常规任务对决首要任务 不可忽视工作中的"小事"

The extraordinarily rich anonymised information from such a system is a treasure trove for big data researchers such as Wharton’s Katherine Milkman. Analysing 13.8m “unique hand hygiene opportunities” for more than 4,000 staff at 35 hospitals, she and her co-authors found that over a 12-hour shift compliance by an average staff member fell by 8.5 percentage points. Lax handwashing, they suggest, could be costing $25bn annually in treatment of unnecessary infection in the US – and leading to 70,000 needless deaths.
对沃顿商学院的凯瑟琳•米尔克曼(Katherine Milkman)这样的大数据研究者来说，这个系统提供的格外丰富的匿名信息是一个宝库。在分析了35家医院逾4000名员工总共1380万次“独一无二的手卫生机会”后，她和她的合著者发现在12小时的轮班期间，员工对手卫生程序的平均遵守度下降了8.5个百分点。他们估测，在美国，疏于洗手引起的不必要的感染每年会造成250亿美元的治疗费用，并导致7万个不必要的死亡病例。

As Prof Milkman explained to me last week, the fact that intense work makes it harder to do less important tasks could have profound implications in other walks of life. The study points out that “these deviations pose a threat to the wellbeing of organisations, employees and clients . . . because such violations can reduce the quality of products produced and services provided as well as creating an unsafe work environment”.
就如米尔克曼教授上周向我解释的那样，高强度工作会使人更难去做不那么重要的工作，这个事实在其他行业也会造成深远的影响。该项研究指出，“这些违反规定的行为对组织、员工和客户的福祉构成威胁……因为这种违规行为降低了产品和服务的质量，并使工作环境变得不安全”。

Suddenly, it is a little clearer why the exhausted M&A banker skips parts of the ethical code her bank insists on, or why the tired lorry driver jumps the lights to make it to the depot on time. The work could offer clues about how to make sure the steeplejack always checks his harness, even on the final ascent of the skyscraper, and the weary journalist reads through her story for possible errors on deadline.
突然间，某些行为背后的原因变得清楚了一些，比如精疲力尽的并购银行家略过一部分其所在银行坚持的道德准则，或者疲惫的货车司机闯交通灯以按时到达仓库。这项研究工作会提供线索，告诉我们如何确保高空作业工人总是检查身上的保护带，即使在最后一次登上摩天大楼时；或者确保记者在截稿前通读自己的报道以发现可能的差错。

The good news is that while the ability to carry out these simple tasks deteriorates swiftly, employers can restore it rapidly by, say, giving workers longer breaks between shifts. Another positive conclusion is that in this case technology seems to help. Monitoring compliance electronically, for all its Orwellian implications, does improve the overall frequency of handwashing.
好消息是，尽管人们完成这些简单事务的能力会快速下降，但雇主也可以通过加长轮班之间的休息时间等手段迅速恢复这种能力。另一个积极的结论是，在这种情况下，技术似乎能提供帮助。电子监控员工是否完成这些日常事务，尽管带有一种奥威尔式的意味，却的确能从整体上提高洗手的频次。

Hand hygiene is, however, one of those secondary tasks that will by definition always be manual. In other areas, the assumption is that machines have cleared the way for professionals to concentrate on their primary productive job. But there is evidence, highlighted in a recent New Yorker article about pilots’ reliance on their autopilot, that some skills may atrophy as workers become complacent about technological back-up.
不过，手卫生是一种必须手工完成的次要任务。在其他领域，人们假设机器已经为专业人才清除了道路，让他们能专注于自己的首要生产性工作。但证据似乎表明，员工对技术“后盾”过于自满导致一些技能会慢慢退化，《纽约客》(The New Yorker)最近一篇关于飞行员依赖自动驾驶仪的文章凸显了这一证据。

I think the new research adds a further twist: if technology makes some vital tasks that used to be central seem routine, workers may also start to neglect them as the day drags on – with potentially dire consequences.
我想这个新研究还增添了另一项曲折：如果技术使一些曾处于中心地位的关键任务变成常规事务，员工在忙碌的上班过程中可能逐渐开始忽视这些任务，进而可能造成严重后果。