带病上班不是好事

I woke up one morning last week with all the usual signs of a nasty cold: thumping headache, blocked nose, spousal accusations that I had spent the night snoring like a pregnant hippo.

上周的一个早晨，我一觉醒来后，感到剧烈头痛、鼻塞，令人讨厌的感冒症状一应俱全。老公抱怨说，我就像怀孕的河马，一晚上都在不停地打鼾。

Then I did what almost everyone I know does on a day like this. I got up and went to work. On the way in on the Tube, I was coughed and spluttered over by a lot of people dressed for a day at the office. When I got to my desk, doubtless laden with fresh supplies of pathogens, the air was ringing with the familiar snivels of a London autumn.

然后，我做了我认识的几乎每个人在这样的一天都会做的事情：起床，去上班。在地铁车厢里，很多穿戴整齐去上班的人在我面前不停地咳嗽，唾沫飞溅。当我好不容易赶到自己的办公桌时，我无疑又被覆盖了一层新鲜的病原体，空气中伦敦秋天熟悉的吸鼻涕声此起彼伏。

Such is the state of what the human resources industry has come to call presenteeism, or coming to work when ill. A tide of research shows this is bone-headed and counter-productive, for companies as well as workers.

这就是人力资源行业所谓的假性出勤(presenteeism)，即带病上班。大量研究表明，这是一种愚蠢的做法，对公司和员工自己都适得其反。

Everyone knows a day in bed speeds recovery and stifles the spread of germs in the office. People with more serious ailments than a sniffle face worse woes by continuing to work, especially where mental health is concerned.

每个人都知道，卧床休息一天会加快身体恢复，同时防止病菌在办公室里蔓延。患有比流鼻涕更严重疾病的人，带病工作的后果更严重，特别是在精神健康方面。

I have heard several experts claim that presenteeism is now a bigger problem in the UK than absenteeism and could even help explain the country’s dismal productivity growth. I have no idea if that is true. What I do know is that I am tired of reading the “good news” that a growing number of companies are cottoning on to the presenteeism problem and doing something about it.

有几位专家称，目前在英国，假性出勤是比缺勤更大的问题，甚至可能有助于解释英国生产率增长乏力。我不知道这是否属实。但我确实知道，我厌倦了“好消息”：越来越多的公司开始了解假性出勤问题，并着手采取对策。

This generally takes the form of “workplace wellness” programmes full of once unimaginable perks: cheap gym membership, quinoa salads in the canteen, stand-up desks and the odd massage. This is standard stuff for most people I know in large organisations.

这些对策通常以“工作场所健康”计划为形式，包括各种以往难以想象的小福利：健身俱乐部入会优惠、公司食堂供应藜麦沙拉、站立式办公桌、还有偶尔的按摩。对于我认识的大部分在大公司任职的人，这些都是标准的公司福利。

Some have it even better. A friend who works for a big American company’s London outpost told me over a drink the other night that his office not only has its own gym, physiotherapist and masseur, but also an in-house dentist.

有些公司提供更好的小福利。我的一位朋友在一家美国大公司的伦敦办公室任职。不久前的一个晚上，我们在一起喝酒时，他告诉我，他们办公室不仅有自己的健身房、理疗师、按摩师，还有一名内部牙医。

American businesses are demons for the corporate wellness trend. It makes sense in the US, where companies pay the health insurance costs of workers. And personally, I have nothing against lunchtime dentistry or kale smoothies. I am sure they do more good than harm. But I do not believe such things alone will do much to stop people coming to work when they are ill.

美国企业是引领企业员工健康趋势的奇葩。这在美国是有道理的，因为美国企业一般要为员工的医保买单。而就我个人来说，我不反对午餐时间获得牙医服务，或享用甘蓝菜冰沙。我相信，这些小福利的好处多于坏处。但我不相信这些小福利本身能够有效阻止员工在生病时仍然上班。

The chief reasons people soldier on have nothing to do with how fit they are. It is because they work for leaner, more stressed, companies where redundancies are common and the pressure to do more with less is constant.

人们坚持上班的主要原因与他们的健康状况无关，而是因为他们为更加精简、压力更大的公司工作，裁员是家常便饭，用更少资源做更多事的压力持续存在。

This makes some people fret that they will be targeted in the next round of redundancies if they have taken a lot of time off. Others worry about lumbering stretched colleagues with more work in their absence.

这种环境令一些人担心：如果他们请假太多，他们将在下一轮裁员中成为被裁对象。还有些人担心，自己请假会让本已不堪重负的同事承担更多的工作。

These workers are not to be confused with the most tedious presentee-ists, who insist on showing up half dead at the office to demonstrate how indispensable they are to the operation. Nothing can be done for these people and thankfully they are probably in a minority.

不要把这些人与那些最无聊的假性出勤者混为一谈。后者半死不活地在办公室露个脸，就为了显示自己对公司业务有多么不可或缺。对于这一类，公司也没什么可做的，幸亏他们很可能只是少数。

As for people like me, my excuse for going to work is that I was not entirely sure if my symptoms were due to a virus or a late-night of blathering after a red-eye flight. I bet on the latter, which seems to have been right so far.

至于像我这样的人，去上班的理由是，我不能完全肯定我的症状是由病毒引起、还是由于坐了红眼航班后深夜还与人海阔天空地聊天所致。我猜想是后者，到目前为止，这似乎是对的。

The answers to the presenteeism problem are not clear, especially if you work in an industry undergoing serious technological disruption, which seems to cover most sectors today. I phoned up one of the people credited with coining the term presenteeism, Professor Cary Cooper of the Alliance Manchester Business School, to see what he thought.

假性出勤问题还没有明确的答案，特别是如果你所在的行业正在经历颠覆性的技术变革。如今这种变革似乎覆盖了大多数行业。曼彻斯特商学院(Alliance Manchester Business School)的卡里?库珀(Cary Cooper)教授据称是发明“假性出勤”这个词的学者之一。我打电话给他，请他谈谈他的看法。

He agreed that there is not much to be said for “silly things” like ping-pong tables and office bean bags.

他同意，对于在办公室放乒乓球桌和懒人豆袋沙发等“犯傻行为”，没什么可多说的。

Rather, he thinks the solution lies in training line managers to be better at spotting when employees are under too much stress or ill, and dealing with the situation sensibly — skills that the average MBA student is taught too rarely.

相反，他认为，解决方案是对部门经理进行培训，以便在员工面临过大压力或生病时，能够更及时地发现并给予关照——这些是一般的MBA学生没有学过的技巧。

I think he is on to something, even if management ranks are also thinning out in ever-leaner organisations. I do not expect anything to change soon but at least someone has come up with a better idea than handing out another batch of gym vouchers.

我认为他说到点子上了，即便在越来越精简的组织，管理者队伍也在不断压缩。我不期望情况很快就会改变，但至少有人提出了一个比再发一批健身房使用券更好的设想。