4天工作制使員工的工作效率提高了40%

4天工作制使員工的工作效率提高了40%

Workers at Microsoft Japan enjoyed an enviable perk this summer: working four days a week, enjoying a three-day weekend — and getting their normal, five-day paycheck. The result, the company says, was a productivity boost of 40%.

今年夏天，在日本的微軟公司的員工享有一項令人羨慕的福利:每周工作四天，一周休息三天，還能拿到正常的五天工資。該公司表示，其結(jié)果是生產(chǎn)率提高了40%。

Microsoft Japan says it became more efficient in several areas, including lower electricity costs, which fell by 23%. And as its workers took five Fridays off in August, they printed nearly 60 percent fewer pages.

日本的微軟公司表示，它在多個領(lǐng)域的效率都有所提高，包括電力成本下降了23%。由于該公司員工在8月份有5個周五休假，他們打印的紙張減少了近60%。

All of the employees who took Fridays off were given special paid leave, the company says. Encouraged by the results, it plans to hold a similar trial in the winter.

該公司表示，所有周五休假的員工都獲得了特殊的帶薪休假。受此結(jié)果鼓舞，該公司計劃在冬季進行類似的試驗。

Because of the shorter workweek, the company also put its meetings on a diet. The standard duration for a meeting was slashed from 60 minutes to 30 — an approach that was adopted for nearly half of all meetings. In a related cut, standard attendance at those sessions was capped at five employees.

由于每周的工作時間較短，公司還對會議進行了限制。會議的標準時長從60分鐘減少到30分鐘，幾乎一半的會議都采用了這種方式。在相關(guān)的削減中，這些會議的標準出席人數(shù)被限制在5名員工。

In a blog post announcing the plan in July, Microsoft Japan said there was often no reason for meetings to run an hour, or to tie up multiple people from the same team.

今年7月，日本的微軟公司在一篇宣布該計劃的博客文章中表示，通常沒有理由讓會議持續(xù)一小時，或者讓同一團隊的多人都來開會。

Citing the need for a shift in time management, Microsoft also urged people to use collaborative chat channels rather than "wasteful" emails and meetings.

微軟公司還以時間管理需要轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)橛桑卮偃藗兪褂脜f(xié)作聊天渠道，而不是浪費時間的電子郵件和會議。

The news prompted excitement among many workers in Japan. A sampling of comments from the Asian news site ranges from "Here's to hoping my boss reads about this" to "So I guess me feeling like I'm ready to be done for the week by Wednesday ."

這一消息使許多日本工人感到興奮。亞洲新聞網(wǎng)站上出現(xiàn)一些評論，如“希望我的老板能讀到這篇文章”，“我覺得自己已經(jīng)準備好在周三之前完成這周的工作了。”

Four-day workweeks made headlines around the world in the spring of 2018, when Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand trust management company, announced a 20% gain in employee productivity and a 45% increase in employee work-life balance after a trial of paying people their regular salary for working four days. Last October, the company made the policy permanent.

2018年春天，為期四天的工作周成為了世界各地的頭條新聞。新西蘭信托管理公司“永久守護”宣布，在對員工進行四天正常工作并給予正常工資的試驗后，員工的工作效率提高了20%，工作與生活的平衡度提高了45%。去年10月，該公司將這一政策永久化。

The Microsoft trial roughly doubled Perpetual Guardian's productivity gain. But for now at least, the company isn't saying whether it will test the four-day workweek policy in other locations or consider making it permanent.

微軟的試驗使“永久守護”公司的生產(chǎn)率提高了大約一倍。但至少到目前為止，該公司還沒有表示是否會在其他地方試行四天工作制，或是否會考慮將其永久化。

Noting that Microsoft Japan's "Work Life Choice Challenge 2019 Summer" was a pilot project, a Microsoft spokesperson tells NPR via email, "In the spirit of a growth mindset, we are always looking for new ways to innovate and leverage our own technology to improve the experience for our employees around the globe."

微軟發(fā)言人通過電子郵件告訴NPR，日本的微軟公司“2019年夏季的工作生活選擇挑戰(zhàn)”是一個試點項目，“本著增長思維的精神，我們一直在尋找創(chuàng)新和利用我們自己的技術(shù)的新方法，以改善我們?nèi)騿T工的體驗。”

Many employees might be heartened by the prospect of a three-day weekend, but trials like the recent one in Japan are still only drops in a very large bucket of companies and workers worldwide. While employers could now be more likely to experiment by shortening their own workweeks, workplace analyst and author Dan Schawbel says that for the time being, employees are more likely to focus on a more common workplace perk: flexibility.

很多員工可能會對三天周末的前景感到振奮，但像最近在日本進行的試驗，對全球范圍內(nèi)的企業(yè)和工人來說，仍然只是杯水車薪。雖然雇主現(xiàn)在可能更愿意嘗試縮短自己的工作周，但職場分析師兼作家丹•斯科貝爾(Dan Schawbel)表示，就目前而言，員工更有可能專注于一個更常見的職場福利:靈活性。