，大多数企业对待时间的态度就像工业革命时期的工厂一样：一天中的每一个小时都是一样的。但知识性的工作对人们每日的生物钟很敏感。

 

In my previous book, Rest, I explained how successful artists, scientists and writers build daily routines around those rhythms, focusing hard when they have maximum energy and resting when their energy flags. These routines synchronise work to peak performance times, but also let the subconscious continue working on unsolved problems during rest periods – a strategic use of downtime that generates more “a-ha” moments. Many four-day-week companies create similar patterns, blocking out mornings for focused work, holding meetings in the afternoon and leaving email for the end of the day.

 

在我之前的一本书《休息》（Rest）中，我解释了成功的艺术家、科学家和作家是如何围绕这些生物钟安排日常工作生活的，他们会在自己精力最充沛的时候专心致志地工作，在精疲力竭时休息。这样的日常作息会使工作时间与表现最佳的时间变得同步，还能让潜意识在休息期间继续处理未解决的问题——这是对休息时间的一种巧妙利用，能够产生更多“顿悟”时刻。许多采用四天工作制的企业也设立了类似的模式：上午专心工作，下午召开会议，把处理电子邮件的事务留到下班之前做。

 

We often think that routines are the enemy of creativity but well-designed routines actually support it. The romantic image of artist or writer working in a white heat of inspiration is backwards. As Pablo Picasso put it: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

 

我们常常认为按部就班的日常生活是创造力的敌人，但精心安排的日常生活实际上有助于激发创造力。关于艺术家或作家灵感迸发的画面虽然美妙，却是一种误解。正如帕布罗·毕加索（Pablo Picasso）所说：“灵感是存在的，但必须在工作时它才会找上门来。”

 

The companies I study do a good job of creating routines for remote work. We tend to think of “remote work” as completely unmoored and isolated. Instead, we should think of remote work as “remixed work”, a chance to experiment with assemblies of tools, time, and place, and an opportunity to connect colleagues in novel ways.

 

我研究的企业在为远程办公安排日常工作方面做得很好。我们通常认为“远程办公”是完全自由且孤立的。相反，我们应该把远程办公看作是“工作的重新排列”，一个对办公工具、时间和地点的组合进行实验的机会，一个通过新颖的方式与同事进行联系的机会。

 

Finally – and perhaps most importantly – companies that successfully introduce shorter working hours recognise their efforts as inherently, intensely social. They do not fit five days’ work into four by asking every individual to optimise their own productivity. They spend lots of energy figuring out how to shorten meetings, fix processes, eliminate bottlenecks and redistribute work. Better collective routines, not individual practices, make shorter hours feasible.

 

最后，或许也是最重要的一点是，成功地做到缩短办公时间的企业认识到，它们的这些努力本质上是高度社会化的。它们并不是通过要求每个人提高自己的生产率，从而将五天的工作时间缩短为四天。他们花费了大量精力来研究如何缩短会议时长、修正流程、消除瓶颈和重新分配工作。使缩短工作时间变得可行的是集体日常生活的优化，而不是个人行为的优化。

 

So if you want to make work better, improve work-life balance and accommodate the demand to continue working from home, build better routines. Redesign your company’s daily routines to make the day shorter; improve the boundaries between work and non-work time; match work to rising and falling energy levels; support remote work as well as office work; and emphasise collective, structural solutions rather than putting the burden on individuals. Give routines the respect they deserve. It turns out that life is not much fun without them.

 

因此，如果你想要提高工作绩效、改善工作与生活之间的平衡、适应继续在家办公的需求，你就需要更好地安排日常的工作。重新安排公司的日常工作惯例，从而缩短每日工作时间；明确工作与非工作时间之间的界限；按不同时间的精力状况匹配工作任务；像支持办公室办公一样支持远程办公；强调集体性、结构性的解决方案，而不要加重个人的负担。给予日常惯例应有的尊重。事实证明，缺少日常惯例的生活没有多少乐趣。

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