【外刊双语精读】经济雪人-雇我的间谍（1）

【外刊双语精读】经济雪人-雇我的间谍（2）

【外刊双语精读】经济雪人-雇我的间谍（3）

Bartleby

The spy who hired me

When employer health programmes go too far

巴托比

雇我的间谍

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。

swear off sth

if you swear off a particular habit or pleasure, such as cigarettes or alcohol, you decide to stop it because it is bad for you:

Froggy discovered religion, and swore off alcohol, sex, and even gambling.

Jay had sworn off love. "Too painful, darling."

detox

when you do not eat solid food or only drink special liquids for a period of time, which is thought to remove harmful substances from your body 解毒疗法，清毒疗法〔一段时间内不吃固体食物或只喝特别的流质，据认为可以将体内的有害物质排出〕

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。

wellness

the state of being healthy 【美】健康：

The college has established a wellness program for its students. 学院为本院学生制定了一套保健方案。

cessation /se'seɪʃ(ə)n/ n. (暂时)停止,休止,中断

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。

lean /liːn/

(of a person or animal) thin, especially healthily so; having no superfluous fat（人, 动物）瘦的（尤指健康的表征）; 无赘肉的：

his lean, muscular body.

他精瘦刚健的身体。

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。