The power of small gestures

小手勢(shì)的力量

Bartleby

巴托比

Small acts of appreciation can delight employees. But they are not meant to be industrialised

小小的贊賞之舉能讓員工開(kāi)心。但這并不意味著要“工業(yè)化”贊賞

When labour markets are tight, the perks tend to get better. Spotify is rolling out a new corporate-subscription package, enabling firms to offer the streaming service to their employees. If you are sufficiently high up at Goldman Sachs, you are now entitled to take as much holiday as you want (this is a nominal perk; no one who cherishes work-life balance gets to climb the ladder at Goldman in the first place). Salesforce has a ranch in California to which it can send workers for in-person get-togethers. If you work long enough for Blue Origin, you might get blasted into space.?

【1】high-up 高官

【2】get-together 聚會(huì)

當(dāng)勞動(dòng)力市場(chǎng)緊張時(shí)，福利往往會(huì)變得更好。Spotify正在推出一種新的企業(yè)訂閱套餐，公司能夠向其員工提供流媒體服務(wù)。如果你在高盛的職位足夠高，你現(xiàn)在有權(quán)想休多少假就休多少假(這只是名義上的福利；任何一個(gè)珍視工作與生活平衡的人都無(wú)法在高盛獲得晉升)。Salesforce在加州有一個(gè)牧場(chǎng)，可以派員工到那里參加面對(duì)面的聚會(huì)。如果你在藍(lán)色起源太空公司工作的時(shí)間足夠長(zhǎng)，你可能會(huì)被發(fā)射到太空。

For firms that don’t own rockets or ranches, it can seem hard to compete. The good news is that small gestures of appreciation can have an outsized effect on employee satisfaction and loyalty. The bad news is that they are not meant to be scaled up.?

對(duì)于那些沒(méi)有火箭或牧場(chǎng)的公司來(lái)說(shuō)，似乎很難與之競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。好消息是，贊賞的小舉動(dòng)會(huì)對(duì)員工的滿(mǎn)意度和忠誠(chéng)度產(chǎn)生巨大的影響。壞消息是，它們不打算“擴(kuò)大贊賞規(guī)?！?。

Several pieces of research look at the effect that acts of thoughtfulness can have on staff. In one recent study by academics at King’s College London and Harvard Business School, a group of social workers was randomly divided in two: members of one group got a letter of thanks for their work from their line manager, and members of the other got nothing. A month later, recipients of the letter reported feeling much more valued than their counterparts.?

有幾項(xiàng)研究著眼于體貼的行為對(duì)員工的影響。在倫敦國(guó)王學(xué)院和哈佛商學(xué)院的學(xué)者們最近進(jìn)行的一項(xiàng)研究中，一群社會(huì)福利工作者被隨機(jī)分為兩組:一組的成員得到了部門(mén)經(jīng)理的感謝信，而另一組的成員什么也沒(méi)有得到。一個(gè)月后，收到感謝信的人表示，他們覺(jué)得自己比其他人更受重視。

In similar vein, a study in 2010 found that university fundraisers who were personally thanked for their work by a senior member of staff made many more calls to ask alumni for donations in the week following this small act of recognition than they had in the week before. There was no statistically significant change for an unthanked control group.?

與此類(lèi)似，2010年的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果大學(xué)的籌款人因自己的工作表現(xiàn)得到一名資深工作人員的親自感謝，那么在這一小小的贊賞舉動(dòng)之后，他們?cè)谝恢軆?nèi)打電話(huà)請(qǐng)求校友捐款的次數(shù)要比前一周多得多。未得到感謝的對(duì)照組沒(méi)有統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)上的顯著變化。

Another study involved workers at a Coca-Cola facility in Madrid, some of whom had secretly been told to perform acts of kindness to a subset of their colleagues (bringing someone a drink, say, or emailing them a note of thanks). Both givers and receivers of these acts reported feeling higher levels of job satisfaction; and the receivers ended up doing other colleagues more favours, too.?

另一項(xiàng)研究的對(duì)象是馬德里可口可樂(lè)工廠的員工，他們中的一些人被秘密告知要對(duì)一部分同事表現(xiàn)出善意(比如給別人帶杯飲料，或者給他們發(fā)一封感謝信)。這些行為的給予者和接受者都報(bào)告稱(chēng)，他們的工作滿(mǎn)意度更高；而接受者最終也為其他同事提供了更多的幫助。

Such studies carry two lessons for employers. One is that recognition can have a meaningful impact on workers. The other is that this impact is amplified if shows of appreciation are personal and unexpected. In their haste to act on the first lesson, plenty of companies completely forget the second.?

這些研究給雇主們帶來(lái)了兩個(gè)教訓(xùn)。其一是，贊賞可以對(duì)員工產(chǎn)生有意義的影響。另一種是，如果贊賞是私人的、意想不到的，這種影響會(huì)被放大。許多公司在匆忙遵循第一個(gè)教訓(xùn)的過(guò)程中，完全忘記了第二個(gè)教訓(xùn)。

Many firms now run formal employee-recognition initiatives, from rewards programmes to award schemes. Vendors offer clients a variety of services, including internal noticeboards on which colleagues can publicly thank each other for their work and bestow points that can be redeemed for gifts and experiences. The website of one vendor offers managers advice on what to say to employees to make them feel recognised, because absolutely nothing says “authenticity” like a script. (Sample quote: “Congratulations on your great victory! Only you could have pulled it off!”, which sounds like a Hallmark card for Napoleon.)?

【1】award 獎(jiǎng)；獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)；獎(jiǎng)金；獎(jiǎng)品

[釋義] a prize or an amount of money that is given to someone following an official decision

許多公司現(xiàn)在都有正式的員工贊賞計(jì)劃，從“rewards programmes”(積分獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)計(jì)劃？)到“award schemes”(獎(jiǎng)金獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)計(jì)劃？)。供應(yīng)商為客戶(hù)提供各種各樣的服務(wù)，包括內(nèi)部公告欄，同事們可以在上面公開(kāi)感謝對(duì)方的工作，并贈(zèng)送積分，這些積分可以?xún)稉Q禮物和經(jīng)驗(yàn)。一家供應(yīng)商的網(wǎng)站為管理者們提供建議，告訴他們?cè)搶?duì)員工說(shuō)什么才能讓他們感到被認(rèn)可，因?yàn)榻^對(duì)沒(méi)有什么比“腳本”更能體現(xiàn)“真實(shí)性”了。(引用范例:“祝賀你取得了偉大勝利！只有你才能辦成這件事！這聽(tīng)起來(lái)像是給拿破侖的賀曼賀卡。)

Industrialising appreciation misses the point completely. Automated birthday and work-anniversary congratulations are about as personal as an invoice. Platforms on which peers publicly recognise the hard work of others are liable to encourage performative displays of praise. That is especially likely if every compliment shows up on an analytics dashboard for the boss; one employee-engagement firm tracks shows of gratitude and breaks these “recognition occasions” into a series of ghastly categories like “Owning the Results” and “Building Trust Like a Family”.?

“工業(yè)化”贊賞則完全沒(méi)有抓住重點(diǎn)。自動(dòng)的生日和工作周年慶祝賀就像一張發(fā)票一樣個(gè)人化。在同行們可以公開(kāi)贊賞他人的辛勤工作的這樣的平臺(tái)上，很容易鼓勵(lì)對(duì)他人進(jìn)行有表述性的表?yè)P(yáng)。如果每一句贊美都出現(xiàn)在老板的分析儀表板上，這種情況就更有可能發(fā)生；一家員工敬業(yè)度公司跟蹤員工的感恩表現(xiàn)，并將這些“贊賞場(chǎng)合”劃分為一系列可怕的類(lèi)別，如“擁有結(jié)果”和“像家人一樣建立信任”。

Award schemes also require careful handling. They are great if you win and somewhat less motivating if you don’t stand a chance. In one study from 2014, academics looked at the effect of an award programme on Zambian health-care trainees; they found that comparison with others worsened performance, especially for less able workers.?

獎(jiǎng)金獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)計(jì)劃也需要謹(jǐn)慎。如果贏得獎(jiǎng)金，他們會(huì)很好，如果你沒(méi)有機(jī)會(huì)贏得(獎(jiǎng)金)，他們會(huì)有點(diǎn)缺乏動(dòng)力。在2014年的一項(xiàng)研究中，學(xué)者們研究了一項(xiàng)獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)計(jì)劃對(duì)贊比亞醫(yī)療保健培訓(xùn)人員的影響；他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，與他人比較會(huì)使員工表現(xiàn)更差，尤其是能力較差的員工。

The secret to showing appreciation is that scarcity matters. It should involve effort: a handwritten note is better than an email, which is better than an algorithm. It should feel personal, not part of a scheme cooked up by the human-resources department. And it should be sufficiently rare to register as meaningful; thanking everyone for everything turns gratitude into a commodity. In other words, appreciation is not a big-data project. Individual managers can harness the power of small gestures to make a real difference to their teams. The best thing firms can do is to hire the sort of people who recognise as much.

表達(dá)感激的秘訣在于，稀缺很重要。它應(yīng)該需要花費(fèi)精力：手寫(xiě)便條比電子郵件好，電子郵件總比算法好。它應(yīng)該是私人的，而不是人力資源部門(mén)制定的計(jì)劃的一部分。它應(yīng)該足夠罕見(jiàn)，從而被認(rèn)為是有意義的；感謝每一個(gè)人，感謝每一件事，會(huì)把感激變成一種商品。換句話(huà)說(shuō)，感激不是一個(gè)大數(shù)據(jù)項(xiàng)目。單一管理者可以利用小手勢(shì)的力量，為他們的團(tuán)隊(duì)帶來(lái)真正的改變。公司能做的最好的事情就是雇傭那些不吝嗇贊賞的人。