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What makes a good office perk?
什么是好的辦公室福利？
When companies tighten their belts, they look first to discretionary spending.
當企業勒緊褲腰帶時，他們首先考慮的是可自行決定的支出。
Meta got rid of free laundry for its workers last year.
Meta去年取消了為員工提供的免費洗衣服務。
In January Google announced a round of lay-offs that included 27 in-house massage therapists.
今年1月，谷歌宣布了一輪裁員，其中包括27名公司內部按摩治療師。
Salesforce, another tech firm, has axed its contract with a Californian “wellness retreat”, where employees would have done God-knows-what with each other.
另一家科技公司Salesforce已經取消了與加州一家“健康療養地”的合同，天知道員工在那里干什么。
The chopping of such benefits has been christened the “perkcession”.
這種砍掉福利的做法被命名為“福利衰退”。
But just as perks get cut in bad times, so they return in the good.
但就像福利在不景氣的時候會被削減一樣，等日子好過了，福利又會回來。
Eventually you can expect to read articles about a “perkcovery”.
終有一天，你可以讀到關于“福利回歸”的文章。
What makes a good perk?
什么才是好的福利呢？
Dispensability is part of the point.
其中一點是福利是可有可無的。
This is not like a salary or a health-care plan; if it cannot be cut, it is not a perk.
福利不同于工資或醫保，如果是不能免去的，那就不算福利。
Views on what counts as a discretionary benefit can shift over time.
對于什么是自行決定的福利，人們的觀點可能會隨著時間的推移而改變。
Before the pandemic being allowed to work from home every so often was seen as a perk.
在疫情之前，允許偶爾居家辦公被視為一種福利。
Anyone who still describes it that way has failed to grasp how much the world has changed for white-collar workers.
如果有人仍然這樣描述居家辦公，那么這個人就沒有意識到，對于白領來說，世界已經發生了多大的變化。
By the same token many of the perks that are now being cut were designed for a pre-pandemic world of long weeks in full offices.
出于同樣的原因，現在被砍掉的許多福利都是為疫情前的工作情況設計的：滿滿當當的辦公室和漫長的工作周。
Last month Google warned that services at snack bars and cafeterias were being reviewed because attendance patterns had changed.
上個月，谷歌警告稱正在重新審視小吃餐吧和食堂的服務，因為員工出勤模式發生了變化。
Working out which perks are valuable to workers is hard.
要弄清哪些福利對員工來說是有價值的并不容易。
Asking employees may not always yield good answers.
詢問員工可能并不能總是得到好的答案。
A poll conducted last year for Trusaic, a software firm, asked American workers what perks they would like to see introduced: the top answer was hangover leave.
去年為軟件公司特魯薩克進行的一項民意調查詢問了美國員工，他們希望看到推出什么福利：排名第一的是宿醉假。
Perks that sound great in theory may not work out that well in practice.
理論上聽起來很棒的福利在實踐中可能效果不會那么好。
Several firms, Goldman Sachs and Netflix among them, tout the fact that they offer members of staff unlimited holidays.
包括高盛和網飛在內的幾家公司吹噓說，他們為員工提供無限制的假期。
But other companies have abandoned the policy because the absence of clear rules leaves employees unsure how much time they can really take off; some take less than they did under a fixed allocation of vacation days.
但其他公司已經放棄了這項政策，因為沒有明確的規定，員工就不確定他們真正可以休息多長時間，有些人比之前有固定假期時休假更少了。
Perks should reinforce a culture, not be undermined by it.
福利應該鞏固企業文化，而不是被企業文化所破壞。
Firms should not be offering employees access to advice on financial well-being if they pay worse than everyone else.
如果員工的薪酬比其他人都低，那么公司就不應該給員工提供財務健康方面的建議。
They should not be touting mindfulness courses if they expect employees to work until they drop from exhaustion.
如果企業希望員工工作到筋疲力盡為止，那么他們就不應該吹噓他們提供正念課程。
And perks should be motivating to the widest possible group.
福利應該激勵盡可能廣泛的群體。
Snack cupboards filled with calorific goodies are some people’s version of a sugary paradise, and others’ idea of obesogenic hell.
裝滿高熱量美味零食的小吃柜是一些人眼中的甜蜜天堂，也是另一些人心目中的肥胖地獄。
If your perk is a source of controversy, it’s probably not right.
如果你的福利是引起爭議的來源，那么這個福利可能并不合適。
The framing of a perk matters, too.
福利的設定也很重要。
Mental accounting is a concept that was coined by Richard Thaler, a behavioural economist, to describe how people put different values on money depending on context.
心理賬戶效應是行為經濟學家理查德·塞勒首創的一個概念，用來描述人們如何在不同情況下對金錢賦予不同的價值。
A discount on a small purchase feels more significant than the same amount off a big-ticket item, for example.
例如，數額相同的折扣，用于買小件東西比買大件東西讓人感覺更有意義。
Helping people with things they resent paying for can also be more effective than doling out treats.
幫人們處理他們不愿花錢去做的事，也可能比直接給錢更有效。
In “Mixed Signals”, an enjoyable new book on incentives, Uri Gneezy describes an experiment he conducted with three academics in Singapore, in which taxi drivers there were rewarded if they did a certain amount of exercise.
在一本關于激勵的有趣新書《混合信號》中，烏里·格尼茲描述了他與三名學者在新加坡進行的一項實驗，在實驗中，如果出租車司機做了一定量的鍛煉，他們就會得到獎勵。
Some drivers were given $100 in cash and others were given a credit equal to the value of a much-disliked rental fee they had to pay to the firm that owned the taxi.
一些司機獲得100美元的現金，其他司機可以抵免他們必須支付給公司的一筆他們很討厭的租賃費（因為出租車為公司所有）。
The rental credit proved much more motivating to drivers.
事實證明，租金抵免對司機的激勵作用要大得多。
Employers who offer help with pet insurance or student-loan debt repayments may be onto something.
提供寵物保險或學生貸款債務償還方面幫助的雇主可能會得到不錯的效果。
Perks also work best if they are noticed.
如果福利被人注意到，也會讓福利發揮最好的作用。
Employees can quickly become habituated to something that is unvaryingly available.
員工很快就會習慣于一成不變的可獲得的東西。
Ben and Jerry’s offers its staff three pints of ice cream and frozen yogurt a day; that risks being a benefit which fades into the background, even if its employees are less likely to.
本杰瑞冰淇淋公司每天為員工提供三品脫冰激凌和冷凍酸奶，這一好處可能會逐漸變得不起眼，盡管這家公司的員工們可能不會這樣想。
Time-limited seasonal benefits are a good answer to this: some firms let their people knock off early on Friday afternoons during the summer, for example.
有時間限制的季節性福利是解決這一問題的好辦法：例如，一些公司允許員工在夏季的周五下午提前下班。
By the time the days lengthen and the weather warms, that perk might help to keep good employees in their posts.
等到白天變長，天氣變暖時，這種福利可能有助于留住優秀員工。
No employer should mistake perks for the things that really matter to their staff.
任何雇主都不應該把福利誤認為是對員工真正重要的東西。
Research into what workers value most reveals the same priorities: stimulating work, being recognised by their managers, good wages.
研究表明員工最看重的東西和這些東西有同樣的優先順序：能激發興趣的工作、得到經理的認可、豐厚的工資。
When it comes to office environments, too, basics like natural light count for more than a massage.
當談到辦公環境時，像自然光這樣的基本條件也比按摩服務更重要。
But perks can help at the margins.
但福利可以在邊緣地帶提供幫助。
If you are going to dole them out, the trick is to find something that is both discretionary and meaningful.
如果你打算贈予福利，訣竅就是找到既可自行決定，又確實有意義的東西。
