你或许还记得小时候，在某一年的节日季，你的兄弟姐妹得到了一件礼物，比如一张台球桌或者一台Xbox游戏机。事实上，父母也为你准备了同样的惊喜。

现在，职场里的成年人也将收到同样的惊喜。罗致恒富咨询公司（Robert Half Management Resources）的执行董事蒂姆·赫德表示：“在今天的就业市场，雇主必须想方设法吸引和留住优秀员工。”需求紧俏的求职者，尤其是千禧一代，“希望保持工作生活平衡，他们期待雇主能够帮助他们实现这种平衡。”

即便你不打算跳槽，这种趋势也可以让你成为当今人才争夺战中的赢家，原因很简单：员工会注意到同行们享受的福利，比如每周有几天在家工作的时间，更长的假期，或者在午餐时间利用公司买单的健身房会员资格去健身。因此，为新员工提供这些福利，却不考虑已经在为公司工作的优秀员工，至少会让管理层感到一丝尴尬。

这意味着越来越多的员工可以获得与新员工同样的福利。

罗致恒富对美国2200名首席财务官和1000名公司员工进行的调查显示，现在有40%的公司比一年前更愿意协商员工福利。报告表示：“这种转变受到了员工的欢迎。”约43%的受访者表示，今年公司与员工协商福利的频率高于去年。

让员工有更好的机会享受工作之外的生活，也意味着减少加班。赫德表示：“如今，要求一个人承担正常情况下需要两个人甚至三个人完成的工作的情况，变得越来越少。”他表示，为了保证员工的工作不会超负荷，公司通常会聘用从事自由职业的顾问处理短期项目或人员缺口。

这或许也解释了，在罗致恒富12月初的调查中，为什么多数（77%）员工会用“好”或“非常好”来评价他们的工作生活平衡状况。近半数（45%）受访者表示，他们的“工作生活平衡状况”好于三年前。只有14%的受访者表示工作生活平衡变得更差。

在2019年，这一趋势是否会继续甚至加速？赫德给出了肯定回答。他说道：“对于是否应该加大力度帮助团队保持工作生活平衡这个问题，雇主没有太多选择。招聘和保留人才的挑战会继续存在，而员工寻找工作生活平衡的愿望却不会消失。”（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

Maybe your childhood memories in this holiday season include at least one year when a sibling got a gift—a pool table, say, or an Xbox—that turned out to be a blast for you too.

A grownup version of that is happening right now in the workplace. “In today’s job market, employers must do all they can to attract and retain top performers,” says Tim Hird, executive director of Robert Half Management Resources. Candidates whose skills are in demand, particularly Millennials, “want balance in their lives, and they want to work for companies that help them achieve it.”

That makes you a winner in today’s war for talent even if you don’t plan to change jobs, for one simple reason: Employees notice what their peers are doing, whether it’s working from home a couple of days a week, taking off for an extra few days of vacation, or popping out at lunchtime to make use of a company-paid gym membership. So offering these goodies to new hires while excluding valued employees who have been around a while would be, at the very least, awkward.

And that means more employees are getting the benefits offered to select new hires.

Today, 40% of companies are more willing to negotiate perks than they were a year ago, according to a Robert Half poll of 2,200 chief financial officers and 1,000 office employees across the U.S. “This shift is not lost on workers,” the report says. About 43% of the respondents said that perks are on the discussion table more often this year than last.

Giving people a better shot at an outside life also means easing up on overwork. “Instances of businesses asking employees to take on jobs that normally require two, or even three, people are far less common now,” Hird observes. To make sure employees aren’t overloaded, he says, managers often bring in freelance consultants to handle a short-term project or a staffing gap.

All of that seems to be why most employees (77%) rated their work-life balance as “good” or “very good” in a separate Robert Half poll in early December. Almost half (45%) said they’re experiencing “greater balance” than three years ago. Just 14% reported having less.

Will that trend continue, or even accelerate, in 2019? Hird thinks so. “Employers don’t have much choice in whether they ramp up their efforts to help their teams foster work-life balance,” he says. “Hiring and retention challenges are going to persist, and the desire to find balance isn’t going away.”