What tools do you use at work that you didn’t a decade ago? That’s the question I posed to a group of friends recently, hoping for a host of interesting examples of how technology is transforming the workplace.

有哪些你正在使用的办公工具是10年前没有的？这是我最近向一群朋友提出的一个问题，希望能够收获一堆关于技术正在如何转变工作场所面貌的有趣例子。

But the responses from a disparate group that included insurance brokers, speech therapists and entrepreneurs surprised me. All the new digital products they rated were, in effect, secretary substitutes.

但是，这个由保险经纪人、言语矫治师以及企业家等组成的差异很大的人群给出的答案让我意外。他们列出的所有新式数字产品实际上都是秘书替代品。

I heard paeans to the utility of Skyscanner for corporate travel, the benefits of Google Docs for holiday rotas and the value of EchoSign for electronic signature of documents.

我听到的称赞是：航班搜索网站Skyscanner安排商务差旅是多么有用，用谷歌文档(Google Docs)安排轮流休假是多么便利，用EchoSign软件在文件上进行电子签名是多么有价值。

Regardless of industry or seniority, document encryption services and tools designed to prevent endless email trails also cropped up with regularity.

不论是在哪个行业，也不论级别多高，人们还都会提到文档加密服务以及为防止没完没了的电子邮件往来而设计的工具。

This is self-service in action and a vivid example of why administrative jobs frequently top the list as those most at risk from automation.

这是自助式服务的生动实例，它也形象地说明了行政类职位为何频频“领衔”受自动化威胁最大的工作榜单。

Back in 2001, there were nearly 400,000 secretarial and personal assistant roles in the UK. Now there are fewer than 200,000.

2001年时，英国有近40万个秘书及个人助理类职位，而现在仅有不到20万个。

The disappearance of that person who used to be the linchpin of office life has been driven by a combination of cost-cutting in the wake of the financial crisis — there was a 12 per cent drop in such roles between 2009 and 2010 alone — and the internet revolution.

曾在办公室生活中扮演关键角色的人的消失，受到两个因素的联合推动：一是金融危机过后的削减成本（从2009年至2010年，秘书及个人助理类职位的数量就下降了12%），二是互联网革命。

Administrators’ salaries proved a tempting target for businesses desperate to trim budgets, with the bonus that cuts could be billed as modernisation and as embracing new ways of working.

对于急于削减预算的企业来说，行政类职位的薪酬被证明是一个诱人的靶子；砍掉此类职位还能带来额外好处：比如美其名曰“现代化”以及拥抱新的工作方式。

But has the efficiency drive gone too far? The days when companies needed someone to type letters and file correspondence physically are long gone, but the digital era has brought its own version of the administrative grind. The work has not gone away, it has just been dispersed across the workforce.

但对效率的追求是否已走得太远？企业需要某人来打字并将纸质信函存档的旧时光早已远去，但数字时代带来了自己版本的行政苦差。这些工作并没有消失，而只是被广泛分散给了员工队伍。

While phasing out jobs that just “turn the handle” is all part of the move to a higher skilled workforce, there are consequences. A recent survey from Qualtrics found UK workers estimate that less than 65 per cent of the time they spend at work is productive. The hours wasted spent trying to get a computerised approval system to understand an edge case are staples of many a pub rant.

虽然淘汰那种仅仅“转动把手”的工作是向更高技能员工队伍转型进程的一部分，但这是有后果的。调查公司Qualtrics近期的一项调查显示，英国的工薪阶层人士估计，他们在工作场所仅有不到65%的时间是有成效的。为了试图让计算机审批系统理解某个特例所浪费的大量时间，是人们在酒吧吐槽的常见内容。

Vickie Sokol Evans, who trains Bill Gates’ executive assistants, and those in other organisations, in Microsoft technology, says there is great pressure in all organisations to “do more with less”.

为比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)和其他组织培训行政助理、使她们掌握微软(Microsoft)技术的维基•索科尔•埃文斯(Vickie Sokol Evans)表示，各类组织都面临着巨大压力，要求它们“用更少的资源办更多的事”。

But she argues that efficiency comes from using technology well, not just dropping it in front of the workforce and expecting them to get on with it. Is it really more efficient for 20 sales people to all do their own expenses and travel, or can one person who really understands both the software and the rules help remove some of the grit from the wheels of corporate life?

但她指出，效率来自于对技术的有效利用，而不是仅仅将技术扔给员工，然后期待他们自己搞定。让20名销售人员都自行处理他们个人的费用报销以及差旅事务真的更有效率吗，抑或一个既懂软件又了解相关规章制度的人有助于让公司生活少一点烦扰？

That would also mean the sales team could be out there doing what they were hired to do: selling.

这还意味着，销售队伍能够腾出时间履行他们的本职工作：推销产品。

Top executives, of course, have managed to hang on to their secretaries — nowadays more often than not termed executive assistants. But these roles are far broader than they used to be.

当然，顶级高管们设法保住了他们的秘书——现在这类职位往往被称为“行政助理”。但这些岗位如今的职责范围比过去广泛多了。

Monitoring budgets, preparing reports, designing slidedecks and similar tasks are increasingly part of the required skillset. A recent survey by Hays for Executive Secretary — whose conference Ms Sokol Evans will address in London next week — reported that nearly 90 per cent of senior staff said they could not to do their jobs without their PA.

监控预算、撰写报告、设计幻灯片，诸如此类的任务日益成为行政助理的必备技能。猎头公司Hays近期为《行政秘书》(Executive Secretary)杂志所做的一项调查显示，约90%的高级职员表示，没有个人助理的话，他们做不了自己的工作。（索科尔•埃文斯女士将在该杂志于伦敦举办的会议上发言。）

Peggy Grande, who was executive assistant to US President Ronald Reagan for 10 years, says no amount of technology or progress towards virtual assistants can make up for the human factor. “It is about not just what needs to be accomplished now, but staying three steps ahead,” she adds.

佩吉•格兰德(Peggy Grande)曾为美国前总统罗纳德•里根(Ronald Reagan)当了10年的行政助理。她表示，没有什么技术或是虚拟助手领域的突破能够替代人的因素。她补充称：“这不仅关乎目前必须完成的任务，还要走在前面，超前三步。”

Ms Sokol Evans says she knows of at least one multinational that is reviewing its career options for PAs and is looking to create a twin track structure: one path for those who want to push for more responsibility and widen the definition of their role and another for those who get job satisfaction from ensuring systems actually work.

索科尔•埃文斯女士表示，据她所知，至少有一家跨国公司正在评估其向个人助理提供的职业发展选择，并正在试图构建一种双轨结构：一条面向那些想要承担更大责任、拓展自身角色定位的人，另一条面向那些从确保系统有效运转获得工作成就感的人。

The pace of the digital revolution shows no signs of slackening and few office jobs will be the same in a decade. But that means the need to help humans and systems gel is more pressing. Sometimes a calm, helping hand can deliver greater efficiency gains than a software upgrade.

数字革命的速度没有显示出任何放缓的迹象，10年后几乎不会有哪项办公室工作还保持今天的面貌。但这也意味着，帮助人类员工和数字系统有效融合的任务变得愈发迫切。有些时候，一个沉着冷静的人类帮手能够比一次软件升级带来更显著的效率提升。