How to fuel a rewarding culture
企业如何激励员工最有效？
广州企业翻译公司：哈福德：要促使员工做好自己的工作，有时未必需要提供金钱激励，告诉他们做得好的标准是什么就能收到奇效。
Here’s an age-old management conundrum: who should be rewarded for high performance, and how? As Diane Coyle, the economist and former adviser to the UK Treasury, recently observed in this newspaper, the answer to the question is usually self-serving. Simple and easily monitored jobs, such as flipping burgers, are natural candidates for performance incentives. Yet somehow it’s the inhabitants of the C-suite who tend to pick up bonuses, despite the fact that their complex, hard-to-measure jobs are poorly suited to the crude nature of performance-related pay.
有一道古老的管理学难题：业绩好应当奖励谁，如何奖励？正如经济学家、英国财政部前顾问黛安•科伊尔(Diane Coyle)不久前在英国《金融时报》上撰文指出的那样，这个问题的答案通常是利己的。简单并容易监控的工作，比如煎汉堡，是天然适合采用绩效激励的。然而不知为何，领奖金的往往却是高管们，尽管他们的复杂、难以度量的工作与绩效工资的粗糙性非常不吻合。广州企业翻译公司。
But let’s assume that managers really want to answer the question. The answer is deliciously complex. Money matters, but sometimes we find financial incentives to be insulting or grubby. And we can respond keenly to non-financial rewards such as praise, status or the satisfaction in a job well done.
但是，让我们假定，经理们真的想解决这个问题。答案是极其复杂的。金钱很重要，但有时，我们发现金钱激励是无礼或污秽的。金钱以外的奖励，比如表扬、地位的提升或做好一份工作的成就感，也可以促使我们努力干好自己的工作。
So managers might try running experiments to see what works in a particular situation. There is a long tradition of this, going back to Harvard professor Elton Mayo’s productivity trials at Western Electric’s Hawthorne works in the 1920s and early 1930s.
所以，经理们可以进行一些实验，看看在某一特殊情境下，什么因素能够起作用。这种做法早已有之，可以追溯到上世纪20年代和上世纪30年代初哈佛大学(Harvard)教授埃尔顿•梅奥(Elton Mayo)在西电公司(Western Electric)霍桑工厂所做的生产率实验。广州企业翻译公司。
The Hawthorne experiments themselves, alas, were flawed and have been mythologised. But more modern experiments are revealing some intriguing results. I reported a few years ago on the curious alliance between “Farmer Smith”, owner of a large British fruit farm, and three economists, Oriana Bandiera, Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul. Bandiera and her colleagues designed and tested different incentive schemes on Farmer Smith’s farms. (The deal: he got higher productivity; they got the data.)
可惜的是，霍桑工厂实验本身存在缺陷，而且一直被神化了。但更晚近的实验给出了有趣的结果。几年前，我报道过英国一家大型果园的所有者“农场主史密斯”(Farmer Smith)与奥丽娅娜•班迪耶拉(Oriana Bandiera)、伊万•鲍龙考伊(Iwan Barankay)和伊姆兰•拉苏尔(Imran Rasul)这三位经济学家之间的奇特合作。班迪耶拉和她的同事们为“农场主史密斯”的果园设计了不同的激励方案，并对其进行了检验。（这种合作是双赢的：他提高了生产率；他们得到了数据。）
The fruit farm experiments show that financial incentives do matter, at least for casual immigrant labour on fruit farms. First, a piece-rate scheme boosted productivity by 50 per cent; then, performance pay for the front-line managers ensured that work was no longer assigned as a favour to friends, and productivity increased another 20 per cent; then, a tournament encouraged workers to sort themselves into productive teams, and productivity increased by a further 20 per cent.
果园实验的结果表明，金钱激励确实重要，起码对于果园里的移民临时工来说是这样。首先，计件工资计划把生产率提高了50%；接着，对一线经理实施绩效薪酬，确保他们不再为照顾朋友而把工作分配给他们，生产率又提高了20%；接着，生产竞赛鼓励工人们自己组织成高效团队，生产率进一步提高20%。广州企业翻译公司。
In another study by Bandiera (with Nava Ashraf and Kelsey Jack), hair stylists in
在班迪耶拉（和纳瓦•阿什拉芙(Nava Ashraf)、凯尔西•杰克(Kelsey Jack)合作完成的）的另一项研究中，赞比亚首都卢萨卡的发型师受聘去销售安全套，并就如何防止HIV感染提供咨询。结果证明，要激励他们卖更多安全套，在一个公开仪式上褒奖业绩最佳者，比提供金钱激励的效果好得多。
But sometimes neither a public ceremony nor a financial incentive is appropriate. Consider the case of long-haul airline captains. Unlike part-time condom agents or fruit pickers, these senior pilots have high-status, six-figure salaries and powerful unions to defend their pay and conditions. Nevertheless, a recent experiment conducted by Greer Gosnell, John List and Robert Metcalfe examines what can be done to influence the behaviour of these star players.
但有时，公开表彰和金钱激励都不合适。想一想长途航班机长的情况吧。跟兼职的安全套销售员或水果采摘工不同的是，这些资深飞行员拥有很高的地位和6位数的年薪，并有强大的工会捍卫他们的收入和工作条件。然而，不久前格里尔•戈斯内尔(Greer Gosnell)、约翰•李斯特(John List)和罗伯特•梅特卡夫(Robert Metcalfe)的一项实验，探讨了有哪些办法可能影响这些精英员工的行为。广州企业翻译公司。
Gosnell, List and Metcalfe teamed up with a commercial airline that wanted to encourage captains to save fuel. Broadly, there are three ways to do this: before take-off, by carefully calculating fuel requirements; after landing, by switching off some engines while taxiing; and during the flight, by carefully adjusting the flap settings and negotiating the most efficient altitude, speed and course with air traffic control. The airline’s own data suggested that captains could potentially save 3 to 6 per cent on fuel — a substantial financial and environmental gain. But how to incentivise them?
戈斯内尔、李斯特和梅特卡夫与一家想要鼓励机长们节约燃油的商业航空公司达成了合作。总体而言，有三种办法可以节约燃油：起飞前，认真计算燃油需求量；降落后，在滑行过程中关闭部分引擎；在飞行中，认真调整襟翼设置，并向空中交通管制部门争取最省油的海拔高度、航速和航线。航空公司自身的数据显示，机长可能有潜力节约3%至6%的燃油——这可以节约大量资金，带来可观的环保好处。但如何对他们实施激励呢？
Gosnell, List and Metcalfe designed an experiment that did not rely on paying bonuses. Instead, the captains were told that their company was running an experiment with the aim of saving fuel, and that the researchers would maintain anonymity for all the captains. There would be no financial incentives and no league tables.
戈斯内尔、李斯特和梅特卡夫设计了一项不依赖于支付奖金的实验。相反，机长们被告知，他们公司正在进行一项旨在节约燃油的实验，并且研究者将对所有机长的身份保密。实验将不设金钱激励，也不拟制排行榜。
Instead, the captains were split randomly into four groups. The “information” group received monthly feedback reports detailing how often they had saved fuel before, during and after each flight. The “target” group received the same reports but were also set targets to improve their performance. (The reward for hitting the target was a hearty “well done!”) The “incentives” group were told that for each target they hit, £10 would be donated to the charity of their choice — a total donation of £240 was possible if all three targets were hit across the eight months of the study. A control group was simply told that a study into fuel efficiency was taking place.
相反，机长们被随机分成4组。“信息”组每月收到反馈报告，报告中详细记载了他们有多少次在每次起飞前、飞行中和降落后节省了燃油。“目标”组收到同样的报告，但为了促使他们改善表现，要对他们设定省油目标（达标的奖励是一句衷心的“干得漂亮！”）。“激励”组被告知，他们每达到一个目标，都将有10英镑被捐给他们选择的慈善项目——在8个月的研究中，如果每个月都完成了所有3个目标，那么慈善捐款总额可能达到240英镑。对照组则仅仅被告知，一项有关节约燃油的研究正在进行中。广州企业翻译公司。
The most obvious outcome was that there was a large and lasting “observer effect”. Merely telling captains that the experiment was happening prodded them into being more careful and saving a lot of fuel. It is always possible that the sudden switch to fuel-saving behaviour had a cause that was nothing to do with the experiment but there are no apparent alternative explanations.
最明显的结果是，存在巨大、持续的“观察者效应”。仅仅告诉机长们有这样一项实验正在进行中，就促使他们更加注意，并节约下大量燃油。总是存在这样一种可能性，即机长们突然开始节约燃油的原因其实跟这个实验无关，但也没有显而易见的其他原因。
The second outcome was that all three treatments saved fuel compared with the control group but setting targets (with or without the charitable donation) had a particularly notable effect. And the third outcome was that captains who hit their targets were substantially more satisfied with their jobs.
第二个结果是，跟对照组相比，其他三组都节约了燃油，但设定目标（无论是否进行慈善捐款）产生了特别明显的效果。第三个结果是，达成目标的机长对自己的工作感到更满意。
“I just couldn’t believe the impact we had on job satisfaction,” says Metcalfe. Far from annoying the captains, the fact that the company was taking an interest in fuel saving, and acknowledging success, seemed to delight them.
“我简直无法相信我们对机长们工作满意度的影响，”梅特卡夫说。公司对节约燃油感兴趣并认可这方面的成功，似乎让机长们感到高兴，而不是生气。
No performance scheme will fit every occasion but the fuel-saving study does suggest an approach worth trying more broadly. If you want people to do a good job, tell them what success looks like to you — and that you’ve noticed when they’ve achieved it.
没有一种绩效方案能适用于所有情形，但节约燃油的研究确实暗示了一种值得更大规模尝试的方法。如果你想让员工做好工作，那就告诉他们，你认为做得好的标准是什么，而当他们达到了标准时，你要告诉他们，你已经注意到了。
Tim Harford is the author of ‘The Undercover Economist Strikes Back’.
本文作者著有《卧底经济学家反击战》(The Undercover Economist Strikes Back)
