職場閱讀：全球性職場焦慮症
下面本站小編爲大家帶來職場閱讀：全球性職場焦慮症，希望大家喜歡!
First his fingers, forearms and toes tingled; then hewas gripped by a mental paralysis. “I couldn’t thinkabout how to make a decision,” says the banking executive in his mid-forties. “I completelyfroze. I felt my IQ had dropped 50 points.” The trigger for his anxiety, he says, wasunrealistic work demands. “Not making decisions made it worse as I was then not performing.”
先是手指、前臂和腳趾感到刺痛;然後他的精神陷入了麻痹。“我無法思考如何做出決定，”這名四十五歲左右的銀行業高管表示，“我完全呆住了。我感覺我的智商下降了50點。”他表示，不切實際的工作要求引發了他的焦慮。“不做決定讓事情變得更糟，因爲這樣我就沒有在產生績效。”
Yet this City worker , who prefers not to be named, tried to conceal his anxiety because hefeared his employer would think he was not cut out for the job. The prevailing culture at hisoffice was to keep your head down, work hard, admit no weakness. He wanted to be seen asefficient and resilient. People noticed that his work — rather than his mental health — wassuffering. “Given that I have always been pretty much the ‘golden boy’, when my boss took meto task I imploded.”
然而，這位希望不具名的倫敦金融城(City of London)從業人士試圖隱瞞他的焦慮情緒，因爲他害怕他的僱主會認爲他不適合幹這份工作。在他所在的辦公室裏，盛行的文化是埋頭苦幹，不承認自己有任何弱點。他希望被視爲一個高效和抗壓能力強的員工。人們注意到他的工作業績——而不是他的精神健康——變差了。“由於我幾乎一直是‘金童’，所以當我的老闆責備我的時候，我爆發了。”
Plagued by a fear that he was a fraud he considered suicide. That was in 2014.
自己其實是個騙子的念頭一直困擾着他，這讓他在2014年考慮過自殺。
After receiving psychiatric help he is now back at work and has become an expert atspotting thesigns of anxiety in others. “The characteristics that contribute to stress can also be thereason high achievers have reached their positions — people pleasing, perfectionism, the needto be strong and to be hyper vigilant to emerging threats,” he says.
在接受精神治療後，他現在已經回到了工作崗位。他變得特別善於發現其他人出現焦慮情緒的跡象。“造成壓力的性格特徵同時也可能是高成就者取得他們現在的地位的原因——取悅他人、完美主義、希望做強人、以及對威脅的出現高度警覺，”他說。
His case is a stark example of the anxiety and stress that employees experience, andemployers are increasingly having to pay attention to. It is a global phenomenon, but in theUK alone the most recent report from the chief medical officer estimates that the number ofsick days lost to “stress, depression and anxiety” increased by 24 per cent between 2009 and2013. The statistics are alarming: one report from Rotman School of Management in Toronto,published this year shows that 41 per cent of employees from a range of industries reportedhigh levels of anxiety .
他的經歷鮮明地體現出員工感受到的焦慮和壓力，僱主越來越有必要對此加以關注。這是一個全球性現象，然而僅僅在英國，據政府首席醫務官最新的報告估計，2009年到2013年間“壓力、抑鬱和焦慮”導致的病假天數上升了24%。統計數據令人驚恐：多倫多羅特曼管理學院(Rotman School of Management)今年發表的一份報告表明，在來自一系列行業的員工中，有41%的人稱自己焦慮水平很高。
The increase is often blamed on modern working life. The constant buzz of texts, emails andtweets mangles our brains and stalks our sleep; robots are in the ascendancy, threatening tosteal our jobs. New technologies emerge from left-field to flatten established companies;work appears insecure, corporate ties loose. And expectations of professional life havechanged. Work, once the activity we did for money and status, is now supposed to providepersonal fulfilment. The upshot? We are afflicted with unease, fear and worry.
人們常常將這種壓力的增加歸咎於現代工作方式。短信、郵件和Twitter持續不斷的提示音把我們的大腦攪得一團亂，甚至在我們睡覺的時候也如影隨形;機器逐漸佔據優勢地位，威脅着要偷走我們的工作。意想不到的新技術輕而易舉地擊敗老牌公司;工作似乎沒有保障，企業紐帶很鬆散。對職業生活的期望也改變了。以前我們工作是爲了錢和地位，現在我們據說應該通過工作實現自我價值。結果呢?不安、恐懼和憂慮困擾着我們。
“After a decade of disruption, cutbacks and lay-offs, anxiety among employees is running veryhigh,” says Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School.
“經過10年的擾亂、削減和裁員後，員工的焦慮已經非常嚴重了，”哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)高級研究員比爾吠治(Bill George)表示。
The diagnosis
診斷
Anxiety is typically described as a feeling of unease, worry or fear. When it becomes acute theeffects can be debilitating. Some people are more vulnerable to it than others, at differentperiods in their lives. It is not something we can ever wholly eliminate and it can, at times, behelpful in improving our performance. But too much and it can be corrosive, on occasionleading to alcohol and drug abuse.
焦慮通常是指不安、擔憂或恐懼的感覺。當焦慮變嚴重時，會使人萎靡。在人生的不同階段，有些人會比別人更容易被焦慮影響。我們不能完全消除焦慮，有時焦慮有助於提升我們的表現。但過度焦慮就會變得有害了，有時候會導致酗酒和吸毒。
Absenteeism is just one problem for employers. The loss of productivity — dubbed“presenteeism” — is another. This occurs when employees come to work but function below parbecause of ill health. Research suggests this trend predominantly affects white-collar workersand that the costs can be high. One report estimated that presenteeism, including all medicaland mental health issues, shaved 2.7 per cent off Australia’s gross domestic product in 2010.A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology, published earlier this year, reported: “Anxietyinterferes with people’s ability to process immediate events, resulting in lower performance.”
對於僱主來說，缺勤只是焦慮造成的問題之一。另一個問題是工作效率降低——又稱“假性出勤”。這是指雖然員工來上班了，但是由於健康狀況欠佳，工作效率低於一般水平。研究表明，受這種影響的主要是白領，其代價可能十分高昂。一份報告估計，2010年，包括所有身體和精神健康問題在內，假性出勤使澳大利亞國內生產總值(GDP)損失了2.7%。《應用心理學期刊》(Journal of Applied Psychology)今年早些時候發表的一份論文稱：“焦慮干擾了人們處理即時事件的能力，從而導致表現低下。”
In response, companies are introducing programmes to help workers cope better with stressand anxiety. Even in hyper-competitive industries such as finance or technology, there isincreased understanding that attending to their employees’mental wellbeing may be good forprofits.
因此，一些公司引入了一些項目，幫助員工更好地應對壓力與焦慮。甚至在金融和科技這樣競爭極爲激烈的行業，也有越來越多的公司認識到關注員工的心理健康可能有助於提高利潤。
The causes
起因
Michael Sinclair, a psychologist in the City of London, sees a “tremendous” number of bankersand lawyers with work-induced anxiety. “They work at a relentless pace,” he says. “Thepressure is always on and there is a culture of incessant email communication.”
在倫敦金融城工作的心理學家邁克爾鬠克萊博士(Michael Sinclair)發現，因爲工作感到焦慮的銀行家和律師數目“巨大”。“他們無休無止地工作，”他說，“壓力如影隨形，而且有一種不間斷郵件溝通的文化。”
But he also believes there is a bigger problem for companies: such anxiety can be infectious. “Acompany’s fear of failure breeds the same fear among its employees creating a ‘companysickness’ and culture of anxiety,” says Dr Sinclair. “Ironically this backfires and impacts thebottom line.”
但他還相信，對企業來說還有一個更大的問題：這種焦慮會傳染。“一家公司對失敗的恐懼會造成員工產生同樣的恐懼，引起‘企業病’和焦慮的企業文化，”辛克萊博士說，“諷刺的是，這適得其反，反而影響了公司的利潤。”
Technology is a contributing factor, says Nigel Jones, a lawyer and co-founder of the CityMental Health Alliance, a non-profit organisation for London’s financial services workers. Hebelieves the intensity has increased since he started work 30 years ago.
針對倫敦金融服務業員工成立的非營利性組織倫敦金融城心理健康聯盟(City Mental Health Alliance)的聯合創始人、律師奈傑爾瓊斯(Nigel Jones)表示，科技是一個促成焦慮的因素。他認爲，從他30年前參加工作開始，工作的強度就一直在增加。
“Clients want more in terms of speed, quality. There is more pressure at work and the risk ofanxiety is higher,” he says, adding that 27 City employers have become members of thenetwork within two years. “Expectations of a speedy response [to a client] have got higherbut the expectations of the quality of work have not gone down.”
“客戶對速度和質量的要求提高了。工作的壓力變得更大，出現焦慮情緒的風險也就更高，”他說，並補充道兩年內已有27家倫敦金融城的僱主加入了該聯盟，“(客戶)對於反饋速度的預期提高了，但對於工作質量的預期卻沒有降低。”
Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor of organisational behaviour at Insead Business School,sees the rise of social media as triggering what has become known as “presentation anxiety”,making people feel vulnerable. We suffer from “being always on”, he says.
歐洲工商管理學院(Insead)組織行爲學副教授詹皮埃羅簠靟裏利埃裏(Gianpiero Petriglieri)認爲社交媒體的崛起引發了所謂的“展示焦慮”，讓人們感到脆弱。他說，“總是在線”讓我們感到困擾。
Although unemployment in the UK is at a seven-year low, short-term contracts and overalljob insecurity have risen for millions of people, from steelworkers to nurses and bankers.
雖然英國的失業率處於7年來的低點，但對從鋼鐵工人、護士到銀行家的數百萬計的人來說，短期合同和總體上的工作不安全感還是增加了。
Some argue that it is impossible to calculate the impact of changing technology andemployment conditions on the rise in reported cases of anxiety.
有人認爲，無法推算出不斷變化的科技和就業條件對焦慮增加的影響。
“Trying to directly compare levels of anxiety between eras is a fool’s errand,” says ScottStossel, author of My Age of Anxiety. “Modern poll data and statistics about rising and fallinglevels of tranquilliser [use] aside, there is no magical anxiety meter that can transcend thecultural particularities of place and time.”
“想要直接比較不同時代的焦慮水平只會徒勞無益，”《我的焦慮時代》(My Age of Anxiety)的作者斯科特施託塞爾(Scott Stossel)表示，“排除現代民意調查數據和有關鎮靜劑使用水平起伏的統計數據，根本不存在一個能夠超越不同時空文化特點來衡量焦慮水平的神奇尺度標準。”
