Bartleby
巴托比
The spy who hired me
雇我的间谍
When employer health programmes go too far
当雇主的健康计划做过了头

The new year is the moment when people vow to improve their fitness. They join gyms, swear off alcohol and adopt detox diets. These resolutions usually do not last beyond January.
新年是人们立誓提高身体素质的时候。他们走进健身房，发誓戒酒，采用排毒养生食疗。而这些决心一般坚持不到2 月份。

But some employers try to help their workers stick to their goals by offering “wellness” programmes. One of the longest-running examples began in 1979 at Johnson & Johnson (j&j), an American health-care company. The plan promotes weight loss, smoking cessation and efforts to reduce blood pressure. The firm claims it reduced medical costs by $400 an employee per year, and resulted in fewer workers suffering from heart disease or high blood pressure.
但一些雇主推出了“健康”项目，试图帮助员工坚持实现目标。其中一个推行时间最久的项目是美国医疗保健公司强生于1979 年启动的。它提倡减肥、戒烟和降血压。强生称此举每年为每位员工减少了400 美元的医疗费，患心脏病或高血压的员工也减少了。

Yet an examination of the data by Martin Cherniack of the University of Connecticut* found that in 2005-08, a sharp jump in alcohol use, depression and stress among j&j employees occurred. This coincided with a period when the firm had a target of lifting productivity by 9% a year. So the employees may have been leaner and fitter, but it is possible that workplace pressure to produce more meant greater stress.
不过，康涅狄格大学的马丁·切尼克（Martin Cherniack）分析相关数据*后发现，2005 年至2008 年，强生员工饮酒、抑郁和精神紧张的情形激增。而正是在这一时期，公司制定生产率年增幅9%的目标。因此，员工们可能变得更精瘦、更健康了，但提高生产率的职场压力也可能让员工更加紧张。

All this suggests that employee well-being is a rather more complex topic than can be tackled by a programme devoted to exercise and healthy living. A study by rand Europe, a research institute, found that obvious bad habits such as smoking and high alcohol use were in fact not associated with lower productivity, while obese workers were no more likely to take time off than anyone else. The biggest productivity problems were associated with lack of sleep, financial concerns and mental-health issues—factors that may well be directly linked to work-related stress.
所有这些都表明，员工福祉是个相当复杂的话题，不是一个注重锻炼和健康生活方式的项目就能解决的。研究机构兰德欧洲（RAND Europe）的一项研究发现，吸烟和酗酒等明显的坏习惯实际上与工作效率低下并无关联，而肥胖的员工请假的可能性也并不比其他人高。影响工作效率的最大因素与睡眠不足、财务方面的担忧和心理健康问题有关，而这些因素很可能与工作压力直接相关。

It seems reasonable for companies to expect some level of economic return on any wellness programme that they provide. But the trade-off should not be too blatant. Making employees fitter so you can work them a lot harder seems rather like drilling your infantry on an assault course before sending them to face the machine guns. A better impact on morale (and thus productivity) might occur if workers felt that their managers had a genuine interest in their welfare.
对企业来说，期望自己提供的任何健康计划都能产生一定的经济回报似乎也合情合理。但这种交换的动机不该太过赤裸裸。如果让员工更健康只是为了让他们加倍辛劳地为自己工作，那这就像在野战训练场操练步兵一番后，再派他们顶着机关枪的弹雨冲锋陷阵。如果员工感觉到老板们是真诚地关心他们的福祉，那么他们的士气（以及生产率）可能就会受到更正面的鼓舞。

Any health programme that tries to alter workers’ behaviour at home also raises privacy issues. There is a long tradition of employers taking an overly paternalistic attitude towards their staff. Titus Salt, a Victorian philanthropist, built a model village for his workers but banned alcohol from the village, smoking on the pathways and “loud behaviour”. Henry Ford, the car maker, had a “sociology department” that would make unscheduled calls on workers to monitor their lifestyles; those who failed to make the grade were paid lower wages.
任何试图改变员工居家行为的健康计划还会引发隐私问题。长期以来，雇主惯于以过于家长式的态度对待员工。维多利亚时代的慈善家提图斯·索尔特（Titus Salt）为他的工人们建立了一个示范村，但禁止在村里饮酒、在路上吸烟或“大声喧哗”。汽车制造商亨利·福特有一个“社会学部门”，会不定期给员工打电话，监督他们的生活方式，不达标的员工会被降薪。

The modern equivalent of those practices revolves around technology. Some companies persuade their workers to wear a Fitbit or other device to monitor things such as their level of exercise, heart rate and sleep patterns. bp America introduced Fitbits in 2013. Those who reach certain goals, such as walking 1m steps a year, qualify for extra health benefits.
现代的这些监控措施则是通过技术实现的。一些公司说服员工佩戴Fitbit 手环或其他设备来监控他们的运动水平、心率和睡眠模式。BP 美国公司在2013 年开始使用 Fitbit。那些达到特定目标的人，比如每年走满 100 万步，可以获得额外的健康福利。

In a health system dependent on private insurance, there may be a case for giving workers such incentives, provided take-up is voluntary. There is a parallel with car insurance, where vehicle owners pay lower premiums if they are willing to have their driving monitored.
在依赖私人保险的医疗体系中，给予员工这样的激励可能还有其道理，如果员工是自愿参加这种项目的话。这与汽车保险类似——如果车主愿意接受驾驶监控，就可以支付较少的保费。

But there is less excuse in a country like Britain, which has a public health service. Nevertheless, research published in 2017 showed there had been a 37% leap in the share of British workers who had been offered a wearable device by their employer. Many people, however, will regard these as a spy on their wrists, transmitting information back to the boss. A pwc survey in 2016 found that 38% of British employees did not trust their firms to use the data collected in a way that workers would benefit.
但在英国这样提供公共医疗服务的国家，这么做的理由就没那么充分了。尽管如此，2017 年发表的研究显示，在英国，由雇主提供可穿戴设备的员工比例激增了37%。不过，许多人会认为这些设备就是他们手腕上的间谍，会把信息传回给老板。普华永道 2016年的一项调查发现，38%的英国员工不相信自己的公司会以对他们有利的方式使用收集到的数据。

At least you can take a Fitbit off (and some workers have reportedly strapped them to their dogs to boost their activity scores). A few firms, such as Mindshare, a media agency in Sweden, and Three Square Market, a tech firm in Wisconsin, have already moved on to the next stage: implanting a chip under a worker’s skin. Employees gain a way to open doors and pay for meals in the canteen, but what do they lose in return? There is nothing wrong with employers offering a bit of fitness coaching. But nobody wants their boss to turn into a stalker.
至少你还能摘下 Fitbit（据说有的员工为了提高运动评分，把它绑在自己的狗身上）。一些公司，如瑞典的媒体公司传立媒体（Mindshare）和威斯康辛州的科技公司Three Square Market，已经进入了下一个阶段：在员工的皮肤下植入芯片。员工多了一种开门和在餐厅里付饭钱的方式，但他们为此失去了什么？雇主提供一些健康指导没有错，但没人会希望自己的老板变成跟踪狂。

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