Companies and Women Are at a Crossroads
疫情之下，企业应给职场女性减负
Companies can rise to the moment and address burnout, or lose scores of women and set gender diversity back years
各家公司要么直面挑战、解决女性过度劳累的问题，要么面对大量女性员工流失的状况，性别多样化的努力将倒退数年。
Sheryl Sandberg
雪莉·桑德伯格
A crisis is looming in corporate America: More than one in four women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce.
美国企业正面临一场危机：超过四分之一的女性正考虑换一份强度较轻的工作，或是离开职场。
This is a central finding of the 2020 Women in the Workplace report by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co., the largest study of its kind. For the past six years, our study has revealed slow but measurable progress for women at all levels of management. Now all those gains could be wiped out in a single year. Up to two million women could leave their jobs. If we had a panic button, we’d be hitting it.
这是LeanIn.Org和麦肯锡（McKinsey & Co.）在《2020职场女性报告》中的一项核心发现。该研究为同类研究中规模最大的。我们的研究表明，过去六年里，女性的地位在各级别的管理层中都取得了缓慢但显著的提升。而现在，上述所有进步也许都会在一年之内化为乌有。多达200万名女性可能要离开职场。如果有扭转局面的紧急按钮，我们早就按个不停了。
During Covid-19, no one is experiencing business as usual. But women have been affected the most – three groups in particular.
新冠疫情期间，没有谁的事业能免受影响。而女性受到的影响是最大的，尤其是以下三大群体。
First, working mothers were already working a “double shift” – a full day of work, followed by hours of work at home – before the pandemic. With many schools and child-care options closed, that double shift has doubled again: Mothers are more likely than fathers to be spending an extra 20 hours a week on housework and child care during Covid-19. That’s half a full-time job. And on top of this, mothers are twice as likely to worry that their work performance is being judged negatively because of their caregiving responsibilities. This concern is so pervasive that many mothers don’t feel comfortable sharing work-life challenges with co-workers – or even letting them know they have children at all. It reminds us of an earlier, worse era when women couldn’t talk about their kids and still be taken seriously as professionals.
首先，疫情爆发之前，职场妈妈们就已经在“两班倒”了：工作一整天，下班后还要在家花费数小时带娃。随着许多学校停课，儿童保育机构关闭，这种两班倒的工作量又增加了一倍：疫情期间，母亲比父亲更有可能每周在家务和育儿方面多花20个小时，这算得上是一份全职工作一半的时间了。更重要的是，母亲们担心自己的工作表现因为照顾孩子而得到负面评价的可能性要高出两倍。这种担忧非常普遍，因此许多母亲不愿与同事分享工作和生活中的难处，甚至不愿意让他们知道自己有孩子。这让我们想起了从前的糟糕时代，女性不能谈论自己的孩子，这样才称得上专业。
Second, senior-level women are under intense pressure at work and home. Women are typically held to higher performance standards and blamed more for failure, so when stakes are high – as they are now – senior-level women are more likely to be judged harshly. And among senior-level leaders with partners, 63% of women have one who also works full time, compared with just 35% of men. The result: Senior-level women are 1.5 times as likely as men at the same level to think about downshifting or leaving, and the top reason they cite is burnout.
其次，处于职场高层的女性在工作和家庭中承受着巨大压力。女性通常被要求达到较高的绩效标准，失败后也会遭受更多指责，因此，当风险很高时（例如现在），女性高管被严厉评判的可能性就更大。在有伴侣的企业高管中，63%女高管的伴侣有全职工作，而只有35%的男高管其伴侣在全职工作 。结果就是，高层女性考虑调换工作降低强度或离职的可能性是同级别男性的1.5倍，她们列举的最主要原因是过度劳累。
Third, Black women are dealing with all these challenges, as well as burdens only they bear: They’re shouldering both the emotional tolls of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the Black community and incidents of racist violence across the country. For many, work isn’t a supportive place: Black women are more likely than other employees to feel excluded and like they can’t bring their whole selves to work. These feelings can accelerate burnout. Companies need to address this head-on with training in antiracism and how to show up as allies for Black colleagues.
第三，黑人女性不仅需要应对以上所有挑战，还要面对独有的负担：她们既要承受疫情对黑人群体的巨大影响带来的情感创伤，又要面对全美各地种族主义暴力事件的冲击。对于许多人来说，职场并不能给予她们支持，黑人女性比其他员工更容易感到被排斥，好像她们不能全身心地投入工作似的。这些感觉会加速疲劳感的产生。公司需要提供反种族主义方面的培训，告诉员工如何给予黑人同事支持，这样才能对症解决这一问题。
Corporate leaders may read this and think, “We know our employees are struggling right now. We’re doing what we can.” And many companies are indeed taking action: They’re being more upfront with employees about their financial situations, expanding mental-health services, and providing emergency loans and grants. It’s all commendable, but these steps don’t address the crux of the issue, which is that women are burning out. That’s the problem companies need to solve.
看到这里，企业领导人们也许会想，“我们知道员工现在很艰难。我们也在尽己所能。”许多公司确实在采取行动：他们坦率地将公司财务状况告诉员工，扩大心理健康服务范围，并提供紧急贷款和补助金。这些都是值得称赞，但以上措施并未解决问题的症结，那就是女性的过度劳累。这正是企业需要解决的问题。
To do that, they should consider resetting goals and extending deadlines wherever possible. They should also reflect on performance reviews: Is it fair to hold employees to criteria set before Covid-19? Should performance ratings be adjusted to reflect the reality this year? These are hard questions to answer, and every team is different. But nothing about work right now is typical, so expectations of employees shouldn’t be, either.
为解决这一问题，他们应该考虑重新设定目标，并尽可能延长完成目标的期限。他们还应反思绩效评估：让员工达到疫情之前设定的标准是否公平？是否应该调整绩效评级来适应今年的实际情况？这些问题并不容易回答，每个团队也都不一样。但是，现在关于工作的方方面面都与往常不同，而对员工的期望也不应照搬以往的标准。
Working from home has blurred the line between work and home, and many employees now feel “always on” – available to their employer 24/7. Companies could set new norms to help reduce that feeling – for example, establishing set hours for meetings and making sure managers are evaluating employees based on what they’ve accomplished, not how many hours they’ve worked. They should also make it OK for employees to set their own boundaries, and leaders should model this.
在家工作模糊了工作与家庭的界限，许多员工现在感觉自己“一直在线”，全天候为雇主服务。公司可以制定新的规范来减轻这种感觉，例如确定固定的会议时间，确保管理人员根据员工的工作成效而非工作时间来评估他们。公司还应允许员工设定自己的界限，领导者应将此作为典范。
Some companies may think that worrying about employee burnout is a luxury they can’t afford right now. In fact, it’s mission-critical. If companies rise to the moment, they can head off the disaster of losing millions of women and setting gender diversity back years. They can also lay the groundwork for a better future beyond Covid-19. Cracking the code of making “work from home” work for employees will yield major rewards in the future. And if we can make work truly fit into people’s lives, it will be a more supportive workplace for everyone.
一些公司可能会认为，现在操心员工是否劳累过于奢侈，他们承担不起。实际上，这是一项至关重要的任务。如果公司能及时采取措施，就能避免数百万女性职员流失、性别多样化努力倒退数年的灾难性状况。他们还可以为疫情之后更美好的未来打下基础。想办法解决员工“居家工作难”的问题将在未来产生巨大回报。如果我们能让工作真正融入人们的生活，那么职场也能更好地给每个人提供支持。
