職場雙語:配偶影響你對工作的看法

Is your spouse worried that you’re distracted by the office when you’re supposed to be enjoying a Fourth of July barbecue? That concern could have a professional impact that lasts long after the final firecracker has exploded.

你的配偶是否會擔心，在你本應享受國慶燒烤的時候辦公室的事務會讓你分心？這種擔心對你職業生涯所造成的影響可能在最後一根爆竹爆完之後仍然久久不散。

A spouse’s perceptions have significant influence on employee satisfaction and firm loyalty, according to a new study. Researchers surveyed the employees of a national consulting firm—and their spouses—and determined from the responses of more than four hundred couples that a spouse can shape how an employee views the company for which he or she works both negatively and positively, contributing to burnout and turnover or fueling commitment and productively. Most of the employees surveyed were male and Caucasian, with a spouse who also worked outside the home and children.

據一份新研究顯示，配偶的感受對員工滿意度和忠誠度有着深遠的影響。研究人員調查了美國一家諮詢公司的員工——及他們的配偶——從4百多對夫妻的回答中發現，配偶能夠從正反兩個方面影響你對你所在公司的看法，可讓你筋疲力盡、痛苦難熬或是愈加投入、效率提高。接受調查的大部分員工爲男性、白色人種，他們的配偶也在外工作，且育有子女。

“We know that employees have attitudes toward their jobs, toward their companies, ” said Dr. Julie Holliday Wayne of Wake Forest University School of Business, who headed the project. “We care about those attitudes because they influence things like performance, how willing employees are to go above and beyond the call of duty, and how likely they are to quit their jobs. We were interested in, ‘If the spouse develops these attitudes toward the firm, does that influence the employee?’ And what our research tells us is, ‘Yes.’”

“我們知道員工對自己的工作和所在的公司都有想法。”維克森林大學商學院的朱莉??霍麗岱??維恩（Julie Holliday Wayne）如是表示。她同時是這個項目的負責人。“我們關注這些態度，因爲它們會影響很多東西，如工作表現、員工在多大程度上樂意做本職工作以外的事，以及他們辭職的可能性有多大。我們感興趣的是，‘如果配偶對你的公司有自己的看法，這是否會影響到你？’而我們的研究結果告訴我們，‘是的’。”

The study showed that a spouse not only picks up on an employee’s sense of work situation, but also unconsciously observes his or her behaviors during non-work hours, to form opinions that then reinforce the employee’s own notions about the company.

該研究顯示，配偶不僅會察覺到你對工作境遇的感受，還會無意識地觀察你在非工作時間的表現，並形成自己的看法，而這些看法又會反過來加強你對公司的看法。

“The spouse develops an attitude through the employee, ” said Wayne, and then “the way the spouse feels cycles back and influences the employee.”

“配偶會通過你而形成自己的態度和看法，”維恩表示，“而且配偶的態度會反過來影響你。”

The results of the survey may not shock many people. “When I tell people about this study, ” said Wayne, “they’re like, ‘Yeah, I knew that.’”

這項調查的結果可能不會令很多人吃驚。“當我和別人提起這項調查時，”維恩說，“他們的反應是，‘是的，我早知道了。’”

But the research, which Wayne believes is the first of its kind, adds quantifiable results that researchers hope can translate into a greater understanding of the measurable benefit of family-friendly policies in bringing about a more productive, committed workforce.

不過維恩認爲，這項調查是同類型中的先行者，提供了可量化的結果，研究人員希望可以藉助這些結果更好地瞭解：有利於家庭的公司政策將在何種程度上培育一個更高效、更忠誠的員工團隊。

The participants revealed a range of positive and negative feelings about a spouse’s work life. Some praised the employer for flexible work schedules and fair compensation—one even cited allowing the survey to be done as proof that the company “cares about associates personally and professionally.”

受訪者對配偶的工作既有正面回饋，也有負面情緒。有些人肯定了僱主的彈性工作時間安排和不錯的薪資福利——甚至有人表示，公司允許員工接受這一調查，表明公司“從個人角度和職業角度都很在乎員工。”

The observations on the negative side focused primarily on work schedules considered unpredictable or demanding. One woman reported having to reduce her own work hours because her husband’s job didn’t let him adequately help out with child care.

而負面情緒主要集中在工作安排難以預見或要求太高。一名女性受訪者表示，因爲配偶的工作不允許他有足夠的時間幫忙照料子女，她不得不減少自己的工作時間。

Work schedule proves a lightning rod, the study found, as partners “easily observe” when an employee is absent from a family event, or too tired to truly participate, a condition Wayne describes as “present but not present.”

該研究發現，工作時間表好比是避雷針， 因爲配偶“總是很容易就發現”你缺席了家庭活動，或因太過勞累而心不在焉——維恩將這一情形描述爲“人在心不在”。

“There is a sense that he is always available even when we are on vacation or late at night, ” wrote one participant. “This adds stress to our family as we never know when he will feel the need to respond to an email, call or text. We just went on vacation and he spent several hours on the phone dealing with projects.”

“他總是給人一種感覺：無論什麼時候他都在工作，甚至是我們都在度假或到了深夜，”一名受訪者表示，“這讓我們全家都感覺到壓力，因爲我們永遠不知道他什麼時候需要回復郵件、電話或短信。我們只是在度假而已，他卻要花上好幾個小時講電話，處理和各種項目有關的事。”

While the study made few distinctions regarding gender, it did find that in dual career households, spouses have higher expectations for family presence from working mothers than from their male partners.

這項調查並沒有顯示出明顯的性別差異，但其卻發現，雙職工家庭中，對職業母親在家的時間期望要高於職業父親。

“A husband who is dissatisfied with his wife‘s work schedule may be more likely to hold negative attitudes toward her firm, ” states the report, “because work interferes with her primary role of caregiver.”

“對妻子的工作安排不滿意的丈夫更有可能對妻子所在的公司抱有負面情緒，”該報告稱，“因爲工作妨礙了妻子作爲照料者的主要角色。”

Alternatively, in households where the wife was also a mother and was not employed outside the home, higher levels of frustration with the husband’s demanding or unpredictable work schedule were reported, leading to diminished loyalty to the employer. If a homemaker wife resented her husband’s long hours more than a job-holding one did, it was probably because of a greater need for psychological support, the study’s authors conjectured.

而在妻子是全職主婦的家庭中，如果丈夫的工作要求過高或難以預期，也會產生更高的挫敗感，並導致員工對僱主忠誠度不夠。該報告的作者們還推測，如果家庭主婦對丈夫工作時間過長的抱怨多過職業女性，那可能是因爲家庭主婦更需要心理支持。

The upside for employers? Results suggest that winning a spouse’s good favor—and by extension, deepening an employee’s connection to the company—may not be too difficult. Positives of a work situation (recognition for achievements, etc.) can translate to spousal good feelings about the organization as a whole, whereas negatives (such as bad work schedules or office conflicts) tend to translate to more specific complaints and don’t affect overall impressions of a company.

對僱主的啓示？研究結果顯示，贏得員工配偶的好感——事實上也就是加深員工和公司的聯繫——可能並沒有那麼難。工作境遇中的積極因素（對成就的褒獎等）能夠從整體上提升配偶對這個公司的好感，而消極因素（如較差的工作時間安排或辦公室衝突等）則可能引發各種抱怨，但不會對公司的整體印象造成影響。

Waynehopes the research will help employers better understand the demands they make on workers, and encourage greater investigation into the impact a work environment can have on employees’ families.

維恩希望這項調查能幫助僱主更好地理解他們對員工所提出的要求，並鼓勵僱主加強對工作環境會如何影響員工家庭這一議題的研究。

“These two systems, ” said Wayne, “‘work’ and ‘life outside of work’—they’re not separate and mutually exclusive spheres.”

“工作和工作以外的生活這兩套系統，”維恩說，“並不是孤立的、彼此沒有聯繫的。”