Why working from home is good for business | The Way We Work, a TED series

The basic problem with working in an office

翻译人员: jacks peng 校对人员: Kai Lu

is you're just not in control of your work environment.

[The Way We Work]

Howdy, my name is Matt, and I'm the CEO of Automattic,

the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack and WooCommerce.

在办公室工作最基本的问题是

We're coming up on over 800 employees, and they live everywhere,

你根本无法控制你的工作环境。

【我们的工作方式】

from California to Alabama, Mississippi, to where I live in Texas.

大家好，我是马特，是 Automattic的首席执行官，

They're also in 67 countries.

WordPress.com、Jetpack 和WooCommerce的母公司。

Canada, Mexico, India, New Zealand.

Some of them choose not even to have a home base, they're nomads.

我们在全球各地有超过800位雇员，

Whether they are in RVs or traveling through Airbnbs,

从加利福尼亚到亚拉巴马，密西西比， 到我所在的德克萨斯州。

they are in new places every day, week or month.

As long as they can find good Wi-Fi, we don't care where they are.

他们也分布在67个国家。

加拿大，墨西哥，印度，新西兰。

Our focus on distributed work didn't happen accidentally.

他们中的一些人甚至没有自己的 固定居所，他们是游牧民族。

It was a conscious choice from the very beginning.

不管他们住在房车中， 还是在旅途中住Airbnbs，

Notice I don't use the word "remote,"

他们每天、每周或每月都在新的地方。

because it sets up the expectation,

只要能找到网速好的Wi-Fi， 我们不关心他们在哪。

that some people are essential and some aren't.

I use the word "distributed" to describe what we do,

我们以分布式工作为主 可不是什么拍脑门的决定。

where everyone is on an equal playing field.

我们一开始就是这么计划的。

I think a distributed workforce

is the most effective way to build a company.

注意我们没有使用“远程”这个词，

The key is you have to approach it consciously.

因为这建立了预期，

When we started WordPress,

对有些人来说是必要的，有些人则不。

many of the first 20 hires were people I'd never met in person.

我使用“分布式”来描述我们的工作方式，

But we'd collaborated online, sometimes for years.

这里每个人都在平等的工作环境中。

我认为一个分布式的办公场地

I wanted to continue that for one simple reason.

是构建公司最高效的方式。

关键是你必须有意识地追寻它。

I believe that talent and intelligence

are equally distributed throughout the world.

当我们创立WordPress时，

我们雇佣的前20个员工中， 大多数我都没见过。

But opportunity is not.

In Silicon Valley, the big tech companies fish

但我们在网上合作过， 有些合作过好多年。

from essentially the same small pond or bay.

我想保持这样的合作 是出于一个简单的原因，

A distributed company can fish from the entire ocean.

我相信才能和智慧

Instead of hiring someone who grew up in Japan but lives in California,

平均地分布在全世界各地。

但机会并不是。

you can gain someone who lives, works,

在硅谷，大型科技公司基本上

wakes up and goes to sleep wherever they are in the world.

从同一个小池塘或海湾捕鱼。

They bring a different understanding of that culture

一家分布式公司可以从整个海洋中捕鱼。

and a different lived experience.

与其雇佣一个成长在日本工作在加州的人，

At the base of the decision to go distributed,

there's a desire to give people autonomy over how they do their work.

你可以得到一个在世界上任何地方

生活，工作，起床和睡觉的人。

Unless you're in a role where specific hours are important,

他们带来对本国文化的不同理解

you can make your own schedule.

Everyone can have a corner office, their windows, the food they want to eat,

和一种不同的生活体验。

分布式办公的决策基础在于，

you can choose when there's music and when there's silence.

给予人们工作自主权的欲望。

You can choose what temperature the room should be.

除非你特定的某个工作时间很重要，

You can save the time you'd spend commuting

你可以定自己的时间表。

and put it into things that are important to you.

每个人都可以有一个角落用来办公， 坐在自己喜欢的窗边，吃想吃的食物，

A distributed workforce is ideal for a technology company.

But people often ask me,

你可以选择啥时候放音乐，啥时候安静。

"This works great for y'all, but what about everyone else?"

你可以设定房间的温度。

If you have an office,

你还可以节省通勤的时间，

you can do a few things to build distributed capability.

把它用在对你重要的事情上。

First: document everything.

分布式办公对于科技公司很理想。

In an office, it's easy to make decisions in the moment,

但人们常常问我，

in the kitchen, in the hall.

“这对你们很适用，但对其他公司合适吗？”

But if people work remotely

and some members of the team are having those conversations

如果你有办公室的话，

你可以做一些事情去建造分布式能力。

they don't have access to,

they'll see these decisions being made without understanding the why.

首先：记录一切东西。

Always leave a trail of where you were and what you were thinking about.

在办公室中，很容易当下就做决定，

在厨房中，在大厅中。

This allows others to pick up where you left off.

但如果有人远程工作，

无法参与一些团队成员

It allows people in different time zones to interact,

所进行的对话，

it's also great to think about as an organization evolves,

他们就会在不了解原因的 情况下看到这些决定。

people leaving and people joining.

总是留下你在哪里 和你在想什么的痕迹。

Try to have as much communication as possible online.

当你走开时，其他人也能跟上。

When everything's shared and public, it allows new people to catch up quickly.

它让在不同时区的人也能互动，

随着组织的发展，这也是一个很好的想法，

You also need to find the right tools.

There are so many apps and services that help with day-to-day communication,

铁打的军营流水的兵。

要在网上留下尽可能多的信息。

video conferencing, project management.

当一切信息都被分享和公开时， 可以让新人很快追上。

The things that changed how you work probably aren't objects anymore.

They're things you access through your computer.

你也需要找到合适的工具。

So experiment with different tools that enable collaboration,

有很多的应用和服务 可以辅助日常沟通，

see what works.

视频会议和项目管理。

Create productive, face-to-face time.

改变你工作方式的可能不是实物了。

In a traditional office,

you're in the same place 48 weeks out of the year

and you might have three or four weeks apart.

他们是你可以通过电脑获得的东西。

We try to flip that: we come together for short, intense bursts.

所以要去尝试用来增强协作的不同工具，

看看什么有效。

Once a year we do a grand meet-up

where the entire company comes together for a week.

创造富有成效的面对面的时间。

在传统办公场所，

It's half-work, half-play.

一年中有48周你都在同一个地方，

The primary goal is connecting people.

可能3或4周的时间在外面。

We want to make sure everyone's aligned and on the same page,

我们试图扭转这一切： 我们会举行短期的聚会。

and they have a deeper connection with their colleagues.

每年我们开一次盛大的聚会，

When they work together the rest of the year,

整个公司的人用一周的时间欢聚一堂。

they can bring together that understanding and empathy.

这一半是工作，一半是社交。

And the final practice:

主要的目的是让人们彼此熟络。

give people the flexibility to make their own work environment.

我们要确保每个人的信息都是对等的，

Every person at Automattic has a co-working stipend

并且与同事有更密切的联系。

that they can put towards a co-working space

当他们在一年中的其他时间一起工作时，

or just to buy coffee, so they don't get kicked out of the coffee shop.

依然可以怀揣着理解和同理心。

还有最后一个实践：

One group in Seattle decided to pool their stipends together

帮助人们灵活地打造自己的工作环境。

and rented a workspace on a fishing pier.

Automattic的每个人都有共享办公的津贴，

Each person who joins the company gets a home-office stipend.

他们可以把它用到共享办公场地，

This is money they can invest in getting the right chair, monitor,

或者去买个咖啡，这样就 不会被咖啡店赶出来。

the right desk setup, so they can have the most productive environment for them.

西雅图的一群人决定 把他们的津贴凑在一起，

在一个码头上租了一个工作空间。

Today, there are just a few companies that are distributed first.

每个加入公司的人 都有家庭办公室津贴。

In a decade or two, I predict that 90 percent of companies

这些钱可以用来买到 合适的椅子和显示器，

that are going to be changing the course of the world

正确的办公桌设置，可以 让他们拥有最高效的工作环境。

are going to function this way.

They will evolve to be distributed first, or they'll be replaced by those that are.

今天，只有少数几个公司 优先选择分布式办公。

As you think about what you're going to build next,

在10年或20年后，我预测90%

consider how you can tap into global talent,

将要改变世界进程的公司

give people autonomy to live and work where they feel they should

会用这种方式运作。

and still participate fully in whatever it is that you're creating together.

它们会率先演化成分布式公司， 或者它们会被这类公司替代。

当你考虑下一步做什么时，

考虑一下如何利用全球人才，

给人们选择生活和工作地点的自主权，

并且仍然能充分参与你们 共同创造的任何东西。