原文標(biāo)題：
Bartleby
Is employee loyalty silly?
Many a fickle makes a muckle
巴托比專欄
員工忠誠是傻嗎？
積少成多，聚沙成塔

Why employee loyalty can be overrated
為什么員工的忠誠度會被高估

[Paragraph 1]
JOB INTERVIEWS are an opportunity to see allegiances shift in real time.
求職面試是一個實時了解忠誠度變化的機會。

A candidate will usually refer to a prospective employer as “you” at the start of an interview (“What do you want to see from someone in this position?”).
在面試開始時，候選人通常會稱呼未來的雇主為 "您"（“您希望從這個職位的人身上看到什么？”）。

But occasionally the pronoun changes (“We should be thinking more about our approach to below-the-line marketing. Sorry, I mean ‘you’ should be”).
但偶爾也會改變稱呼（"我們應(yīng)該更多地考慮我們的線下營銷方法。抱歉，我是說'您'應(yīng)該這樣做"）。

That “we” is a tiny, time-travelling glimpse of someone imagining themselves as the employee of a new company, of a fresh identity being forged and of loyalties being transferred.這個 "我們 "是微小的、穿越時空的一瞥，是想象自己作為新公司的一員，代表新身份的形成和忠誠的轉(zhuǎn)移。

[Paragraph 2]
Loyalty is seen as a virtue in most situations: among friends, family and football fans. Employee loyalty, however, is more complex.
在大多數(shù)情況下，忠誠被視為朋友、家人和球迷之間的一種美德。然而，員工忠誠度則更為復(fù)雜。

It is more transactional. Friends don’t give each other performance reviews or fire each other for cost reasons.
它的交易性質(zhì)更高。朋友之間不會因為成本原因而互相進(jìn)行業(yè)績評估或解雇對方。

It is less reciprocal. A worker can feel attachment to a company and a company can feel precisely nothing.
它的互惠性質(zhì)更低。員工會對公司產(chǎn)生依戀感，而公司對員工卻沒感覺。

?(Which is why people often feel more loyal to team members and individual bosses than to their organisations.)
(這解釋了員工對團隊成員和個別上司的忠誠度，高于對公司的忠誠度的原因。）

And too much of it can impose high costs.
而且，忠誠度更高意味著代價更高。

[Paragraph 3]
Wage bumps and careers are built on people changing jobs.
工資上漲和職業(yè)生涯建立在跳槽換工作的基礎(chǔ)上。

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which tracks wage growth in America, in April job switchers were being paid 7.6% more than a year earlier; job stickers were being paid only 5.6% more.
根據(jù)美國亞特蘭大聯(lián)邦儲備銀行的數(shù)據(jù)，該機構(gòu)追蹤美國的工資增長情況，4月份，跳槽者的工資比一年前多了7.6%；而留職者的工資只多了5.6%。

A little promiscuity on the part of other people can help those who choose to stay where they are.
跳槽者的跳槽舉動對留職者有利。

A paper by Nathan Deutscher, a Treasury official in Australia, found that higher rates of job-hopping in local Australian labour markets were associated with faster wage growth both for workers who switched jobs and for those who did not.
澳大利亞財政部官員內(nèi)森.多伊切爾的一篇論文發(fā)現(xiàn)，在澳大利亞本地勞動力市場上，高跳槽率與高工資增長率有關(guān)，無論是對跳槽者還是留職者都是如此。

Loyalty is nice; so is bargaining power.
忠誠度很重要；議價能力也很重要。

[Paragraph 4]
Too much loyalty can harm workers in other ways.
過高的忠誠度會以其他方式傷害員工。

A piece of research published earlier this year by Matthew Stanley of Duke University and his co-authors tested how bosses felt about loyal workers.
今年早些時候，杜克大學(xué)的馬修.斯坦利和他的合著者發(fā)表了一項研究，研究測試了老板們對忠誠員工的看法。

The researchers asked managers how willing they were to ask a fictional employee named John to work overtime for no pay.
研究人員詢問老板們，他們是否愿意讓一位化名為“約翰”的員工無償加班。

If John was described as loyal, then bosses were happier to dump more work on him.
如果約翰被打上“忠誠”的標(biāo)簽，那么老板們更樂意把更多工作交給他。

The reverse also applied: workers who did more work for no reward were more likely to be described by managers as loyal.
反之亦然：無償加班次數(shù)更多的員工更有可能被老板們打上“忠誠”的標(biāo)簽。

Dogs are known for their loyalty, remember, but not for their brains.
請記住，狗以“忠誠”著稱，而不是以“聰明”著稱。

[Paragraph 5]
Employers tend to be clear-eyed about what generates loyalty.
雇主往往對產(chǎn)生忠誠度的因素有清醒的認(rèn)識。

Retention bonuses are an admission that the best employees might need a little nudge to stay.
留任獎金意味著承認(rèn)最優(yōu)秀的員工需要一點推力才愿意留下來。

Actual loyalty tends to get nugatory rewards: a week’s extra holiday for 25 years of service?
真正的忠誠往往只能得到微不足道的回報：工作25年的員工可以額外獲得一周假期？

Netflix encourages its employees to speak to recruiters so that they know their worth in the open market and so that it can respond with counter-offers (an approach that makes more sense when you are prepared to pay top dollar and less so if you are in the non-profit sector).
網(wǎng)飛公司鼓勵其員工與招聘人員交談，以便他們了解自己在公開市場上的價值，這樣員工可以跟公司還價（如果你確實能拿到高薪，這種方法就有意義，如果你是在非營利部門，則意義不大）。

[Paragraph 6]
Companies can nonetheless be wedded to the idea of loyalty.
盡管如此，公司還是執(zhí)著于忠誠度。

The group of employees who left Shockley Semiconductor Lab in the 1950s to found Fairchild Semiconductor was famously dubbed the “traitorous eight”.
1950 年代一群員工從肖克利半導(dǎo)體實驗室離職，創(chuàng)立了飛兆半導(dǎo)體，他們被稱為“八叛徒”。

Some of that attitude still prevails. But unless you are a member of the mafia or a cleric, joining a competitor is neither treachery nor heresy.
這種觀點仍然盛行。但除非你是黑手黨成員或牧師，否則加入競爭對手公司既不是背叛也不是異端。

Indeed, boomerang hires—people who leave an employer and then come back—can offer a valuable blend of known quantity and new skills.
事實上，回頭員工--指離開雇主后又回來的人--是一種已知數(shù)和新技能的寶貴結(jié)合體。

[Paragraph 7]
Society can suffer if there is a surfeit of employee loyalty.
如果員工的忠誠度過高，那對社會有不利影響。

A paper on whistle-blowing, published in 2019 by James Dungan of the University of Chicago and his co-authors, found that employees were more likely to report wrongdoing if their concern was fair treatment of people outside the organisation and less likely to do so if they were more motivated by loyalty.
芝加哥大學(xué)的詹姆斯.鄧根及其合著者在2019年發(fā)表的一篇關(guān)于舉報的論文發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果員工關(guān)心的是公司外人群的公平待遇，他們更有可能舉報不法行為，而如果他們是出于忠誠的動機，則不太可能舉報。

Other research suggests that competitive situations can encourage loyal members of one group to cheat in order to best another.
其他研究表明，競爭環(huán)境會鼓勵一個群體的忠誠成員為了打敗另一個群體而作弊。

[Paragraph 8]
Employee loyalty can be great. Companies want workers who feel committed to them, who are prepared to go the extra mile and not join a rival at a moment’s notice.
員工的忠誠度很重要。公司希望員工對公司有承諾感，愿意付出額外努力，且不會迅速加入競爭對手公司。

Workers want to believe in and belong at a firm, confident that it warrants chunks of their finite time on Earth.
員工希望相信并歸屬于一家公司，相信這家公司值得他們在有限的人生中投入大量精力。

It is better all around, for job satisfaction and for performance, if employees stay put because they feel invested in their organisation than because they haven’t got a better offer.
對于工作滿意度和績效來說，如果員工之所以留在原公司是因為他們對組織產(chǎn)生了投入感，而不是因為他們沒有更好的選擇，那么對雙方都有利。

But loyalty in the workplace is a self-interested decision, not a moral one.
但是，工作中的忠誠度是為了追求個人利益，而不是因為道德束縛。

It should be contingent on being treated well, not a habit that becomes harder to break.
工作中的忠誠度應(yīng)該取決于良好待遇，而不是變成一種難以改變的舊習(xí)。

Stay where you are because you like it, not because to leave would be immoral.
留在公司是因為你喜歡它，而不是因為怕離職被打上“不道德”的標(biāo)簽。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量813左右）
原文出自：2023年6月10日《The Economist》Business版塊

精讀筆記來源于：自由英語之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene

本文編輯校對: Irene
僅供個人英語學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補充資料】（來自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
網(wǎng)飛Netflix是一家總部位于美國的流媒體公司，它以提供在線視頻服務(wù)而聞名。作為一家注重員工激勵的公司，網(wǎng)飛采取了一項獨特的政策，即向員工支付市場上最高的工資。根據(jù)這個政策，員工的薪水將根據(jù)他們所在職位的市場工資水平來確定，確保他們得到公平的報酬。這意味著，如果市場上類似職位的平均工資超過網(wǎng)飛當(dāng)前支付的薪水，網(wǎng)飛將提高員工的薪水以達(dá)到市場水平。

然而，需要注意的是，網(wǎng)飛給員工支付市場最高工資的政策并不意味著員工可以輕松獲得高薪。公司依然會根據(jù)員工的表現(xiàn)和貢獻(xiàn)來評估他們的薪資水平，并且這個政策并不適用于所有職位。此外，忠誠度和長期服務(wù)并不直接導(dǎo)致更高的工資，因為網(wǎng)飛更注重員工的能力和績效。

肖克利半導(dǎo)體實驗室Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory是1956年由諾貝爾獎得主威廉·肖克利創(chuàng)建的一家半導(dǎo)體研究實驗室。該實驗室位于美國加利福尼亞州的山景城，是早期半導(dǎo)體技術(shù)研究的重要中心之一。然而，1957年發(fā)生了離職事件。威廉·肖克利的管理風(fēng)格和種族主義觀點引發(fā)了員工的不滿和抗議，導(dǎo)致了一次大規(guī)模的員工離職潮。其中包括了八位被稱為“八叛徒”的核心研究人員，他們認(rèn)為肖克利的管理風(fēng)格嚴(yán)重妨礙了創(chuàng)新和合作。這八位離職員工后來共同創(chuàng)辦了一家名為“飛兆半導(dǎo)體”的公司，成為了半導(dǎo)體行業(yè)的重要力量。他們的離職也使得肖克利半導(dǎo)體實驗室的聲譽受損，最終導(dǎo)致了該實驗室的關(guān)閉。這次離職事件被認(rèn)為是早期硅谷歷史上的重要事件之一。它顯示了員工對于公平和尊重的重要性，并對后來硅谷文化的形成產(chǎn)生了深遠(yuǎn)的影響。

【重點句子】（3個）
Loyalty is seen as a virtue in most situations: among friends, family and football fans. Employee loyalty, however, is more complex.
在大多數(shù)情況下，忠誠被視為朋友、家人和球迷之間的一種美德。然而，員工忠誠度則更為復(fù)雜。

The reverse also applied: workers who did more work for no reward were more likely to be described by managers as loyal.
反之亦然：無償加班次數(shù)更多的員工更有可能被老板們打上“忠誠”的標(biāo)簽。

But loyalty in the workplace is a self-interested decision, not a moral one.
但是，工作中的忠誠度是為了追求個人利益，而不是因為道德束縛。