A mix of office and home has become the norm for many.There is lots still to figure out.
After reports surfaced of an unusual respiratory illness in Wuhan,the legacy of the covid-19 pandemic on employees is becoming clear. The disease has ushered in a profound change in white-collar working patterns. The office is settled into a hybrid arrangement of some office days and some remote days.
Hybrid working has much to recommend it. A new paper describes an experiment in which workers were randomly assigned to three groups, each spending different amounts of time working from home. The intermediate group, who spent between 23% and 40% of their time in the office, performed best on various performance measures.
But a shift of this magnitude is bound to raise thorny issues. One is how to handle the impact of less time in the office for new joiners and younger workers.
A second question concerns how strictly to enforce attendance on days when teams are meant to be in the office. An emerging consensus holds that there should be agreed "anchor days" on which people come in.
One of the great worries about hybrid working is that it can encourage "proximity bias", the phenomenon whereby bossws prefer employees with whom they have more face-to-face contact. Mr Bloom reckons that this problem can be alleviated if bosses who like the office make sure to work at home occasionally.
Other questions abound. How to define performance measures so managers do not spend time fretting about slackers at home? Do you need company-wide anchor days or team-level ones? The era of hybrid working is only just beginning, so it will take time for answers to emerge. Flexibility dose not mean a free-for-all. The elastic week needs some fairly rigid means to support it.
norm n.社会准则，标准，常态，平均水平
hybrid n.混合物，杂种；adj.混合的，杂种的，杂交的
surface n.表面；v.暴露，公开，浮出水面；adj.表面上的
respiratory illness 呼吸系统，呼吸的，呼吸科
legacy n.遗产，遗留问题，后遗症
pandemic 流行病
usher v.引导，使开始
profound adj.深刻的，强烈的，深奥的（渊博）
settle into 习惯于……
assign to 分配
intermediate group adj.居中的，中级的；n.中级学生
performance measures 绩效指标
magnitude n.重要性，规模，数值，震级
is bound to 一定要
thorny adj.带刺的，棘手的，麻烦的
disproportionate 不成比例的
in proximity 接近，在附近
steep them in culture v.使沉浸，浸泡；adj.陡峭的，难以接受的，急剧的
make sense for 对……有意义
be meant to 打算，必须，本应该
consensus 共识，一致看法
refrain v.克制，避免
circumstance n.条件，情况，环境，经济情况，命运；v.处于某种情况
dial v.拨号；n.钟面，仪表盘，调节器
make sense on 使……有意义
in reverse相反
proximity 靠近，亲近
bias n.偏见，偏好，天赋，趋势
alleviate v.减轻，缓和
fret about 担心
slacker 偷懒的人
era时代
elastic 有弹性的，灵活的
fairly 相当地，公平地
rigid 刚性的，严格死板的，僵化的，顽固的，不通融的
From The Economist.
