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[Translation from English to Japanese ] Why (Almost) Every Startup Should Be Working From Home Marissa Mayer may hav...
Original Texts
Why (Almost) Every Startup Should Be Working From Home
Marissa Mayer may have decided that working from home doesn’t work anymore for Yahoo, but that doesn’t mean that working from home isn’t the best option out there for some tech companies. And for startups it seems like a no-brainer. Here’s why:
No rent, no utilities. This is big, obvious reason that everyone should already know: if your team works from home, you don’t have to rent office space or pay for anything like heat, internet connections, electricity, phone lines, or anything else like that. There’s a big expense that just vanished from your budget. Poof! Good home workers are self-starters, and that’s exactly who you want on your team if you’re a startup anyway. If you’re worried about how many hours somebody on your team is working at a startup, that probably means you didn’t hire the right person in the first place. If your team is properly motivated, they’re going to be working just as hard to make the company succeed as you are whether they’re at home, in an office, or anywhere else. Plus, counting hours is a waste of your time. You shouldn’t care how many hours anyone on your team is working — tracking that is both time-consuming and pointless. What you should be focused on is results. If your team members are completing the tasks you need them to in the time you need them to, it doesn’t matter at all whether they’re in an office or at home. Conversely, if they’re not completing the tasks they need to on time, then it should be time for them to hit the road no matter where they work from. Home workers allow you to spread your team out. This can be a big advantage, especially in Southeast Asia where you may be working on a product that’s targeted at more than one country. If your team works from an office, everybody either has to be in one place or you need to pay for more offices in different locations. But if your team works from home, you can hire people all over the globe, which gives you access to more talent and more markets without destroying your budget. Working from home keeps employees happier. This one is a bit subjective, but at many startups your team members are going to be putting in long hours each day to stay on top of everything. If they’re spending 12 hours a day in an office, that can pretty quickly become soul-crushing, which means you either need to spend more money to buy them food and free massages (or whatever) or allow your workers to become soulless drones (that’s never a good thing). But working long hours from home is easier, as you can still see your loved ones easily every time you take a break or stop for a meal. As I write this article, I’m sitting next to my wife on the couch, and our dog is lying on the floor in front of us. I’m not talking to my wife or playing with the dog, obviously, but I still feel a lot happier and more comfortable here than I would if I was in an office all day. That’s all subjective, of course, but studies have shown that work from home employees really are happier and we all know that happy workers are more productive than unhappy ones. The tools for working collaboratively from home are here. Even a few years ago, it would have been much harder to have your teams work from home and still be working together, but these days there are a plethora of mature solutions for collaborative working from home. Here at Tech in Asia we tend to use Skype for conferencing and chatting and Google Docs for collaborative editing, but if those tools don’t fit your workflow, something else out there probably does. Working from home doesn’t mean never working together in the real world. Sometimes, you really do have to be there, and it’s important to remember that working from home doesn’t preclude that. Different companies will have different needs, but I think most work-from-home companies do have meetings or events in real life from time to time. Here at Tech in Asia, most of us meet up for our Startup Asia conferences. Does it cost a decent chunk of change to fly team members around for meetings like that? Sure, but it’s still cheaper than renting an office in the long run. At the end of the day, you can avoid most of the problems associated with working from home by just hiring a trustworthy team that’s actually motivated to help you build the company. And guess what: if you’re planning to do a startup that’s the kind of team you should be building anyway. Working from home saves you money, makes workers happier, and allows you to broaden your searches for talent and to spread more easily and cheaply into new markets. As I see it, that’s a win-win-win-win. Unless there’s some reason you absolutely need to be in an office (and yes, there are some companies that really do need that for one reason or another), why would you be? As a tangential side note, some of you may have read that employees are better off at work because they’re less likely to be promoted from home. The study that indicates that, however, was conducted at a very large Chinese company. Chinese business culture places a lot of importance on personal relationships, so it’s little surprise that “being there” means a lot at a Chinese company, but this shouldn’t mean very much to startups one way or the other. You should be striving to build your own workplace culture, and if everybody’s working from home, then nobody gets left out of promotions because of it anyway.
(CORRECTION: Fixed “Marissa” after initially writing “Melissa”).
Marissa Mayer may have decided that working from home doesn’t work anymore for Yahoo, but that doesn’t mean that working from home isn’t the best option out there for some tech companies. And for startups it seems like a no-brainer. Here’s why:
No rent, no utilities. This is big, obvious reason that everyone should already know: if your team works from home, you don’t have to rent office space or pay for anything like heat, internet connections, electricity, phone lines, or anything else like that. There’s a big expense that just vanished from your budget. Poof! Good home workers are self-starters, and that’s exactly who you want on your team if you’re a startup anyway. If you’re worried about how many hours somebody on your team is working at a startup, that probably means you didn’t hire the right person in the first place. If your team is properly motivated, they’re going to be working just as hard to make the company succeed as you are whether they’re at home, in an office, or anywhere else. Plus, counting hours is a waste of your time. You shouldn’t care how many hours anyone on your team is working — tracking that is both time-consuming and pointless. What you should be focused on is results. If your team members are completing the tasks you need them to in the time you need them to, it doesn’t matter at all whether they’re in an office or at home. Conversely, if they’re not completing the tasks they need to on time, then it should be time for them to hit the road no matter where they work from. Home workers allow you to spread your team out. This can be a big advantage, especially in Southeast Asia where you may be working on a product that’s targeted at more than one country. If your team works from an office, everybody either has to be in one place or you need to pay for more offices in different locations. But if your team works from home, you can hire people all over the globe, which gives you access to more talent and more markets without destroying your budget. Working from home keeps employees happier. This one is a bit subjective, but at many startups your team members are going to be putting in long hours each day to stay on top of everything. If they’re spending 12 hours a day in an office, that can pretty quickly become soul-crushing, which means you either need to spend more money to buy them food and free massages (or whatever) or allow your workers to become soulless drones (that’s never a good thing). But working long hours from home is easier, as you can still see your loved ones easily every time you take a break or stop for a meal. As I write this article, I’m sitting next to my wife on the couch, and our dog is lying on the floor in front of us. I’m not talking to my wife or playing with the dog, obviously, but I still feel a lot happier and more comfortable here than I would if I was in an office all day. That’s all subjective, of course, but studies have shown that work from home employees really are happier and we all know that happy workers are more productive than unhappy ones. The tools for working collaboratively from home are here. Even a few years ago, it would have been much harder to have your teams work from home and still be working together, but these days there are a plethora of mature solutions for collaborative working from home. Here at Tech in Asia we tend to use Skype for conferencing and chatting and Google Docs for collaborative editing, but if those tools don’t fit your workflow, something else out there probably does. Working from home doesn’t mean never working together in the real world. Sometimes, you really do have to be there, and it’s important to remember that working from home doesn’t preclude that. Different companies will have different needs, but I think most work-from-home companies do have meetings or events in real life from time to time. Here at Tech in Asia, most of us meet up for our Startup Asia conferences. Does it cost a decent chunk of change to fly team members around for meetings like that? Sure, but it’s still cheaper than renting an office in the long run. At the end of the day, you can avoid most of the problems associated with working from home by just hiring a trustworthy team that’s actually motivated to help you build the company. And guess what: if you’re planning to do a startup that’s the kind of team you should be building anyway. Working from home saves you money, makes workers happier, and allows you to broaden your searches for talent and to spread more easily and cheaply into new markets. As I see it, that’s a win-win-win-win. Unless there’s some reason you absolutely need to be in an office (and yes, there are some companies that really do need that for one reason or another), why would you be? As a tangential side note, some of you may have read that employees are better off at work because they’re less likely to be promoted from home. The study that indicates that, however, was conducted at a very large Chinese company. Chinese business culture places a lot of importance on personal relationships, so it’s little surprise that “being there” means a lot at a Chinese company, but this shouldn’t mean very much to startups one way or the other. You should be striving to build your own workplace culture, and if everybody’s working from home, then nobody gets left out of promotions because of it anyway.
(CORRECTION: Fixed “Marissa” after initially writing “Melissa”).
（ほぼ）すべてのスタートアップを在宅勤務にするべき理由
Marissa Mayer女史は在宅勤務がYahooにはもう機能しないと判断したかもしれないが、かといって、在宅勤務が世の中のすべてのテック企業にとって最高のオプションではないということではない。そして、スタートアップにとって、それは頭を悩ませるほどの問題ではないよいだ。以下にその理由を挙げよう。
家賃も公共料金も要らない。これは、すでに誰もが知っているはずの明白で大きな理由だ。チームの仲間が在宅勤務をしていれば、オフィスの家賃や、光熱費、ネット回線使用料、電話代、もしくはそのような料金を払う必要がない。予算からちょうど消えてなくなったばかりの大きな経費があるだろう？立証済み！
Marissa Mayer女史は在宅勤務がYahooにはもう機能しないと判断したかもしれないが、かといって、在宅勤務が世の中のすべてのテック企業にとって最高のオプションではないということではない。そして、スタートアップにとって、それは頭を悩ませるほどの問題ではないよいだ。以下にその理由を挙げよう。
家賃も公共料金も要らない。これは、すでに誰もが知っているはずの明白で大きな理由だ。チームの仲間が在宅勤務をしていれば、オフィスの家賃や、光熱費、ネット回線使用料、電話代、もしくはそのような料金を払う必要がない。予算からちょうど消えてなくなったばかりの大きな経費があるだろう？立証済み！
優秀な在宅勤務者は自発的に行動する人で、もしスタートアップを手掛けているのなら、まさにこういう人をチームに加えるべきだろう。もし、チームの誰かに対し、その人がスタートアップにいったいどのくらいの時間取り組んでいるのかと気になるなら、それはそもそも、適切な人材を雇わなかったということだろう。チーム内に適度なやる気があれば、仕事場が自宅であろうと、オフィス、もしくはその他の場所であろうと、チームの仲間はあなたと同じように、成功する企業を築こうと一生懸命働く。
さらに、時間を数えるのは時間の無駄だ。チームの誰かがどのくらいの時間働いているかなんて気にするべきではない。これは、時間のかかる無意味な追跡行動だ。そんなことよりも、「結果」を重視するべきだ。例えば、チームの仲間がするべき仕事を期限内に終わらせていれば、彼らの仕事場が自宅であろうとオフィスであろうと関係ない。逆に、彼らが与えられた任務を期限内に終了させていないなら、仕事場がどこかにかかわらず、解雇するべきだろう。
在宅勤務にすれば、チームを広げることができる。これは大きな利点となりうる —— 特に、1つ以上の国をターゲットにしたプロダクトを構築することのある東南アジアでは。チームがオフィスで仕事をする場合、メンバー全員を1つの場所に集めるか、もしくは異なる場所に複数のオフィスを借りて家賃を払わなければならない。だが、チームのメンバーが自宅で仕事をするのなら、世界中から人を雇うことができる。それによって、予算を壊すことなく、より多くの人材、市場にアクセスすることができる。
自宅勤務はスタッフの幸福度を上げる。これは少し主観的ではある。だが、多くのスタートアップで、チームメンバーがすべてを掌握しようと毎日長時間働いている。もし彼らが1日の12時間をオフィスで過ごしているなら、彼らはすぐにも精神的に疲れ果ててしまうだろう。こういう状況では、スタッフのための食事にお金をもっと使わなくてはならないだろうし、無料のマッサージ（もしくは他のもの）を手配したり、あるいはスタッフを魂の抜けた役立たずにしてしまう恐れもある ——これは決していいことではない。だが、自宅での長時間労働は、オフィス勤務と比べると楽だ。自宅で長時間働いていても、休憩する時や食事をとる時にはいつでも最愛の人と簡単に会うことができるからだ。
私はソファーに座ってこの記事を書いているが、隣には妻が座っていて、私達の前には床に犬が横たわっている。私が、妻と話したり犬と遊んだりしていないことは明らかだが、1日中オフィスで過ごすよりも、自宅で働く方が遥かに幸せで快適だと感じている。もちろん、これはすべて主観的な意見だが、在宅勤務者は実際にオフィス勤務者よりも幸せだという調査結果もある。そして、幸せなスタッフはそうでないスタッフよりも生産性が高いということは承知の通りだ。
自宅でも共同作業のできるツールが利用できる。たとえ数年前であっても、スタッフを自宅勤務にし、なおかつ共同作業も行うということはかなり難しかっただろう。だが、最近では、自宅からでも共同作業のできる十分に発達したソリューションが数多くある。私達Tech in Asiaでは、カンフェランスコールや連絡にはSkypeを、共同編集にはGoogle Docsをよく利用するが、これらのツールがあなたのワークフローに合わなくても、おそらく他に相応しいツールがあるだろう。
在宅勤務には実世界で他の人と一緒に働く機会が決してないということではない。時々、ある場所に必ずいなければならないということがある。そして、在宅勤務によってそれが妨害されることはない、ということも忘れてはならない。各企業にはそれぞれ異なるニーズがある。だが、在宅勤務を実施している企業のほとんどが、会議やイベントを実生活で時々行っていると私は思う。Tech in Asiaでは、私達のほとんどが、私達の開催するStartup Asia Conferenceで顔を揃える。このようなミーティングにチームのメンバー呼び寄せるには多額の旅費がかかる？もちろん、そうだが、それでも、長期的にオフィスを借りるよりは安いのだ。
最終的には、会社を築く手助けをしようと実際にやる気のある信頼できるチームメンバーを採用することで、在宅勤務に関わる問題のほとんどを回避することができる。そして、もしスタートアップをしようと計画しているのなら、なんとしても、こういうチームを築くべきだ。在宅勤務にすれば、お金の節約ができ、スタッフをより幸せにし、人材の発掘の幅を広げることができ、さらには、より簡単に、より低いコストで新たな市場へアクセスすることができる。私が思うに、これは「win-win-win-win」— 4つのメリットをもたらすアプローチだ。絶対にオフィス勤務でなければならないという確固とした理由がない限り（確かに、なんらかの理由でオフィス勤務制を実施する企業もあるが）、どうしてオフィス勤務にする必要があるだろう？
少し横道にそれるが、在宅勤務者はオフィス勤務者よりも昇進する可能性が低いという理由から、社員はオフィスで働く方がいいという記事を読んだ人がいるかもしれない。だが、これを示している調査は、ある中国の大企業で実施されたもので、中国の企業風土は個人的な関係を重要視している。だから、「会社にいる」ということが中国企業では大きな意味を持つことは何も驚くことではない。だが、このことがどういう形であれ、スタートアップに大きな重要性を与えるべきではない。このようなことに左右されず、独自の職場風土を築くことに努力するべきだ。そして、皆が自宅勤務をしているのなら、在宅勤務が理由で昇進せずに取り残される人もいないだろう。
（訂正：誤「Melissa」→ 正「Marissa」、本文修正済み）
（訂正：誤「Melissa」→ 正「Marissa」、本文修正済み）
Result of Translation in Conyac
- Number of Characters of Requests:
- 5494letters
- Translation Language
- English → Japanese
- Translation Fee
- $123.615
- Translation Time
- about 10 hours
Freelancer
zhizi
Characteristics of Translations through Conyac
