2023年经济学人 工作中的朋友

（单词翻译）

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

Friends at work

工作中的朋友

Why it is a bad idea for managers to attempt to engineer office friendships.

为什么经理们试图策划办公室友谊不是一个好主意。

Scholars of happiness have found that close relationships are one of the critical ingredients of a contented¹ life.

研究幸福的学者发现，亲密关系是生活美满的关键因素之一。

What is true in general is also true of the workplace, according to research by Gallup.

盖洛普的研究显示，这一普遍法则也适用于职场。

The pollster finds that having a “best friend at work” is closely associated with all manner of good things, from greater employee engagement to higher retention² and better safety records.

这家民调机构发现，拥有“工作中的密友”与各种益处密切相关，包括更高的员工参与度、更高的留任率和更好的安全记录。

At some level, that is unremarkable.

在某种程度上，这并不令人惊奇。

Spending time with people you like makes most things more appealing, including work.

和你喜欢的人待在一起会让大多数事情变得更有吸引力，包括工作。

If a job is sufficiently³ humdrum⁴, camaraderie⁵ among colleagues can be the main draw.

如果一份工作已经足够乏味，那么同事之间的情谊可能是工作的主要吸引力。

The support of friends can also encourage people to try new things.

朋友的支持也可以鼓励人们尝试新事物。

A study from 2015 by Erica Field of Duke University, and her co-authors, looked at the impact of business training given to Indian women.

杜克大学的埃里卡·菲尔德和她的合著者在2015年进行了一项研究，考察了印度女性接受商业培训的影响。

Women who attended the course with a friend were more likely to end up taking out loans than those who came alone.

与朋友一起参加课程的女性比独自前来的女性更有可能获得商业贷款。

The reverse also applies.

反之亦然。

Antagonistic⁶ relationships with co-workers are always likely to make working life miserable⁷.

与同事的敌对关系总是可能让职场生活变得痛苦。

A study conducted by Valerie Good of Grand Valley State University found that loneliness has an adverse⁸ effect on the performance of salespeople⁹.

大峡谷州立大学的瓦莱丽·古德进行的一项研究发现，孤独对销售人员的业绩有不利影响。

Among other things, they start spending more on wining and dining their customers.

除了其他方面的不利影响，他们还开始在和客户吃饭方面花更多钱。

The only thing worse than a salesperson¹⁰ who sees you as a way to make money is one who wants your company.

比销售人员想要你的钱更糟糕的，只有这个销售还想要你陪他。

So friends matter.

所以朋友很重要。

The problems come when managers see the words “higher employee engagement” and leap to the conclusion that they should try to engineer work friendships.

当经理们看到“员工参与度更高”的字眼，并马上推导出他们应该策划工作中的友谊时，问题就来了。

In a report published last year Gallup gave the example of an unnamed organisation¹¹ which has a weekly companywide meeting that spotlights¹² one employee’s best friend at work.

在去年发布的一份报告中，盖洛普举了一个匿名组织的例子，该组织每周召开一次全公司会议，重点关注某一名员工在工作中最好的朋友。

It’s not known if, in the Q&A, others pop up to sob¹³: “But I thought we were best friends at work.”

目前还不清楚在问答环节，是否会有其他人突然哭起来，说：“我还以为我们才是工作中最好的朋友。”

Startups also offer services to encourage work friendships.

初创公司也提供服务来促进职场友谊。

One monitors the depth of connections between people in different teams.

一种服务是监测不同团队中人员之间的联系深度。

It identifies shared interests (gluten-free baking, say, or workplace surveillance) between employees who don’t know each other and arranges meetings between them.

它能识别互不认识的员工之间的共同兴趣(比如无麸质烘焙或工作监控)，并安排他们进行聚会。

You thought life was bad?

你觉得生活很糟糕？

At least you are not making crumpets with a stranger in finance.

但至少你不会和一个财务科的陌生人一起做烤面饼。

It is a mistake for managers to wade¹⁴ into the business of friend-making, and not just because it royally misses the point.

经理们干涉交友是错误的，这不仅仅是因为他们完全没有抓住重点。

The defining characteristic of friendship is that it is voluntary.

友谊的决定性特征是它是自愿的。

Employees are adults; they don’t need their managers to arrange play-dates.

员工都是成年人，他们不需要经理来安排玩耍聚会。

And the workplace throws people together, often under testing conditions: friendships will naturally follow.

而职场往往在考验人的条件下将人们聚集在一起：友谊自然会随之而来。

The bigger problem is that workplace friendships are more double-edged than their advocates allow.

更大的问题是，职场友谊比其倡导者所认为的更具双刃性。

They can quickly become messy when power dynamics¹⁵ change.

当权力动态发生变化时，职场友情可能很快就会变得一团糟。

The transition from friend to boss, or from friend to underling, is an inherently awkward one (“This is your final warning. Fancy a pint¹⁶?”).

从朋友变成老板，或者从朋友变成下属，这在本质上就很尴尬(“最后警告你一次。下班去喝一杯吗？”)。

And friendships have the potential to look a lot like cronyism¹⁷.

而且友谊有可能看起来很像任人唯亲。

A clever study by Zoe Cullen of Harvard Business School and Ricardo Perez-Truglia of University of California, Berkeley, found that employees’ social interactions with their managers could give their career prospects¹⁸ a boost relative to others.

哈佛商学院的佐伊·卡伦和加州大学伯克利分校的里卡多·佩雷斯-特鲁利亚进行了一项巧妙的研究，并发现相比与其他人，员工与经理进行社交互动，可能会给他们的职业前景带来助力。

The researchers looked at promotions¹⁹ of smokers²⁰ and non-smokers who worked for a large bank in South-East Asia, hypothesising that sharing smoking breaks with managers who also indulged might give workers a leg up.

研究人员研究了在东南亚一家大型银行工作的吸烟者和不吸烟者的晋升情况，假设是与同样吸烟的经理在休息时间一起吸烟可能会给员工带来晋升机会。

And so it did.

事实的确如此。

Smokers who moved from a non-smoking boss to a puffer were promoted more quickly than those who moved to another non-smoker.

一些吸烟者的老板从不吸烟的人换成吸烟的人，另一些吸烟者换了一个不吸烟的老板，结果前者比后者晋升得更快。

The authors found that social interactions did not just help smokers; socialising between male managers and male employees played a large role in perpetuating²¹ gender²² pay gaps.

作者发现，社交互动不仅帮助了吸烟者，而且男性经理和男性员工之间的社交活动也在固化性别薪酬差距方面起到了很大作用。

If firms are going to make friendship their business, they should worry about its downsides, too.

如果公司打算做职场友谊的生意，他们也应该考虑这些不利之处。

Companies should facilitate interactions between employees, particularly in a world of hybrid²³ and remote working.

公司应该促进员工之间的互动，尤其现在有了混合办公和远程办公。

Social gatherings²⁴ and buddy²⁵ systems are reasonable ways to encourage colleagues to meet each other and to foster a culture.

社交聚会和伙伴制度是鼓励同事见面并培养企业文化的合理方式。

But a high-quality work relationship does not require friendship.

但高质量的工作关系并不需要友谊。

It requires respect for each other’s competence²⁶, a level of trust and a desire to reach the same goal; it doesn’t need birthday cards and a shared interest in quiltmaking.

它需要尊重彼此的能力、一定程度的信任，以及实现相同目标的愿望。它不需要生日贺卡，也不需要有缝被子的共同爱好。

Firms should do what they can to encourage these kinds of relationships.

公司应该尽其所能地鼓励这种关系。

If individuals want to take it further, it’s entirely²⁷ up to them.

如果员工个人想让关系更进一步，这应该完全由他们决定。