Work and the pandemic 工作和疫情

Only disconnect

The di?culties of policing remote work

第一段：

As office life approaches some sort of new normal, remote working is here to stay. Employers enjoy cost savings as they spend less on desks and floor space. For employees the promise is of time saved: spared of their commute, they can get their work done and focus on their families and hobbies. That, at least, is the idea. But, as many a remote employee knows, the boundary between work and home life can blur.?

隨著辦公室生活接近某種新常態(tài)，遠程工作將繼續(xù)存在。在辦公桌和租金的花費更少，因此可以節(jié)省成本，這是雇主們喜聞樂見的。對員工來說，節(jié)省時間是有可期的：不用通勤上下班，他們就可以完成工作，還可以專注于家庭和愛好。至少，理論上是如此。但是，正如許多遠程辦公雇員所知，工作和家庭生活之間的界限可能會模糊。

第二段：

Some governments and employers are trying to restore balance. In November Portugal announced legislation that, according to Ana Mendes Godinho, its labour minister, seeks to make the most of teletrabalho (remote work) while mitigating the downsides. Bosses are now banned from calling their employees “after hours”: those who make contact outside previously agreed times could be fined more than €9,000 ($10,000). Employers are also required to provide remote-working equipment and reimburse electricity and internet costs, and must hold in-person meetings twice a month, to help combat isolation.

一些政府和雇主正努力幫助恢復生活與工作間的平衡。11月，根據(jù)葡萄牙勞工部長安娜·門德斯·戈迪尼奧所說，葡萄牙宣布了一項立法，旨在緩解不利因素的同時，還充分利用遠程辦公的優(yōu)勢。老板們現(xiàn)在被禁止在“下班后”給員工打電話：那些在事先約定的工作時間之外打電話的老板可能會被罰款9000歐元以上（約10000美元）。雇主還需要提供遠程工作設備，報銷電費和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)費用，并且必須每月召開兩次面對面的線下會議，以幫助消除孤獨感。

第三段：

Several European countries had similar rules in place even before covid-19. In 2017 the “right to disconnect”, which allowed workers to ignore after-hours texts, emails or calls from their bosses without fear of repercussion, took effect in France. Italy followed soon after. Earlier this year Ireland said workers could disregard late emails and calls.

幾個歐洲國家在新冠之前就有類似的規(guī)定。2017年，“離線權(quán)利”在法國生效，該權(quán)利允許員工在下班后忽略來自老板的短信、電子郵件或電話，而不必擔心后果。意大利緊隨其后。今年早些時候，愛爾蘭表示，員工可以不用理會下班后的電子郵件和電話。

第四段：

Whether legislation can bring hours down, though, is unclear. Ambitious workers have plenty of incentive to pick up a call from their boss long after 5pm has come and gone; by comparison they stand to gain little from reporting violations of the law and landing their employer with a fine.

然而，立法是否能減少工作時間尚不清楚。雄心勃勃的員工有足夠的動力在下午5點之后反反復復接聽老板的電話；相比之下，他們舉報違法行為及使雇主被罰款，在這過程中獲益甚微。

第五段：

Then there is the practical difficulty of agreeing on when workers should be contactable, something that is often left to be negotiated between employer and employee. In France and Italy there is no obligation to find an agreement. Aside from one widely publicised court decision in 2018 ordering a pest-control company to pay €60,000 to an employee it had required to be reachable at all times in case of an emergency, little has come of the law in France. Even Ms Mendes Godinho’s office communicated with your correspondent at 7pm.

此外，就何時應與工人聯(lián)系達成一致也存在實際困難，這通常需要雇主和雇員之間進行協(xié)商。法國和意大利不必非達成協(xié)議不可。除了2018年一項廣為宣傳的法庭判決，命令一家蟲害防治公司向一名員工支付6萬歐元，該公司要求員工在緊急情況下隨時可以聯(lián)系到該員工。法國的相關(guān)法律幾乎沒有出臺。甚至門德斯·戈迪尼奧女士的辦公室，也還在晚上7點與你的記者進行了溝通。

第六段：

Perhaps change must come from within. In Japan, where toiling any less than 50 hours can be interpreted as a lack of commitment to the job, half of all workers were already back in the office at least three days a week by April 2021. But even there employers are responding to workers’ demands for a better work-life balance. Fujitsu, a technology giant, has introduced flexible hours and allows remote work. Elsewhere, the number of chief remote officers is proliferating. But few companies have gone as far as Volkswagen. For the past decade, the German carmaker’s servers have ensured that employees covered by a collective-pay agreement do not receive work emails on their phones between 6.15pm and 7am.

也許變革必須來自內(nèi)部。在日本，工作時間少于50小時可以被認為對工作不敬業(yè)。到2021年4月為止，一半的工人每周至少有三天回到辦公室上班。但即便如此，雇主也在積極滿足工人們對更好的工作生活平衡的要求。富士通，一家科技巨頭，引入了靈活的工作時間制度，并允許遠程辦公。在其他地方，首席遠程官的數(shù)量正在激增。但很少有公司能像大眾汽車那么早。在過去十年中，這家德國汽車制造商的達成了一項集體薪酬協(xié)議，涵蓋的相關(guān)員工在晚上6:15-早上7:00間，他們的手機上不會收到工作郵件。