The research: André Spicer, a professor at Cass Business School at City University London, conducted a cultural and historical analysis of ideas about wellness in companies (which he published in a book, The Wellness Syndrome). He concluded that corporate wellness programs not only provide low returns on investment but actually backfire, making many employees less healthy and more anxious about their jobs.
The challenge: Are “fun runs” and diet programs part of the problem, not the solution?
研究：伦敦城市大学卡斯商学院组织行为学教授安德里·斯皮瑟（Andre Spicer）从历史和文化角度分析了公司采用的健康计划。（这项分析刊登于他的《健康综合症》（The Wellness Syndrome）一书）。根据分析，他总结出公司的健康计划带来的不仅是低投资回报率，实际上还适得其反，导致许多员工身体状态不大如前，工作焦虑感也日益加重。
挑战：所谓的“乐趣奔跑”和节食计划真的是问题的一部分，而不是解决方案？
Spicer: In our analysis, we were struck by the ineffectiveness of wellness programs. Several studies, notably one by the Rand Corporation, showed that they produce modest results at best. Take weight loss programs. Only a small percentage of enrollees stick with them, and even when they do, their average weight loss is about one kilogram.
斯皮瑟：经过我们的分析研究，我们都对健康计划不起作用感到难以置信。一些研究，尤其是兰德公司发起的研究表明，取得一般成效已是最好结果。以减重计划为例，只有一小部分参与者能够坚持，而且即便如此，最终的减重效果平均下来也不过区区1公斤。
What I didn’t expect was that many programs seemed to have the opposite of their intended effect. They were creating guilt and anxiety in employees. One big wellness program we looked at led previously happy employees in a stable job environment to become anxious about losing their jobs. It seemed to make them think they needed to be more attractive to their employer, and if they did something like smoking a cigarette, they felt it affected their employability.
很多计划似乎都起到了适得其反的效果，让我始料不及。这些健康计划让员工产生内疚感和焦虑感。我们分析研究中的一项规模较大的健康计划致使一些原本在稳定、健康工作环境下，快乐工作的员工陷入了生怕丢掉工作的不安。这个计划似乎让他们觉得，对他们的上司来说，他们还不够优秀，而且在他们看来，如果做了一些诸如抽烟之类的举动，公司会质疑他们是否符合受雇条件。
HBR: That sounds insidious.
It goes further. Looking at the moral psychology literature, we found that people are judging others based on wellness characteristics, like weight. That’s not surprising, but what caught my attention is how often disgust at someone’s unhealthy behavior morphs into broader negativity. If people notice you doing something unhealthy, they think it makes you a bad worker. For instance, people see you eating a big lunch and assume that you’re lazy and unproductive.
HBR: 这种计划听起来危机暗伏。
不仅如此，翻阅道德心理文献，我们发现人们是通过一些健康特征，比如体重，来评价他人的。这并不奇怪，但是引起我注意的是，对某人不健康生活方式的厌恶往往最终会演变成更深层的抵触。如果人们注意到你有一些不健康的生活方式，他们会认为你不是一名合格雇员。比如说，当人们注意到你的午餐过于丰盛，他们可能会认为你很懒，并且工作效率较低。
insidious：阴险的，潜伏的
So is it fair to say wellness programs are not just ineffective, they’re counterproductive?
In some cases, yes! With particularly intense wellness initiatives, we found, employees ploughed a great deal of energy into trying to improve their health. Sometimes this meant that employees had less time to focus on their core tasks. More frequently, these wellness initiatives would eat into employees’ personal lives. People would have time for working and exercising but little time for anything else.
这么说健康计划不仅是无效的，而且还会适得其反？
某些情况下的确如此。在一些强度比较大的健康计划中，我们发现员工在改善他们的健康状况上投入了很多精力。有时候这意味着他们做主要工作的时间减少。更为常见的是，员工会耗费个人时间完成这些健康计划。工作和锻炼占据了他们大部分时间，几乎没时间做别的事情。
Why do we invest so much money in these programs then?
A couple of reasons. One is simple: They’re aggressively marketed. Corporate wellness is a huge industry pushing this idea on companies. Another reason is that, collectively, we buy into the idea of wellness. Some sociologists believe that in an increasingly secular society, wellness fills a void that religion used to. Companies promote wellness because it fits with a common ideology that healthy people are productive people.
既然如此，我们为什么还要在健康计划上投入这么多资金呢？
有许多原因。一个简单的解释是，这些计划正被大肆宣传。将健康计划这个理念灌输给各大公司的是一个庞大的产业。另一个原因是，总的来说，我们相信这个健康理念。一些社会学家认为，在一个宗教信仰式微的社会里，健康计划填补了宗教留下的空白。公司之所以会大力推崇健康计划是因为这个理念符合一个共同认知，那就是，身体健康的人，工作成效也比较高。
Are they?
It’s obvious that someone who’s ill may not be as productive, depending on the job and the type of illness. However, there’s little evidence that superfitness correlates with leadership, good management, or even productivity. And that’s a major problem with how wellness programs are developed and marketed. In the past 20 years there has been a shift. The demands of wellness have become more stringent. A reasonable weight range isn’t as good as being superfit anymore.
是这样吗？
很显然，如果一个人身体不适，他的工作成效可能不会很高，这取决于工作性质以及所患疾病类型。但是，几乎没有证据表明一个人的领导力、优秀的管理能力以及工作效率与超级健康的身体状况有什么关联。而健康计划是如何发展并推广的，这也是一个重大问题。这个领域在过去20年发生了巨大转变。对健康计划的要求也变得越来越严格。合理的体重范围不再是超级健康的标准。
stringent：严格的
We talked to public health policy experts who have demonstrated that to exemplify the well employee, governments and companies use extreme images of superfit runners and very thin and muscular people rather than images of “normal” people. What happens then? Relatively healthy people feel that they’re not measuring up. They see those images and say, “I can’t imagine reaching that,” and give up.
公共卫生政策专家告诉我们，政府和公司为塑造健康员工形象，选用的推广代言人都是些极端好形象，诸如超级健康的跑步者和身材苗条、肌肉发达的人，而不是那些形象“普通”的人。怎么会这样？相对健康的人会感觉他们是不合格的。他们看到那些形象代言人会说：“我是达不到那个标准的。”然后他们就会选择放弃。
Meanwhile you have this superfit class, who become the ideal and also judge others who don’t meet their standards, making those spuriousconnections between fitness and capability. Experiments have found that an overweight job applicant is less likely to be positively assessed than a candidate of an average weight—even if the two applicants have exactly the same CV.
与此同时，超级健康阶层诞生了。他们成为完美身材的标准，并批判那些达不到标准的人，营造出健身与工作能力之间有联系的一种假象。实验结果显示，一位体重超重的求职者相对于一位标准体重的求职者来说，不太容易得到正面评价，即便他们的履历完全相同。
spurious：假的，伪造的
Those people!
It cuts both ways. The superfit often become obsessed with wellness because they fear slipping into the other class. They see their fitness as an indicator of professional success.
那些人！
过度追求健康带来的伤害是双向的。超级健康的人会变得痴迷于健身，因为他们害怕一旦疏于努力就会沦为不健康群体。对他们来说，健康体魄就是职业成功的指标。
Are successful businesspeople more fit?
They want you to believe they are. I came across a remarkable trend: In the past two decades the number of CEOs who mention fitness in their bios has spiked. They seem to think that if you want to be a leader, you have to show your wellness. There has been a 100% increase in CEOs running marathons.
那些成功商业人士的身体都更健康吗？
他们希望你认为他们是这样的。我偶然发现一个明显的趋势：在过去20年里，在简历里提到他们身体状况的CEO人数呈大幅增长趋势。他们似乎认为如果你想成为一名领导者，就要展示出健康的体魄。CEO加入马拉松比赛的人数比过去提高了一倍。
Saying they run marathons, you mean.
Maybe! But there’s no doubt they increasingly see it as an important way to present themselves to the world, and maybe they seek it in their employees, too.
你是说，他们开始跑马拉松比赛了。
也许吧。毫无疑问，他们越来越坚信，这是向世界展示他们的一种重要方式，而且他们可能希望手下员工也认同这点。
This feels oppressive. I’m doughy, but I think I’m a good worker!
I would agree that there is an oppressive quality to wellness programs right now. It’s kind of a 1% phenomenon. Moral judgments are being made that aren’t really based on evidence. And access to wellness is skewed toward the more well, just as access to fresh food is skewed toward those who need it less and have an abundance of it. We see in the research that wellness programs offer more opportunity to higher-level employees and often don’t effectively reach those who would benefit the most, the entry-level people and the contractors.
这太让人无法忍受了。我身体柔弱无力，但是我自认为是一名好员工！
我也认同目前的这些健康计划有压迫性。这是一种优势群体占领99%的资源的现象。道德判断并不是基于客观依据作出的。积极参与健康计划的人，反而是那些身体状况好的人，一如会吃新鲜食品的人更多地是那些常吃大量新鲜食物的人。我们从研究中发现，健康计划为那些高层员工提供了更多机会，然而那些往往能从中受益最多的初级职位员工和合同工却常常无法企及。
oppressive：难以忍受的，压迫的
doughy：柔软的
Will wearable technology increase the oppressiveness of wellness programs?
It’s strange. People worry about Big Brother and surveillance, yet we’re paying for the privilege of having our behavior monitored. We shell out hundreds of dollars for tracking bands, something convicts are forced to wear. If you’re volunteering to do it and it helps your wellness, that’s probably good. But it gets complicated when companies want to mandate the use of this technology, because it completely breaks down the barrier between work and life. Suddenly, whether or not I go for a jog on my own time is something my company is tracking. That’s a slippery, slippery slope.
穿戴式科技会增强健康计划的压迫性吗？
这点很奇怪。人们会对“老大哥”（Big Brother）式的监控感到不安，而我们却花钱让别人来监视我们。我们花费上百元买罪犯被迫戴上的追踪手环。如果你自愿这么做，它对你的健康又有帮助，这可以说是件好事。但是如果公司想要强制使用这项技术，事情就变得复杂了，因为它完全打破了工作与生活之间的界线。突然间，我在闲暇时间是否去慢跑变成了公司追踪的事情。这的确是个灾难。
surveillance：监督，监视
What’s a reasonable way forward with corporate wellness?
It’s important for me to say that I’m not writing off wellness interventions completely. Let’s just ask, What are we trying to achieve here—what is the problem we’re solving?
First, employers need to ask, Do we need all this? In some cases good, simple interventions—like gym facilities—may be enough. Second, employers should be realistic about what they hope to achieve from these programs. Often they’re sold as everyone in the firm will quit smoking. Unrealistic goals like that will backfire.
企业该如何合理推进公司健康计划？
我不是要完全推翻健康计划，这点我必须要说明。试着自问一下，我们这么做究竟是为了什么？或者说，我们正在解决的问题是什么？”
首先，雇主须要问，我们真的需要健康计划吗？在某些情况下它是好的，只是提供健身设施之类的器材就足够了。再者，雇主应该对健康计划所能达成的目标现实一些。他们往往以为，健康计划会让公司内每个人都成功戒烟。这类不现实的目标最终会适得其反。
Third, you must establish boundaries. Using technology to watch people outside work is a problem, and there’s emerging evidence that the more work bleeds into life, the less productive people become. Finally, look for small changes that can make a big difference. Too often people go all in on investments like treadmill desks when they could get the same payoff by giving their employees natural light, fresh air, and some fresh fruit.Scott Berinato is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations.
再次，你必须要有界限概念。利用科技手段监视员工工作之外的行为的确是个问题，而且越来越多证据表明，工作占据员工个人时间越多，员工工作效率就越低。最后，寻找那些能带来大变化的小改变。人们常常去投资诸如跑步机办公桌之类的设备，其实给员工提供多一些自然光、新鲜空气和新鲜水果能起到同样的作用。
史考特·贝瑞纳托(Scott Berinato) | 访
时青靖 | 译刘筱薇 | 校万艳 | 编辑
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