【英语生活】携程实验：在家工作效率更高

By David Wessel
With nearly half its employees working from home now, Aetna Inc. is convinced it is saving a good deal of money with no adverse effect on productivity.

A nine-month experiment at Ctrip, China＊s largest travel agency, overseen by academic economists at Stanford and Beijing University, suggests Aetna＊s experience may not be unique.

Ctrip, was looking to save money on real estate costs and cut turnover. It asked 996 employees in its Shanghai call center if they＊d be interested in working at home four days a week. Half were interested, and 252 qualified for the experiment by virtue of having at least six months on the job and broadband access from a quiet corner of their home. Those with birthdays on even days were selected to work at home, those with odd birthdays stayed in the office, making this the sort of random experiment that academics relish.

The results:

-- Performance of home workers were up 13% over nine months, primarily because they took fewer breaks and sick days, but also because they took more calls per minute worked.

-- Attrition fell by 50% among the home workers versus the control group that stayed in the office.

-- Ctrip estimated that it would save $2,000 a year per employee working at home and, at the end of the experiment, offered all its employees that option.

-- Half those who had worked at home decided to go back to the call center; one third of those who had stayed in the office opted to work from home.

'Given their success, other firms are now likely to copy this practice,' researchers Nicholas Bloom, John Roberts and Zhichun Jenny Ying of Stanford and James Liang of Beijing University and Ctrip conclude.

安泰保险公司(Aetna Inc.)现在有近一半的员工在家工作，该公司确信这种做法节省了大量成本，对生产率也没有不利影响。

中国最大的在线商旅服务网站携程网(Ctrip)进行的一项为期九个月的实验表明，安泰的经验可能并非特例。这项实验在斯坦福大学(Stanford)和北京大学的经济学家监督下进行。

为了节约租用办公室的成本、减少人员流失，携程网询问其上海呼叫中心的996名员工是否有兴趣一周四天在家工作。其中一半员工表示出兴趣，共有252名员工符合实验资格。参加实验的条件是在职至少六个月，拥有宽带接入且家中有安静的办公角落。那些生日是偶数的员工被选中在家工作，生日为奇数的员工则留在办公室，从而成为学者青睐的那种随机实验。

实验结果：

──在为期九个月的时间内，在家工作的员工业绩提升13%，这主要是因为他们较少休假和请病假，同时因为他们每分钟接听的电话数量更多。

──相比留在办公室的对照组员工，在家工作的员工离职率下降了50%。

──携程网估计，每位在家办公的员工每年可为公司节省成本2,000美元。实验结束后，携程向所有员工提供了这一选择。

──那些在家办公的员工中有一半决定回呼叫中心工作，而留在办公室的员工则有三分之一选择在家工作。

斯坦福大学的研究人员布鲁姆(Nicholas Bloom)、罗伯茨(John Roberts)和应知淳以及携程网高管、北京大学教授梁建章说，鉴于携程的成功，其它企业现在也有可能效仿这种做法。