Job flexibility¹ is the key to keeping workers happy, productive and loyal to the company, a new study shows.

一项最新研究显示，弹性工作制对于保持员工心情愉快、高效工作以及对公司忠诚不二是至关重要的。

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem,North Carolina, found that workers who enjoyed more work flexibility were also less likely to say health problems affected² their performance at work.

北卡罗莱纳州温斯顿塞勒姆的维克森林大学医学院的研究人员发现，享有更多工作自由度的员工认为健康问题对自己的工作表现影响较小。

"For managers, the results suggest that implementing³ flexible work arrangements can contribute to the bottom-line," said Joseph Grzywacz, a professor of family medicine at the university.

该大学的家庭医学教授约瑟夫·格里兹沃茨说：“研究显示，管理者执行弹性工作管理体制有利于公司的盈利。”

Workplace flexibility refers to the ability of employees to modify where, when and how long work their work is performed.

弹性工作制指的是员工可以灵活安排自己的工作地点、工作时间及工作时长。

Telecommuting, flexitime and job sharing were the main types of flexibility cited in the study published in the Psychologist-Manager journal.

该项在《心理学家与管理人》期刊上发表的研究报告提到，远程办公、弹性工时以及分工合作是弹性工作制的几种主要形式。

The researchers studied a health survey completed by 3,193 employees of a large multinational⁴ pharmaceutical⁵ company. They used the information to determine how increases or decreases in perceived flexibility from one year to the next were associated with a variety of factors.

研究人员分析了一家大型跨国医药公司的3193名员工的健康数据。他们根据其中的信息来确定一年内工作灵活度的增加或减少对其它一系列因素有什么影响。

Decreases in flexibility over the year were associated with reduced job commitment, but had little impact on absence, they said.

研究人员称，工作灵活度的降低导致了员工工作投入度的降低，但对于出勤没有太大影响。

Offering a variety of alternative work arrangements and training managers and supervisors⁶ to be supportive of workers' personal lives may help in creating a culture of flexibility, researchers added.

研究人员建议，为员工提供各种灵活的工作安排，让经理和主管们多为员工的个人生活着想，这将有利于打造灵活的的企业文化。