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The New Science of Who Sits Where at Work辦公室座位安排學(xué)問多 Office workers are being treated to a new game: musical chairs. 今，辦公室職員正被安排玩一個新游戲：搶椅子游戲。 By shifting employees from desk to desk every few months, scattering those who do the same types of jobs and rethinking which departments to place side by side, companies say they can increase productivity and collaboration. 公司方面表示，通過讓員工每幾個月調(diào)換一次座位、將從事同類工作的員工分散開來以及重新考慮讓哪些部門坐在一起等方式，他們能夠提高生產(chǎn)率并促進(jìn)合作。 Proponents say such experiments not only come with a low price tag, but they can help a company's bottom line, even if they leave a few disgruntled workers in their wake. 支持者稱，這類實(shí)驗(yàn)不僅成本低，而且有助于提高公司利潤，雖然它們會引起一些員工的不滿。 In recent years, many companies have moved toward open floor plans and unassigned seating, ushering managers out of their offices and clustering workers at communal tables. But some companies -- especially small startups and technology businesses -- are taking the trend a step further, micromanaging who sits next to whom in an attempt to get more from their employees. 近年來，許多公司轉(zhuǎn)向開放空間格局，不指定固定座位，引導(dǎo)管理者走出辦公室，并將員工聚在公用辦公桌旁。但一些公司（尤其是小型初創(chuàng)公司和科技公司）將這種趨勢又向前推進(jìn)了一步，它們對座位安排進(jìn)行微觀管理，以提高員工的生產(chǎn)率。 'If I change the [organizational] chart and you stay in the same seat, it doesn't have very much of an effect, ' says Ben Waber, chief executive of Sociometric Solutions, a Boston company that uses sensors to analyze communication patterns in the workplace. 'If I keep the org chart the same but change where you sit, it is going to massively change everything.' Sociometric Solutions首席執(zhí)行長本·瓦貝爾(Ben Waber)稱：“如果我改變（組織系統(tǒng)）圖，但你的座位保持不變，是不會產(chǎn)生很大效果的。如果我保持組織系統(tǒng)圖不變，但調(diào)整你的座位，則會讓一切產(chǎn)生巨大變化。”Sociometric Solutions是一家波士頓公司，該公司用傳感器來分析工作場所的溝通模式。 Mr. Waber says a worker's immediate neighbors account for 40% to 60% of every interaction that worker has during the workday, from face-to-face chats to email messages. There is only a 5% to 10% chance employees are interacting with someone two rows away, according to his data, which is culled from companies in the retail, pharmaceutical and finance industries, among others. 瓦貝爾說，一名員工在工作日中的每一種互動都有40%到60%是與鄰座展開的，從面對面交談到電郵信息都是如此。他的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，員工與相隔兩排的同事進(jìn)行互動的幾率僅為5%到10%。該數(shù)據(jù)采自零售、制藥和金融等行業(yè)的公司。 Companies should think carefully about whom they put where, according to experts who study office design and workplace psychology. Grouping workers by department can foster focus and efficiency, says Christian Catalini, an assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, but mixing them up can lead to experimentation and the potential for breakthrough ideas. 研究辦公室設(shè)計(jì)和工作場所心理學(xué)的專家們表示，公司應(yīng)該認(rèn)真考慮把什么人安排在什么位置就座。麻省理工學(xué)院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)斯隆管理學(xué)院(Sloan School of Management)的助理教授克里斯蒂安·卡塔利尼(Christian Catalini)表示，讓員工按部門就座有助于提高專注程度和工作效率，但讓不同部門的員工混坐能鼓勵員工大膽嘗試，還能激發(fā)可產(chǎn)生突破性創(chuàng)意的潛力。 MODCo Media, a New York advertising agency, has tested three different seating arrangements over the past few years. For about six months, the company intermingled its accountants and media buyers, hoping they would begin to absorb each others' skills through 'osmosis' and 'overhearing phone calls.' 紐約廣告公司MODCo Media在過去幾年里試用了三種不同的座位安排。該公司讓會計(jì)和媒介采購員混坐了約六個月，希望他們能通過“耳濡目染”和“偷聽電話”來相互借鑒。 The experiment ended up saving MODCo 'a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, ' says CEO Erik Dochtermann, but it turned out badly for the accountants. The media buyers began to understand the financial side of the business so well that MODCo no longer needed a full accounting department. Now, the media buyers 'do the accountancy on the fly' and the company's chief financial officer checks their work, says Mr. Dochtermann. 該公司首席執(zhí)行長埃里克·多克特曼(Erik Dochtermann)表示，這項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)最終讓公司“一年節(jié)省了幾十萬美元”，但對會計(jì)來說卻成了壞事。媒介采購員能夠很好地理解業(yè)務(wù)的財(cái)務(wù)面，好到MODCo不再需要財(cái)務(wù)部的全班人馬了。多克特曼稱，媒介采購員現(xiàn)在會“就手做做會計(jì)工作”，公司的首席財(cái)務(wù)長會檢查他們的工作。 Other seating configurations have helped inspire new products and expedited the training of new employees, he says. 他說，其他一些座位安排有助于促進(jìn)新產(chǎn)品研發(fā)，并加快新員工培訓(xùn)速度。 At travel website Kayak.com, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Paul English has joked about developing an algorithm to capture all that goes into devising his seating plan for the engineering team. 旅游網(wǎng)站Kayak.com聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人兼首席技術(shù)長保羅·英格利希(Paul English)戲稱，要開發(fā)一種算法來捕捉?jīng)Q定工程師團(tuán)隊(duì)座位設(shè)計(jì)方案的所有因素。 He uses new hires as an excuse to alter the existing layout and thinks carefully about each worker's immediate neighbors. He takes into account everything from his employees' personalities to their political views to their propensity for arriving at work early -- or, more important, their propensity for judging colleagues who arrive late. 他以新聘員工為理由對現(xiàn)有的布局進(jìn)行調(diào)整，并仔細(xì)斟酌每一位員工的鄰座。他將員工性格、政見、提前上班的傾向（還有更重要的一點(diǎn)是評價(jià)同事遲到行為的傾向）等種種因素納入考慮范圍。 'If I put someone next to you that's annoying or there's a total style clash, I'm going to make your job depressing, ' he says. 他說：“如果我把一個討厭的人或者與你風(fēng)格完全不合的人放在你旁邊，那么我會讓你的工作變得很郁悶。” Young Chun, a product designer at Kayak, is one of Mr. English's ambassadors in his pursuit of an office with 'a balance of energy.' A self-professed member of the 'loud' contingent of Kayak employees, she was recently dispatched to the mobile group, where she estimated 90% of the workers were quiet, to get them to be more vocal. Kayak的產(chǎn)品設(shè)計(jì)師永川(Young Chun)是英格利希的辦公室“能量平衡”行動大使之一。永川自詡為Kayak員工中“愛說話”小分隊(duì)成員，最近她被派遣到移動業(yè)務(wù)組（她估計(jì)這里90%的員工都很安靜），任務(wù)是讓他們多說點(diǎn)話。 'The first week that I was down there I was like, 'Oh my god, I could hear a pin drop here, '' she says. 她說：“到那里第一周我的感覺是：‘天哪，我能聽得見大頭針落地的聲音。’” It took a few weeks, but Ms. Chun says she was able to get the group to open up and start chatting. Her mission accomplished, she was soon switched to another section of the office. 永川花了好幾周時間，但她說，在她的努力下，移動業(yè)務(wù)組開始無拘無束地聊天了。她的任務(wù)完成了，然后很快被調(diào)到了辦公室的另一處區(qū)域。 Aspects of a worker's disposition can, in fact, be contagious, according to Sigal Barsade, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. 'People literally catch emotions from one another like a virus, ' she says. Her research has found that the least-contagious emotional state is one marked by low-energy and sluggishness. The most contagious is a calm, relaxed state -- which she nicknamed 'the California condition.' 賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)(University of Pennsylvania)沃頓商學(xué)院(Wharton School )管理學(xué)教授西加爾·巴薩德(Sigal Barsade)稱，員工的性格特征其實(shí)是有感染力的。她表示：“不夸張地說，情緒就像病毒一樣讓人交叉感染。”她的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，感染性最弱的是以低能量和慵懶為特征的情緒狀態(tài)。感染性最強(qiáng)的是冷靜、放松的狀態(tài)──她將其昵稱為“加州狀態(tài)”。 People with similar emotional temperaments work best together, Ms. Barsade says. But if a manager is trying to get a stressed-out worker to brighten up, the best strategy is to surround her with lots of cheerful, energetic people. 巴薩德說，性情相似的人最適合在一起工作。但如果管理者試圖讓壓力很大的員工放松一些，最好的策略是讓許多快樂、充滿活力的人坐在這位員工周圍。 Constantly shuffling people around has its consequences, however. Ms. Barsade says that moving from desk to desk can make workers feel like they have little control over their environment. And some seating experiments can cause a backlash. 然而，不斷調(diào)整座位也會產(chǎn)生問題。巴薩德稱，讓員工從一張辦公桌搬到另一張辦公桌會讓他們感覺無力控制環(huán)境。一些調(diào)換座位的實(shí)驗(yàn)還會遭到激烈反對。 For about four years, employees at HubSpot Inc., a marketing-software company based in Cambridge, Mass., switched seats randomly every three months. The seating strategy was meant to reflect the lack of hierarchy at the company, which it says was especially helpful in recruiting Millennials. Eventually, the company added some structure to the arrangement, splitting workers into loud and quiet groups. 總部位于馬薩諸塞州劍橋(Cambridge)的HubSpot Inc.是一家營銷軟件開發(fā)公司，該公司在四年左右的時間里每三個月隨機(jī)調(diào)整一次座位。采用這種排座策略的用意是反映公司沒有等級之分，該公司稱，這對招聘千禧世代特別有幫助。該公司最終在安排中加入了一些系統(tǒng)性因素，將員工分成愛說話群體和不愛說話群體。 But when HubSpot decided to group its executives in one part of the office, the employee feedback was negative. The executives felt more efficient and liked being able to chat without having to arrange formal meetings, but the employees felt the higher-ups were too far removed. The setup was reversed after six months. 但當(dāng)HubSpot決定讓高管集中坐到辦公室的一處區(qū)域時，員工給出的反饋卻是負(fù)面的。高管們感覺這樣坐效率更高，他們還喜歡無須安排正式會議就能隨意聊天，但員工們覺得上司們高高在上。該公司在六個月后取消了該安排。 Employees have the moving process 'down to a science, ' says HubSpot Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Dharmesh Shah, unplugging their phones and rolling file cabinets to their new spots swiftly. HubSpot首席技術(shù)長兼聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人達(dá)爾梅什·沙阿(Dharmesh Shah)稱，員工們對換座位這件事已經(jīng)駕輕就熟了，他們會迅速拔下電話，將文件柜推到新的座位上。 But having grown to more than 600 workers, the company is facing a new problem: no one can remember who sits where. 但該公司的員工如今已經(jīng)超過了600人，目前他們正面臨著一個新問題：沒人能記得住誰坐在什么地方。
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