2018年经济学人 自由交流:福特老板的“驭人之道”(1)

 

Whether additional effort translates into higher wages depends on the other options available to workers and on their bargaining power

额外的努力能否转化为高额的工资取决于员工手中的工作选择以及他们的议价能力——

in particular, whether they feel able to leave if the pay is not worth the trouble.

尤其是当工资和努力不成正比时，他们能否会辞职。

Indeed, in the past, high turnover¹ helped motivate some factory owners to share the gains from workplace discipline with workers.

事实上，在过去，高企的营业额会促使一些工厂老板将因严格的管理而挣得的收益与员工分享。

The “$5 day” introduced by Henry Ford² in 1914 was an “efficiency wage”, according to Daniel Raff, of the University of Pennsylvania, and Larry Summers, of Harvard University.

宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院管理学教授丹尼尔·拉夫和哈佛大学的拉里·萨默斯认为，亨利·福特1914年发明的“5美元日工资”是一种“效率工资”。

Workers on Ford’s assembly lines spent entire shifts doing mind-numbingly repetitive work, and many could not stick it for long.

福特汽车生产线上的工人在上班时间要一直重复地做让人无聊到头脑麻木的工作，很多人都无法坚持下来。

Ford’s solution was to pay a wage well above what workers could earn elsewhere.

福特的解决办法是支付的工资高于其他企业。

That helped compensate³ them for their suffering.

这将补偿员工们遭受的痛苦。

More important, it led to a long queue of eager applicants⁴, and the knowledge that anyone who left would quickly be replaced and could not easily return.

更重要的是，实施这一决策之后，翘首以盼的应聘者排起了大长龙，同时工人也意识到一旦离开，他们就会被别人替代，无法轻易地重回岗位。

But high turnover does not appear to bother Amazon much.

但亚马逊似乎并没有为高企的营业额感到困扰。

The past decade’s weak labour markets have meant queues of willing workers even without the promise of above-market pay.

在过去十年里，低迷的劳动力市场使得众多员工甚至愿意以不高于市场价的工资工作。

The same technologies that monitor workers can also reduce the training time needed to prepare new employees, since the gadgets⁵ around them guide most of their activity.

监管工人的技术也能减少培训新员工的时间，因为这些监控设备会指导他们的大部分工作方式。

And new disciplinary technologies create an additional risk for workers.

新的规范性技术会为员工造成额外的风险。

1 turnover   

n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量

参考例句：

• The store greatly reduced the prices to make a quick turnover.这家商店实行大减价以迅速周转资金。
• Our turnover actually increased last year.去年我们的营业额竟然增加了。

2 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

3 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

4 applicants   

申请人，求职人( applicant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There were over 500 applicants for the job. 有500多人申请这份工作。
• He was impressed by the high calibre of applicants for the job. 求职人员出色的能力给他留下了深刻印象。

5 gadgets   

n.小机械，小器具（ gadget的名词复数 ）

参考例句：

• Certainly. The idea is not to have a house full of gadgets. 当然。设想是房屋不再充满小配件。 来自超越目标英语 第4册
• This meant more gadgets and more experiments. 这意味着要设计出更多的装置，做更多的实验。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史