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亿万富翁抱怨远程办公:他们每周五都在打高尔夫

JANE THIER
2023-10-07

球场数据显示,他可能是对的

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CEO们最喜欢打高尔夫。图片来源:TRACY WILCOX - GETTY IMAGES

当上班族没有坐在办公桌前时,他们可能根本没有在工作。自从最早的疫情封锁时期以来,许多反对远程办公的CEO们,或多或少都说过这样的话。但传媒业大亨、亿万富翁和前纽约市市长迈克·布隆伯格,上周末在《CBS周日早新闻》栏目中接受莫·罗卡采访时却更进一步。远程办公者不仅没有在工作,他们实际上是在度假。

布隆伯格说道:“如果你认为在家可以完成[工作],我并不确定。过去三年,我听说每一座高尔夫球场夏季的业绩都刷新了记录,好吧?很有趣,但也很可悲。”

这当然不是说,在没有上司注意或管教的情况下,每个承受着压力的远程上班族都会到高尔夫球场上释放压力。但在数据方面,布隆伯格的说法并没有夸大其词。

今年早些时候,斯坦福大学(Stanford University)经济学家艾利克斯·芬南和尼克·布鲁姆发表的一篇研究论文发现,事实上远程办公带来了高尔夫球繁荣,在疫情之后工作日的下午三点左右,高尔夫球场的访客数量骤增。

最合理的解释是,远程办公让人们可以摆脱监管,因此一些员工在工作内容较少的时候,会选择通过高尔夫放松一下并补充精力。然而这有些讽刺,因为显而易见,高管们热爱高尔夫球,甚至在周二下午2点也会去从事这项运动。

但与布隆伯格的观点不同,布鲁姆和芬南表示,在工作时间高尔夫球场访客量实现三位数增长,并没有直接导致生产力下降。只要员工能稍后弥补在球场上的时间,那么“[打高尔夫]并不会降低生产力。事实上,在疫情期间/之后,全国维持了强劲的生产力。”

反远程办公者的态度强硬

作为灵活办公的坚定批评者,这并不足以说服布隆伯格。无论员工是否会去打高尔夫球,布隆伯格都与其他知名CEO们(包括摩根大通(JPMorgan)的杰米·戴蒙、Twitter的埃隆·马斯克和Alphabet的桑达尔·皮查伊)一样,坚定地认为现场办公至关重要。

8月初,布隆伯格在《华盛顿邮报》发表了一篇专栏文章,表达了对政府雇员远程办公的不满,甚至表示纳税人在为空闲的办公室买单。(他还声称,在以他的名字命名的公司,80%的员工每周至少现场办公三天,后来他将强制现场办公的时间延长到四天。)

布隆伯格的资产超过960亿美元。他表示,远程办公让华盛顿特区变得“大不如前”,而且空闲的办公空间浪费的税收消耗了公共资源。

他写道:“这种情况已经持续了太长时间。疫情早已结束。让办公室继续闲置的借口也应该不复存在了。我们的管理者看到了恢复现场办公的好处,而且我们从他们的团队,尤其是刚步入职场的年轻人那里,也听说了这些好处。”

布隆伯格表示,远程办公扼杀了辅导和技能提升的机会,会影响组织的未来前景,更不必说它对于年轻上班族的影响。事实证明,远程办公者也可能会受到“邻近性偏见”的影响,即他们的老板会下意识地更偏好和优先考虑经常见面的员工。另一方面,远程办公者可以节约通勤时间和更宝贵的家庭时间。

老板对远程办公争论失去耐心

布隆伯格的意见得到了杰富瑞(Jefferies)CEO里奇·汉德勒的认同。汉德勒表示,长期远程办公只是短期目标和为了一份工资,而不是一份事业。汉德勒对《财富》杂志表示,混合办公可能会长期存在,但“现实情况是,在办公室里,你会遇到许多有趣的‘实时’状况,因为在现场非常重要。”

即使最支持远程办公的专家也认同这一点。WFH Research的研究人员布鲁姆和乔斯·玛丽亚·巴雷罗在4月写道:“最重要的是,在远程办公的情况下,同事之间的人际互动大幅减少。这是员工和公司需要付出的代价,他们需要以工作中学习的效率下降,换取居家办公时获得的灵活性和个人自主权。”

这并不是小的代价,但一些上班族显然更重视打一场高尔夫球的价值。令人遗憾的是,由于美国劳动节重返办公室的强制规定,工作日打高尔夫球,可能像大量完全远程办公岗位一样,已经成为历史。

布隆伯格在CBS采访中解释了为什么远程办公从长远来看永远不可能超越现场办公。他表示:“人类不可能很快改变自己的行为方式;我无法通过Zoom与你共事。在Zoom上,你做不到要面对面完成的任务。到此为止。”(财富中文网)

翻译:刘进龙

审校:汪皓

当上班族没有坐在办公桌前时,他们可能根本没有在工作。自从最早的疫情封锁时期以来,许多反对远程办公的CEO们,或多或少都说过这样的话。但传媒业大亨、亿万富翁和前纽约市市长迈克·布隆伯格,上周末在《CBS周日早新闻》栏目中接受莫·罗卡采访时却更进一步。远程办公者不仅没有在工作,他们实际上是在度假。

布隆伯格说道:“如果你认为在家可以完成[工作],我并不确定。过去三年,我听说每一座高尔夫球场夏季的业绩都刷新了记录,好吧?很有趣,但也很可悲。”

这当然不是说,在没有上司注意或管教的情况下,每个承受着压力的远程上班族都会到高尔夫球场上释放压力。但在数据方面,布隆伯格的说法并没有夸大其词。

今年早些时候,斯坦福大学(Stanford University)经济学家艾利克斯·芬南和尼克·布鲁姆发表的一篇研究论文发现,事实上远程办公带来了高尔夫球繁荣,在疫情之后工作日的下午三点左右,高尔夫球场的访客数量骤增。

最合理的解释是,远程办公让人们可以摆脱监管,因此一些员工在工作内容较少的时候,会选择通过高尔夫放松一下并补充精力。然而这有些讽刺,因为显而易见,高管们热爱高尔夫球,甚至在周二下午2点也会去从事这项运动。

但与布隆伯格的观点不同,布鲁姆和芬南表示,在工作时间高尔夫球场访客量实现三位数增长,并没有直接导致生产力下降。只要员工能稍后弥补在球场上的时间,那么“[打高尔夫]并不会降低生产力。事实上,在疫情期间/之后,全国维持了强劲的生产力。”

反远程办公者的态度强硬

作为灵活办公的坚定批评者,这并不足以说服布隆伯格。无论员工是否会去打高尔夫球,布隆伯格都与其他知名CEO们(包括摩根大通(JPMorgan)的杰米·戴蒙、Twitter的埃隆·马斯克和Alphabet的桑达尔·皮查伊)一样,坚定地认为现场办公至关重要。

8月初,布隆伯格在《华盛顿邮报》发表了一篇专栏文章,表达了对政府雇员远程办公的不满,甚至表示纳税人在为空闲的办公室买单。(他还声称,在以他的名字命名的公司,80%的员工每周至少现场办公三天,后来他将强制现场办公的时间延长到四天。)

布隆伯格的资产超过960亿美元。他表示,远程办公让华盛顿特区变得“大不如前”,而且空闲的办公空间浪费的税收消耗了公共资源。

他写道:“这种情况已经持续了太长时间。疫情早已结束。让办公室继续闲置的借口也应该不复存在了。我们的管理者看到了恢复现场办公的好处,而且我们从他们的团队,尤其是刚步入职场的年轻人那里,也听说了这些好处。”

布隆伯格表示,远程办公扼杀了辅导和技能提升的机会,会影响组织的未来前景,更不必说它对于年轻上班族的影响。事实证明,远程办公者也可能会受到“邻近性偏见”的影响,即他们的老板会下意识地更偏好和优先考虑经常见面的员工。另一方面,远程办公者可以节约通勤时间和更宝贵的家庭时间。

老板对远程办公争论失去耐心

布隆伯格的意见得到了杰富瑞(Jefferies)CEO里奇·汉德勒的认同。汉德勒表示,长期远程办公只是短期目标和为了一份工资,而不是一份事业。汉德勒对《财富》杂志表示,混合办公可能会长期存在,但“现实情况是,在办公室里,你会遇到许多有趣的‘实时’状况,因为在现场非常重要。”

即使最支持远程办公的专家也认同这一点。WFH Research的研究人员布鲁姆和乔斯·玛丽亚·巴雷罗在4月写道:“最重要的是,在远程办公的情况下,同事之间的人际互动大幅减少。这是员工和公司需要付出的代价,他们需要以工作中学习的效率下降,换取居家办公时获得的灵活性和个人自主权。”

这并不是小的代价,但一些上班族显然更重视打一场高尔夫球的价值。令人遗憾的是,由于美国劳动节重返办公室的强制规定,工作日打高尔夫球,可能像大量完全远程办公岗位一样,已经成为历史。

布隆伯格在CBS采访中解释了为什么远程办公从长远来看永远不可能超越现场办公。他表示:“人类不可能很快改变自己的行为方式;我无法通过Zoom与你共事。在Zoom上,你做不到要面对面完成的任务。到此为止。”(财富中文网)

翻译:刘进龙

审校:汪皓

When workers aren’t at their desks, they may as well be not working at all. That’s what many anti-remote CEOs have said, in one way or another, since the earliest pandemic lockdowns. But media titan, billionaire, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg took it a step further last weekend during an interview with Mo Rocca for CBS Sunday Morning segment. They’re not just not-working; remote workers are essentially on vacation.

“If you think [work] can be done at home, I don’t know,” Bloomberg said. “But every golf course that I’ve heard about in the last three years has had record summers, okay? It is funny, but it’s tragic.”

It’s certainly a reach to suggest that any stressed out remote worker can simply head to the golf course to blow off steam without their manager taking note or disciplining them. But in terms of data, Bloomberg’s not too far off.

Earlier this year, a Stanford University research paper by economists Alex Finan and Nick Bloom found that remote work, indeed, has created a golfing boom, as post-pandemic golf course visits have skyrocketed during weekday mid-afternoons.

The most reasonable explanation is that, with the newfound freedom from oversight that remote work allows, some workers are using golf as a way to break up the day and recharge during slow periods. It’s all a bit ironic, however, given the well-documented affinity for golf—even at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday—among those in the corner offices.

But, contrary to what Bloomberg seemed to suggest, Bloom and Finan said the triple-digit growth in golf during work hours hasn’t directly led to a drop in productivity. So long as employees make up their time on the putting green later in the day, “then [golfing] does not reduce productivity. Indeed, national productivity during/post pandemic has been strong.”

The anti-remote cohort is standing strong

That’s not enough for Bloomberg, a steadfast critic of flexible work. Golf or no golf, Bloomberg counts himself among other big-name CEOs (including JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Twitter’s Elon Musk, and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai) in his resolute stance that in-person work is critical.

In early August, Bloomberg penned a Washington Post op-ed expressing his dissatisfaction with government workers logging on remotely, even claiming that taxpayers foot the bill for empty offices. (He also claimed that 80% of his own employees at his eponymous company show up at least three days a week, and he’s since pushed that mandate to four.)

Bloomberg, who is worth over $96 billion, said remote work has made Washington, D.C. a “shadow of its former self” and that the tax money wasted on empty office space has decimated public resources.

“This has gone on too long. The pandemic is over. Excuses for allowing offices to sit empty should end, too,” he wrote. “Our managers have seen the benefits of returning to in-person work, and we have heard about those benefits from their teams, too, especially from young people just starting their careers.”

By eliminating opportunities for mentoring and upskilling, remote work hurts an organization’s future outlook—to say nothing of its impact on the young workers themselves, Bloomberg said. Remote workers are also proven likely to suffer from the impacts of proximity bias, in which their bosses subconsciously prefer and prioritize the workers they see most often. On the other hand, remote workers can benefit from saved commute time and more valuable family time.

Bosses are losing patience with the remote work war

Bloomberg’s opinion is shared by Jefferies CEO Rich Handler, who has said permanently remote roles are just for short-term goals and a paycheck, not for a career. Hybrid work may well stick around, Handler told Fortune, but “the reality is, if you are in the office, you get pulled into a lot of interesting ‘real time’ situations because physical presence matters.”

On that point, even the most pro-remote experts agree. “Bottom line, personal interactions among colleagues diminish by a significant amount when someone works from home,” the researchers behind the WFH Research consortium, Bloom and Jose Maria Barrero, wrote in April. “That is a cost workers and firms pay in terms of slower on-the-job learning, in exchange for the flexibility and personal autonomy gained when working from home.”

That’s no small cost, but some workers clearly value a round of golf a tiny bit more. Too bad for them, it appears that thanks to the Labor Day return-to-work mandates, weekday golf rounds— much like the vast availability of fully remote roles—might have already become a thing of the past.

“Human beings probably don’t change very quickly in what they do; I can’t work with you if it’s over Zoom,” Bloomberg went on in the CBS interview, explaining why remote work would never take the long-term upper hand over in-person work. “You can’t do the same thing via Zoom that you can do face-to-face. Period.”

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