職場新調查:工作生活失衡不能怪老闆

Restore Work-Life Sanity

工作生活失衡不能怪老闆

Working all hours? No time for family or hobbies? Stop blaming your employer and take responsibility for your own role in managing your work and life commitments, say a growing number of workplace and management experts -- most prominently Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her new book Lean In.

你是不是每天從早忙到晚？你是不是沒有時間照顧家庭，享受興趣愛好？越來越多的職場和管理專家表示，這可不能怪東家，你得自己負責管好你的工作與生活的各項事務。這些聲音中，最引人關注的是Facebook首席運營官謝麗爾•桑德伯格在她的新書《互依》（Lean In）中的最新表述。

After all, with technology and a global economy blurring the lines between the job and home, the corporation is no longer in a position to tell you when to stop working, which tasks to prioritize, or how to set personal boundaries, says Cali Williams Yost, flexible work consultant and author of Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day.

畢竟，科技和經濟的全球化使得工作與家庭的界線變得越來越模糊，公司也不再承擔這樣的一個職責：告訴員工何時停下工作，優先處理哪些事情，以及如何設定個人空間界線等，《微調：一天一天實現夢想》（Tweak It: Make What Matters to You Happen Every Day）一書的作者、靈活工作諮詢師凱利•威廉姆斯•尤斯特表示。

"We all have a completely different set of circumstances and goals and priorities, " Yost says. "We're reaching at a natural point where companies can't do much more than what they're doing: offering the flexibility and rolling it out well. Now we need to use it."

“我們都有完全不同的狀況、目標和優先事項，”尤斯特說。 “我們正在接近一個自然的臨界點，超過這個臨界點之後，公司除了提供工作的靈活性，妥善執行靈活性之外，再也無能爲力。如今，我們需要利用靈活性。”

To be sure, not every employer has developed a functional approach to flexible work. And plenty of workers are still struggling with out-of-date bosses who categorically oppose workplace flexibility or simply undermine it, despite the documented benefits such as higher productivity, lower turnover, and greater job satisfaction. (Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer's recent ban on telecommuting may come to mind.)

當然，並不是每家公司都已培育出有效的靈活工作方式。而且，很多員工還在和守舊的老闆進行鬥爭。儘管靈活安排工作環境好處顯而易見，比如，它可以提高生產率、降低人員流失和提高工作滿意度等，但這些老闆依然明確反對，甚至從中作梗。【這時，你或許會想起最近雅虎（Yahoo）CEO瑪麗莎•梅耶爾禁止遠程辦公的禁令。】

In that case, you have two choices: work within your current restrictions or change jobs. Don't be like the 75% of people who, according to Yost's research, believe that their boss or employer must provide work-life flexibility in order for it to be possible, citing increased workloads and lack of time as obstacles.

在這種情況下，你有兩種選擇：要麼遵從新的規則，要麼換工作。不要像尤斯特調查的那75%的人一樣，他們認爲，老闆或僱主必須提供工作與生活之間的靈活性，而且他們還將工作壓力大和缺乏時間視爲障礙。

"Whether you have a supportive workplace culture or you don't, at the end of the day the responsibility for making it work comes down to each of us, " says Brad Harrington, executive director of the Boston College Center for Work and Family. "You can only blame your employer for so long. Assuming you have marketable skills and that you have the courage of your convictions, at some point you have to say, 'It comes down to me to fix the situation.'"

“無論你是否擁有支持性的工作環境，歸根結底，靈活工作那一套能不能夠行得通，責任還是得落在我們每個人肩上，”波士頓學院工作和家庭中心（Boston College Center for Work and Family）執行董事布拉德•哈林頓說。“不能再把責任推給老闆了。假設你擁有具有市場競爭力的技能，而且你擁有堅定的信念，終有一天，你必須告訴自己，‘我得自己來改變這個現狀了。’”

To begin to restore work-life sanity, assess the demands on your time both personally and professionally, in the context of your aspirations for your career and home life. Make sure to capture a complete picture by combining your personal and work calendars, Yost says.

爲了重建工作和生活的平衡，不妨根據你對職業和家庭生活的期望，從個人和職業角度對時間需求進行評估。尤斯特說，要結合個人和工作日程安排，全盤考慮。

Each week, she advises setting aside time to put on your calendar every task on your to-do list, whether that's a date night with your spouse, two hours of focused strategic planning, or a specific work project. If you can't find a block of time for certain items, you'll either have to put them off or delegate them to someone else. As you see commitments coming up that will require you to shift your work schedule, communicate with your family and colleagues to make it happen.

她建議，每週都劃出一些時間把你要完成的工作排入日程表，無論這是與愛人的晚間約會、是兩個小時專注的戰略性規劃，還是完成具體的工作項目。如果有些事情你找不到整塊時間來做，要麼延後，要麼分配給其他人。如果你發現有些事情需要改變原有的工作安排，請與你的家人和同事溝通協調。

Anna Bradshaw, 38, a social work student in Madison, N.J., maintains overlapping Google calendars for her work, family commitments, and her husband's job. "At any time I can agree to staying late at work one night or saying no to something else because I know what's going on with his calendar, " says Bradshaw, who has three children aged 8, 5, and 3. "I am constantly managing competing priorities and concerns."

新澤西州麥迪遜現年38歲的社區工作學生安娜•布拉德肖表示，她一直使用谷歌（Google）日曆表功能，綜合安排自己的工作、家庭生活和丈夫的工作。“任何時候我都能立即同意某天晚上加班，或者回絕其他一些事情，因爲我知道丈夫的日程安排，”有3個小孩（年齡分別爲8歲、5歲和3歲）的布拉德肖表示。“我經常要管理相互衝突的優先事項和重要事情。”

Some of this comes down to what Facebook's (FB) Sandberg calls "leaning in, " or seizing opportunities for advancement rather than being held back by fear of what the new responsibilities will mean for family life.

其中一些可歸爲Facebook桑德伯格所謂的“擴大影響圈”，或者抓住前進機會，不會因爲擔心新職責可能影響到家庭生活而遲疑。

Sandberg's message has been subject to criticism. Workplace experts fear that glossing over the real tensions and difficulties of balancing work and family life lets employers off the hook.

桑德伯格的講法已遭到批評。職場專家們擔心，平衡工作和家庭關係方面存在的切切實實的困難，粉飾這種困難可能會讓僱主藉此撇清關係。

"Part of the answer is people taking ownership, but let's not lower the bar too far," says Jessica DeGroot, founder of ThirdPath, a nonprofit that supports men and women with their career paths. "Without more courageous people standing up, corporate America often asks too much of employees, and it's hurting marriages and families."

“答案部分在於讓僱員自己負責，但不要把標準降得太低，”提供職業發展支持的非營利組織ThirdPath的創始人傑西卡•迪格魯特說。“如果沒有更多有勇氣的人站起來反對，美國企業就會給僱員提過多的要求，結果對婚姻和家庭造成破壞。”

Just look at the price that former Lehman Brothers CFO Erin Callan paid for giving her all to the job: Her marriage ended, and when Lehman collapsed she felt her entire identity was gone. "I didn't start out with the goal of devoting all of myself to my job. It crept in over time," she wrote in a recent New York Times essay. "My boundaries slipped away until work was all that was left."

讓我們看看前雷曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers）首席財務官艾琳•卡蘭全身心撲在工作上所付出的代價：她的婚姻結束了。雷曼倒閉時，她感覺自己整個人也消失了。“最初我並沒有將全部投身工作作爲自己的目標。這是日積月累形成的，”最近她在《紐約時報》（New York Times）的一篇文章中這樣寫道。“個人空間的界線逐漸消失，一直到最後只剩下了工作。”

Others note that the work-life debate often overlooks the challenges of working class families, which have even more limited choices -- if any. "There are millions of women who work just as hard as Sandberg, but who are barely scraping by on wages that amount to less than $15,000 a year," says Linda Meric, national executive director of 9to5, a nonprofit that advocates for low-wage earner women. "For those working full-time at low-wage jobs, 'leaning in' and other personal decisions and choices does not provide a path out of poverty. We need labor standards that provide a stable floor for all workers and families."

其他職場專家指出，有關平衡工作與生活的討論通常忽視工薪家庭面臨的挑戰，因爲他們的選擇更有限——如果還有選擇的話。“有數百萬女性像桑德伯格一樣努力工作，但她們每年辛辛苦苦賺的錢不到15,000美元，”爲低收入女性代言的非營利組織9to5的全美執行董事琳達•美瑞克說，“對於那些全職的低收入工作，‘擴大影響圈'和其他個人決定與選擇不會讓他們找到擺脫貧困的出路。我們需要一個工作標準，爲所有員工和家庭提供穩固的平臺。”

Yost says it's up to individuals to make the leap from work-life inspiration to implementation. Sandberg also sees the importance of learning new workplace skills, whether that's negotiation or time management, according to Lean In documents published in the New York Times.

尤斯特說，要想實現工作-家庭平衡，達到這樣的飛躍，具體取決於個人。根據《紐約時報》刊登的《互依》一書中的部分內容，桑德伯格還看到了學習新的職場技能的重要性，無論是談判，還是時間管理。

"There is inspiration everywhere. It's not enough," Yost says. "With technology and globalization and demographic shifts, the old boundaries are gone, and something has to take its place. We are going to have to step into that breach. This is about men, women, young people, entrepreneurs, older workers. This is not about parents and not about women. This is about every single one of us."

“任何地方都有想法。光有想法還不夠，”尤斯特說，隨着科技、全球化和人口結構的轉變，過去的界線已經消失，其他東西將取而代之。我們必須站出來。它關乎男性、女性、年輕人、創業者和年長的工作者。它不只關係到父母，不只關係到女性。它關乎我們每個人。”