办公室缘份大作战,争取更多工作外接触

Companies aren't leaving serendipity to chance.
俗话说，缘份天注定，但一些公司不这么想。

Firms are thinking up new ways to encourage interactions among employees who normally don't work with each other. The hope is that these casual face-to-face chats among people with different skills might spark new ideas, lead to new solutions or at the least, increase workplace camaraderie.
这些企业正在思考新方法，鼓励那些打算老死不相往来的员工相互沟通，希望拥有不同技能的员工通过面对面的交谈来碰撞出新的思想火花，产生新的解决方案，或者退一步讲，至少可以让工作氛围更和谐。

To make those connections happen, some firms are taking a scientific approach─collecting and analyzing data about their teams and mathematically computing the likelihood that employees will meet. In some instances, they are squeezing workers into smaller spaces so they are more likely to bump into each other. In others, they are installing playful prompts, like trivia games, to get workers talking in traditional conversational dead zones, such as elevators.
为促进员工交流，一些公司正在采取科技手段──收集并分析团队成员的个人数据，从数学角度计算他们愿意相互接触的可能性。举例而言，一些公司缩小办公面积，让员工更容易碰到其他同事；另一些公司则安装好玩的设备，如益智问答屏幕等等，从而让员工在电梯等传统的沟通真空区有话可聊。

But despite all the buzz around serendipity─several panels at the popular tech conference South by Southwest Interactive discussed the topic─it is hard to know for sure whether any of these efforts really work. The real challenge, companies and workplace scholars say, isn't merely connecting workers with their colleagues so much as it is connecting them with the right ones.
打破员工沟通壁垒的努力可谓盛极一时──South by Southwest Interactive时尚科技大会上就有好几个专家小组讨论这个话题──但很难确定这些方法到底有没有效果。研究公司与职场管理的学者们表示，真正的挑战并不在于仅仅让员工们互相碰面，而在于把那些能够相互契合的员工凝聚起来。

'The most productive relationships are difficult to engineer,' says Jason Owen-Smith, a University of Michigan sociologist who studies employee collaboration.
密歇根大学(University of Michigan)研究员工协作领域的社会学家詹森•欧文-史密斯(Jason Owen-Smith)说：“最富有成效的员工合作关系是难以设计并人为促成的。”

Designs for Google Inc.'s GOOG -0.50% new headquarters, expected to be completed in 2015, set out to maximize casual employee conversations, which the firm says were responsible for innovations such as Gmail and Street View. 'We want it to be easy [for] Googlers to collaborate and bump into each other,' says a Google spokeswoman.
谷歌公司(Google Inc.)新的总部大楼预计于2015年建成，其设计初衷就是将员工之间的非正式交流最大化。谷歌公司表示，谷歌邮箱(Gmail)和谷歌街景(Street View)的创意正是来自这种非正式交流。公司发言人说，“我们希望谷歌员工能够相互协作，有面对面的沟通和交流。”

Not surprisingly, the plans are driven by Google's obsession with data. One feature: Every worker within the 1.1 million-square-foot, multilevel complex is expected to be within a 2½ minute walk from each other. The firm and its architect, NBBJ, looked at how fast people can walk and measured the diameter of the space from multiple angles. (An 'infinity-loop'-shaped pathway slopes through the building, connecting employees to each other.) In addition, the floor plan is narrower than typical offices, keeping teams in sight range of one another.
不出意料的是，正是谷歌对于数据分析的痴迷在其中扮演了重要角色：在这座占地面积110万平方英尺（约10.22万平米）的多层综合型总部大楼里，每个员工走到另一个员工那里的时间预计不超过两分半钟。谷歌公司及其总部大楼设计者NBBJ建筑设计事务所观察员工们的步行速度，从不同角度测量办公空间的直径长短。（整座大楼有一个环形的步行通道贯通上下，将不同楼层的员工连接到一起。）此外，公司的办公布局也要比一般写字楼更紧凑一些，从而让不同的团队能够彼此看到对方。

Studies have found that having colleagues work in close proximity to each other does correlate with increased collaboration. Researchers at the University of Michigan studying 172 research scientists recently found that when the scientists shared the same buildings and overlapped in their daily workplace walking patterns─moving between lab space, office space, and the nearest bathroom and elevator─they were significantly more likely to collaborate: For every 100 feet of 'zonal overlap,' collaborations increased by up to 20%.
一些研究发现，让员工在近距离范围内工作有助于提升团队协作。密歇根大学的研究人员对172名从事研究工作的科学家进行调查，发现了一个有趣的现象：那些在同一栋大楼工作、每天低头不见抬头见（在往返于实验室、办公室、距离最近的洗手间和电梯的路上相遇）的科学家，他们之间的协作可能性显著增加。每增加100平方英尺（约9.3平米）的“重合区域”，其协作程度就会增加多达20%。

The more frequently you see and bump into a colleague, the more likely you are to eventually strike up a conversation, says Dr. Owen-Smith, the lead author of the study. 'If that person knows stuff you don't, that process can lead to information transfer,' he says.
这份研究报告的主笔人欧文-史密斯说道，你遇见一个同事的频率越高，就越有可能最终攀谈起来，“如果对方知道一些你不熟悉的东西，信息传输就这样产生了。”

Online retailer Zappos is encouraging employee collisions in its new 200,000-square-foot downtown Las Vegas headquarters, which it expects to occupy this fall. Inspired by dense cities, which allow for more interactions than sprawling suburbs, Zappos will allot workers about 100 square feet per person, instead of the 150 square feet in its current suburban office. Break rooms will be 'really small, so people literally collide,' says Patrick Olson, Zappos's senior manager of campus development. (The smaller space per person is also a cost-saver, to be sure.)
在线零售商Zappos在拉斯维加斯市中心新建了一座占地20万平方英尺（约1.86万平米）的总部大楼，预计在2013年秋季投入使用。因为看到密集的城市布局比稀疏的郊区布局更容易促发人际交流，受此启发，Zappos分配给每个员工的办公面积约为100平方英尺（9.3平米），有意增加员工在总部大楼中的相遇的机会，而其目前位于郊区的办公大楼人均办公面积为150平方英尺（约14平米）。Zappos公司负责办公地产规划的资深经理帕特里克.奥尔森(Patrick Olson)说道，新大楼的员工休息室“非常非常小，人们真的就是低头不见抬头见”。（当然，缩水的人均办公面积也能节约成本。）