Office workers have grown accustomed to knowing the intimate details of each other's lives─from a colleague's favorite cat video to a boss's vacation fiasco.
从同事最喜欢的猫咪视频到老板假期泡汤,办公室职员已经习惯于打探每个人的私生活细节。
Now a small but growing number of private-sector firms are letting employees in on closely held company secrets: revealing details of company financials, staff performance reviews, even individual pay─and in doing so, walking a tightrope between information and TMI, or too much information.
现在,有些私营公司开始向员工公开通常属于保密的公司信息:比如公布公司具体的财务状况和员工绩效考核,甚至每个人的薪水。采取这种方式的公司虽然不多,但却在呈增长趋势。这种做法需要拿捏好分寸,否则一不小心就会透露过多信息。
The warts-and-all approach, most often found in startups, builds trust among workers and makes employees more aware of how their particular contribution affects the company as a whole, advocates say.
支持者表示,这种方式在初创企业中最常见,虽然有弊端,但是可以建立员工之间的信任,并让员工们更多地了解到自己对公司的贡献。
Employees at SumAll, a Manhattan data-analytics company, can click on a shared drive to peruse investor agreements, company financials, performance appraisals, hiring decisions and employee pay, along with each worker's equity and bonuses.
在曼哈顿数据分析公司SumAll,公司员工可以进入公司的共享硬盘查看投资者协议、公司财务状况、业绩评估、聘用决定、员工工资以及每位员工的股权和奖金。
SumAll Chief Executive Dane Atkinson says the company was launched as an open enterprise. He and his co-founders reasoned that people work more efficiently when freed of doubts about salary, and better understand their individual contribution to the whole group.
SumAll首席执行长戴恩•阿特金森(Dane Atkinson)说,公司在建立之初就是开放型公司的定位。他和其他创始人认为,让员工们了解到薪水情况有利于提高其工作效率,并有助于他们了解自己对整个公司作出的贡献。
Anyone hired into the company must be comfortable with the system, he says.
阿特金森说,任何受雇于公司的员工都要适应这套系统。
The company's 30 or so employees are each assigned to one of nine fixed salaries, which range from about $35,000 for the lowest paid to $120,000 for the highest. Raises occur companywide, determined by performance and market conditions.
SumAll约有30名员工,他们的工资被分为九个等级,从最低的3.5万美元到最高的12万美元不等。根据员工的表现和市场情况,公司的全体员工都有机会得到加薪。
'It's not like you come in and [pay] is posted on your forehead,' but having the figures in the open alleviates co-workers' curiosity and anxiety, says Kimi Mongello, SumAll's office manager. 'When it's a secret you want to know it more,' she says, noting that she and her colleagues rarely look at the data.
公司行政经理基米•蒙杰洛(Kimi Mongello)说,“并不是说你一进门薪水的数字就贴在你的脑门上,而是公开每个人的薪水有利于消除同事的好奇和焦虑。她说:“人们总是会对秘密有很强的好奇心。”她说她和同事们其实很少去看那些数据
Ms. Mongello is in a low salary band, and is fine with it. 'I shouldn't be paid as much as an engineer,' she says. SumAll workers who feel they're unfairly paid can easily bring it up, she adds.
蒙杰洛的薪水在公司处于较低水平,但她却很坦然。她说:“我不应该和工程师拿同样的薪水。”她还说,在SumAll,员工如果在薪水方面觉得不公平可以随时提出来。
Little privacy remains in most offices, and as work becomes more collaborative, a move toward greater openness may be inevitable, even for larger firms. Companies 'don't really have a choice,' says Ed Lawler, director of the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. (Public companies and government agencies, meanwhile, generally have disclosure requirements about firm performance or pay.)
大多数公司的办公室都很少有隐私可言,随着工作中需要越来越多的合作,采取更加开放的制度也许是不可避免的,即使大公司也是一样。南加州大学(University of Southern California)高效组织研究中心主任埃德•劳勒(Ed Lawler)说,很多公司“其实没有选择的余地”。(上市公司和政府机构一般在公司业绩和薪水方面都有披露要求。)