As Telecommuting Rises, Here’s How to Keep Tabs on1 Your Team远程办公下的团队管理方略

2018-01-06丹妮尔萨布里纳郝福合

英语世界 2017年6期

关键词：办公远程软件

文/丹妮尔·萨布里纳译/郝福合

By Danielle Sabrina

As Telecommuting Rises, Here’s How to Keep Tabs on1Your Team远程办公下的团队管理方略

文/丹妮尔·萨布里纳译/郝福合

ByDanielle Sabrina

According to a recent Gallup poll,telecommuting is on the rise. Over one-third of all American workers are now doing so from the comfort of their home, a local café, or a mobile office2mobile office移动办公室。乘坐汽车等交通工具时，使用手机或笔记本电脑等进行办公称为移动办公，而用来移动办公的交通工具即为移动办公室。. As more and more companies get smart to the benefits of keeping a remote staff (reduced cost,greater efficiency, access to global talent),this trend will likely increase.

[2] Technology is facilitating telecommuting and making the physical office a thing of the past. We can sign off3sign off认可，同意。approvals from our smartphones,pitch in4pitch in 参与，合作。on Slack5一款团队协作交流软件，将分散信息予以整合，以实现信息共享。from the subway and teleconference over Skype6一款网络即时通讯软件，具有视频聊天、语音对话、文件传送、文字聊天等功能。, rather than taking an expensive flight to a longdistance meeting.

近期一项盖洛普民意测验显示，远程办公日益兴起。现有超过三分之一的美国职员在家中、邻近的咖啡馆或移动办公室远程办公。随着远程办公的优势得到越来越多公司的认可（降低成本，提高效率，获得全球范围的人才），该趋势有望继续发展。

[2]科技正为远程办公提供便利，同时逐渐淘汰实体办公室。我们可使用智能手机批准事项，在地铁上借助Slack软件协同工作，通过Skype参加电话会议，而不必乘坐费用不菲的航班远途参会。

[3] The rapid growth of marketplace companies, like Taskrabbit7跑腿兔，美国一个提供临时工服务的在线平台。and Upwork8美国一个自由职业平台。, further fuels the trend. In fact,according to a 2016 study from Harvard,the average American would take an 8 percent pay cut just to work from home!

[4] Yet not everyone is happy about the rise in telecommuting. Sending their staff out into the blue yonder9into the blue yonder到未知的远方，常作into the wild/wide blue yonder。该短语初见于1939年由罗伯特·麦克阿瑟·克劳福德（Robert MacArthur Crawford）创作的歌曲《陆军航空队歌》（Army Air Corps），后成为美国空军军歌，改名为《美国空军》（The U.S. Air Force）。歌曲首句写道：“Off we go into the wild blue yonder, climbing high into the sun.”（我们飞向蓝色远方，升向高空，冲向太阳。）can strike panic in the hearts of controlling managers. According to Founder &CEO of Flexjobs10美国一家求职网站，为求职者提供远程办公、自由职业、兼职工作等就业信息。, Sara Sutton Fell,many companies are still scared of telecommuting for three main reasons:

1. It’s unmanageable

2. It’s only beneficial to employees

3. It’s unknown territory

[3] Taskrabbit和Upwork之类的求职公司迅速发展，为这一趋势推波助澜。据2016年哈佛大学的一项研究，实际上，美国人一般愿减薪8%，只为在家办公！

[4] 但并非所有人都乐见远程办公的兴起。让员工异地办公会令控制型的管理者惊慌失措。按照在线网络兼职平台Flexjobs的创始人和首席执行官萨拉·萨顿·费尔的说法，许多公司仍对远程办公心存恐慌，原因有三：

1. 管理困难

2. 仅雇员受益

3. 此为未知领域

[5] These fears are understandable to a bricks and mortar11bricks and mortar房产，实体产业。company used to an office environment where they can see their employees. But, as more and more tech startups spring up on shoestring12shoestring用钱极少的。budgets, Millennial13千禧传媒，美国一家移动网络广告公司。managers are finding just the opposite to be true. Telecommuting is highly manageable. It’s more beneficial to the company than the employee, and it’s fast becoming the new normal.

[6] Sean Hopwood, President of Day Translations—a company that manages all its translation services online—started his business with a website and a will.In a few short years, he took his oneman band to a fixed team of over fifty,with a further network of thousands of freelance14freelance自由职业的。translators and interpreters.

[7] He shares: “It can be hard to manage a team of people from different cultural backgrounds, working on different shifts in different time zones.But there are many ways you can keep tabs on your team and use world locations to your benefit.”

[8] Day Translations takes advantage of world time zones to provide continued 24/7 support for anyone in any country. “We also believe that having a diverse team of people who can bring new ideas to the table15bring sth to the table提供有益的想法、建议等。has

made us even stronger,” he adds.

[5]对惯于在办公环境下监督员工的实体公司而言，这些担忧可以理解。但是，随着越来越多的科技创业公司凭借低成本纷纷涌现，Millennial的管理者们发现情况恰好相反。远程办公极易管理；比之雇员，公司受益更多；且正迅速成为新常态。

[6] Day Translations是一家实行全部业务在线管理的翻译公司。总裁肖恩·霍普伍德当初从一个网站起步，满怀激情地开始创业。在短短数年之内，从单枪匹马发展到一支逾五十人的固定团队，更有一个由数千名口笔译自由译者组成的人员网络。

[7]他分享道：“员工文化背景不同，时区和工作班次有别，这样的团队管理起来或许存在难度。不过，有很多方法可以管理团队，利用世界的不同地域为自己服务。”

[8] Day Translations翻译公司利用世界的不同时区，为来自所有国家的所有客户提供全天候持续服务。“我们同时认为，拥有一个多元化团队增强了我们的实力，因为团队成员

可提供新创意。”肖恩·霍普伍德补充道。

[9] If you’re thinking about introducing telecommuting to your company, or running your entire outfit16outfit团队，一班人马。online, here’s how to keep tabs on your team.

Communication is everything

[10] If you’re worried about not being able to manage your distanced employees, you haven’t been paying attention. There are already a million apps, software, progress trackers and instant chats that will let you do that.Many companies use Skype or G-Chat17谷歌的一个即时聊天系统。as their means of speaking over the web. But keep in mind that endless online chatting and pinging18ping发送（电子邮件、手机短信）。your employees at all hours will only serve to slow down productivity.

[11] You may find it easier to trade out19trade out 出卖。lengthy emails for a project management software that lets you glance the status of all initiatives at any given moment. Don’t get solely dependent on using these communication methods, though.Working from home can be isolating,so it’s important to meet regularly with your remote employees.

[9]如果你正考虑在自家公司实现远程办公，或在线管理全班人马，以下即是相应的团队管理要略。

交流至上

[10]如果担心无法管理远在异地的员工，那是因为你一直未曾留意。已有数以百万计的应用程序、软件、进度跟踪工具、即时聊天工具可助你完成管理工作。许多公司使用Skype或G-Chat作为网络通话工具。不过要记住，若没完没了地在线聊天，不分时间地给员工发送邮件或短信，只会降低工效。

[11]你或许发觉放弃冗长的电子邮件，转而使用项目管理软件更方便，后者可让你随时对所有行动计划的进度一目了然。但是，也不要一味依赖这些通讯工具。在家办公会有孤立之感，因此有必要与身在远方的员工定期会面。

[12]通过Skype、谷歌文档交流，或者有母语并非英文的团队成员，“语气”就很容易被误解。

[12] It’s easy for the “tone of voice”to be misinterpreted when it’s written down on Skype, typed into a Google doc20谷歌文档，由谷歌研发的在线办公软件。, or you have team members whose first language isn’t English.

[13] So, instead of assuming your workers are slacking off21slack off松懈，懈怠。and watching television rather than working on your presentation, make sure you clear the air22clear the air消除误会（或紧张、猜疑）气氛，澄清。. Hold brief but regular meetings to hash out23hash out通过充分讨论解决（或决定）。any doubts. It’s also good for employee morale. Ask them how they are before you launch into a long list of tasks.

[14] According to The Muse24缪斯网，美国一家求职网站。, one of the most important questions you can ask to keep your employees loyal is“How was your weekend?” It may seem insignificant, but it shows that you care about their overall happiness and that they exist outside of working hours.

Create trust

[15] Creating an environment of trust might sound easy, but it’s actually one of the hardest things for leaders to do when managing a remote team. After all, how do you keep tabs on everyone when they work a different shift from you? How do you know that they aren’t at a soccer game instead of a client meeting?

[16] Says Hopwood: “You can never be completely sure, but you have to measure the results and have a little faith. At the end of the day when there’s a pile of work to be done and some people aren’t hitting targets, you’ll know it’s not working out.” Results speak for themselves, so instead of losing sleep over your employee productivity, check on their success.

[13]因此，与其猜疑雇员在怠工，在看电视，而没有为你准备演示文稿，不如定期召开短会，通过商讨消除误会，化解疑虑。这对提升员工士气也有帮助。不要急于大量派活儿，要先送上问候。

[14]按照缪斯网的说法，为保持员工忠诚度，可送上的重要问候之一便是：“周末过得如何？”这句话看似无足轻重，却显示出对员工整体幸福度的关心，表明管理者对员工工作时间以外生活的关心。

建立信任

[15]营造一个充满信任的氛围或许听来容易，但对于管理远程团队的领导者而言，实则是最难的任务之一。毕竟大家的工作时间都与你不同，如何管理？何以知道他们不在看足球赛，而是去参加客户会议了？

[16]霍普伍德说道：“你永远都不可能有十足把握，不过你需要衡量业绩，给予员工一些信任。如果一天下来，留下一堆事项有待完成，有些人未达目标，你就清楚工作进展不佳。”业绩说明一切，故不必为担心员工的工效而失眠，而要核定成果。

Hold people accountable25 accountable对（自己的决定、行为）负有责任。

[17] Hold people accountable by setting goals and making sure they’re realistic. Be transparent, hold regular progress meetings and discuss the best ways of reaching targets. Try to get all your workers together on one platform,whichever works best for you. When all team members can see what the other one is working on, they’ll have a clearer sense of the bigger picture. They’ll be held accountable for their tasks and less likely to slack off, when they know they’re being tracked.

[18] Remember that it may take some time before you can establish mutual trust with your employees on the web. If you’re just launching an online startup,you’ll have faster access to market than a bricks and mortar setup. But that doesn’t mean you’ll get the team dynamic or working processes right off the bat26right off the bat一下子，马上。. Keep tabs on your team without suffocating them. Measure their work through progress meetings and targets and think about the cost savings you’re making in this win-win situation.