Insurance and the gig economy Your policy is arriving in two minutes 保险与零工经济 您的保单将在两分钟后到达How insurance policies are being adapted to fit freelance working  THE rise of the gig economy means not only workers, but those who insure them, are having to adapt. 如何调整保险服务以适应自由职业者的需要  零工经济的兴起意味着不只工人须因时而变，给他们提供保险的公司也一样Take third-party liability insurance—the sort that would pay out if, for instance, a courier hit and injured a pedestrian. 以第三方责任险为例，这种保险会在快递员撞伤行人等情况下做出赔付An employee driving a company van would be covered by a standard commercial-insurance policy.如果快递员开的是公司的货车，标准的商业险会做出理赔 But “gig” couriers, working when they wish and using their own cars, must often insure themselves. 但如果快递员是自行选择工作时间、开自己的车的“零工”，他们往往必须自行投保Even if they have personal cover, it will not usually pay out for accidents that happen while they are driving for work. 而即使他们买了个人险，这种保险通常也不会对他们在开车工作时发生的事故做赔付Among the firms seeking to fill this gap is Zego, which sprang up to serve scooter couriers such as those working for Deliveroo, a food-delivery service. 一些公司正力求填补这个空白，Zego是其中之一。这家新生公司服务的对象是送餐公司Deliveroo等企业的摩托车快递员Deliveroo and its rivals require proof of insurance from couriers, but had no easy way to check it was valid. Deliveroo及其竞争对手要求快递员提供保险证明，但没有简单的方法来核查保单是否真实有效Couriers, meanwhile, were often loth to pay stiff premiums.而与此同时，快递员们往往不愿意支付昂贵的保费 Harry Franks, formerly of Deliveroo and co-founder in 2016 of Zego, spotted an opportunity and convinced insurers that a different model could be profitable.曾供职于Deliveroo的哈利·弗兰克斯（Harry Franks）在2016年与其他人联合创办了Zego。 Zego now brokers third-party liability insurance for couriers working in Britain for nearly a dozen different firms such as Amazon or Quiqup (it plans to expand to Ireland and Spain).他发现了其中的商机，并说服保险公司相信可以通过一种新的商业模式盈利 现在为亚马逊、快递公司Quiqup等十来家公司在英国的快递员选择及协商第三方责任险，并计划将业务扩展到爱尔兰和西班牙Couriers pay by the working hour. Coverage starts when they activate the courier’s app on their phone, and stops when they sign off. 快递员按工作时数购险，当他们在手机上激活一款快递员应用时保单开始生效，退出时终止Many gig workers want to go beyond third-party coverage and buy coverage for themselves, for example against illness.Zego 除了第三方责任险，许多零工还想为自己也购买保险，例如健康险For platforms, which insist their workers are independent contractors, not employees (and thus do not create a liability for payroll taxes), providing such specialist insurance is a way to offer some of the perks normally associated with employment without having to concede that point. 对于那些坚称零工属于独立承包商而非雇员的平台（他们因此不用承担工资税），提供这种专门的保险给予了零工一些通常只有雇员才能享受的福利，又不必承认零工是雇员A good example is the insurance that Uber, a ride-hailing company, now offers through Aon, an insurance broker, in many American cities.网约车公司优步目前通过保险经纪公司怡安（Aon）在许多美国城市为司机提供的保险就是一个很好的例子 Drivers can choose to be covered against illness, disability and death for as little as $0.04 for each mile they drive. 司机可自行决定是否购买病残和死亡险，费率低至每英里0.04美元Where it is offered, Uber has raised the rate it pays drivers by the same amount, making the resemblance to an employment benefit even stronger. 在提供这种保险的城市，优步相应提高了支付给司机的费率，这使得这种保险更像雇员福利了For regulatory reasons, drivers must opt in. 出于监管的原因，司机须自行选择是否参保But a similar agreement between Uber and AXA, a French insurer, for Uber’s food-delivery arm, UberEATS, in nine European countries gives all couriers accident, sickness and third-party liability coverage, with no need to opt in and no charge. 而在优步和法国保险公司安盛（AXA）就优步的送餐业务UberEATS达成的类似协议中，为在欧洲九个国家的所有快递员都提供意外、疾病和第三方责任险，快递员自动获得这种保险，也无需花钱购买Uber’s policy for its drivers in Ontario through Intact, a local insurer, and a similar offering from Lyft, Uber’s rival, through Aviva, in Toronto, combine personal and third-party coverage. 优步在安大略省通过本地保险公司Intact为司机提供的保险结合了个人保险和第三方责任险，优步的竞争对手Lyft通过英华杰保险集团（Aviva）在多伦多也提供了这样的保险Both take a three-stage approach. The first kicks in when a driver launches the Uber (or Lyft) app. 两家公司都采取了三层级保险的方法。当司机启动优步或Lyft的应用时，就会启动一级保险The second, with higher coverage, starts once a ride is accepted.第二级的保险金额更高，一旦接受乘客约车便生效 The third runs from when passengers are picked up until they are dropped off. These schemes resemble commercial-fleet policies in structure, points out Mamta Kohli of Aviva, but differ in their sporadic nature. 第三级保险从接到乘客一直覆盖到他们下车。英华杰的曼塔·克里（Mamta Kohli）指出，这些产品在结构上类似商业车队的保险，区别在于它们是不定期生效的Some gig-economy insurance schemes are more inventive still.有些针对零工经济的保险产品更有创意 A scheme from AXA for users of BlaBlaCar, a French long-distance car-pooling service, covers repairs and provides alternative transport if a car breaks down. 安盛保险为法国长途拼车服务BlaBlaCar的用户提供的保险覆盖修车，并在车抛锚时提供替代交通工具Clutch, a car-subscription startup in America, has a commercial-insurance policy that covers users not only in any of its cars but also when they borrow a friend’s car. 美国租车创业公司Clutch提供的一种商业保险不仅覆盖用户对该公司任何车辆的使用，也覆盖他们借用朋友的车。This breaks the usual pattern of commercial policies being tied to specific vehicles, and of personal policies alone being tied to individuals.这打破了商业保险与特定车辆挂钩、个险与个人挂钩的一般模式 Such innovation is not always easy for established insurers. 对于老牌保险公司来说，这种创新并不总是那么容易实现Their software systems can be so ancient that policies have to be printed out with standard wording and modified with a typewriter, says Jillian Slyfield of Aon. 这些公司的软件系统非常老旧，甚至还得用标准文本打印保单，并用打字机修改，怡安的吉莉安·斯莱费尔德（Jillian Slyfield）说Regulators can be slow to accept novel arrangements. 监管机构对新颖产品的接纳速度可能很慢And for a firm that pays by the hour and relies on workers having their own equipment, providing insurance can be an outsize expense. 对于按小时支付薪水且由劳动者自备工具的企业来说，提供保险可能是一笔过大的开支Ms Slyfield complains that some advertise coverage they do not in fact have. 斯莱费尔德抱怨说，一些公司宣称提供它们实际上并不能提供的保障In the longer term insurers face a more fundamental challenge:disintermediation.从长远来看，保险公司面临着一个更为根本的挑战——去中介化 Airbnb, a platform for booking stays in private homes, has offered a “host guarantee” against theft and vandalism since 2011.  民宿出租平台爱彼迎自2011年以来针对盗窃和破坏行为提供了“房东保障” Although it works like insurance, no specialist firm is involved.Airbnb makes payouts itself. 尽管其操作与保险一样，却并未牵扯到专业保险公司，而是由爱彼迎自己理赔Curtis Scott of Uber boasts that the firm is “perhaps the most educated purchaser of insurance ever”. 优步的柯蒂斯·斯科特（Curtis Scott）夸口称，优步“也许是有史以来对保险了解最深的投保人”It does a lot of the calculations for pricing and underwriting its insurance risk, and has a potential sales platform in the form of its app. 它对定价和承保风险做了大量计算，它的应用就是一个潜在的销售平台For Uber and its peers, the next step could be to expand their gig offerings into insurance.对于优步及其同行来说，下一步可能是将它们给零工提供的保障扩展到保险业Human resources 人力资源Hire educationAI is changing the way firms screen, hire and manage their talent  HUMAN RESOURCES (HR) is a poorly named department. 招聘教育 人工智能正在改变企业筛选、聘用和管理人才的方式  “人力资源”（HR）部这名字起得可不怎么样It usually has few resources other than overworked staff, clunky technology and piles of employee handbooks.它除了超负荷工作的员工、笨拙的技术和一堆堆员工手册之外一般就没什么资源了 Hassled recruiters have to sort through reams of applications that vastly outnumber the jobs available. 心烦意乱的招聘人员必须要翻阅数量远超过空缺职位的大批简历For example, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), a consumer-goods company, receives 1.2m applications for 25,000 positions every year.例如，消费品公司强生每年招聘的2.5万个职位要收到120万份申请 AI-enabled systems can scan applications far more quickly than humans and work out whether candidates are a good fit. 配备AI的系统会以比人快得多的速度审查申请，并确定候选人是否合适Oddly enough, they may also inject more humanity into hiring. 说来奇怪，它们还可能让招聘更为人性化According to Athena Karp of HiredScore, a startup that uses algorithms to screen candidates for J&J and others, only around 15-20% of applicants typically hold the right qualifications for a job, but they are rarely told why they were not hired, nor are they pointed to more suitable jobs. 创业公司HiredScore利用算法为强生等公司筛选候选人，该公司的雅典娜·卡普（Athena Karp）说，通常只有约15%到20%的申请者拥有适合职位的资质，但很少有人告诉他们为什么不被录用，也没有人为他们指出更合适的工作Technology is helping “give respect back to candidates”, she says. Nvidia, a chipmaker, also gets more résumés than it can comfortably cope with, so it spent a year building its own system to predict which candidates are worth interviewing.她说，技术的帮助“让候选人重拾尊严”。 芯片制造商英伟达收到的简历数量也超出了自己能从容处理的水平，因此它花费一年的时间来建立自己的系统，预测哪些候选人值得面试 It has recognised patterns that recruiters might not: for example, candidates who submit especially long résumés turn out to do less well than others, so those extra words will count against them.它已经识别出了招聘人员可能未能发现的模式：例如，提交超长简历的候选人的表现会比其他人差，因此这些额外的文字将会给他们减分 Hilton, a hotel chain, has shortened the average time it takes to hire a candidate from 42 days to five with the help of HireVue, a startup. 。在创业公司HireVue的帮助下，连锁酒店希尔顿雇用一位候选人的平均时间从42天缩短到5天It analyses videos of candidates answering questions and uses AI to judge their verbal skills, intonation and gestures. 它分析考生回答问题的视频，使用AI来评判他们的口头表达能力、语调和手势This can be especially helpful when the candidate comes from a different culture or speaks another first language, says Ellyn Shook, chief leadership and HR officer of Accenture, a consultancy with 435,000 employees that also uses HireVue. 当候选人来自不同的文化或用非母语作答时，这个系统特别有用，埃森哲的首席领导和人力资源官艾琳·舒克（Ellyn Shook）说.这家拥有43,500名员工的咨询公司也在使用HireVue，Employers tend to hire candidates who are like themselves, which makes for undiversified workplaces， 雇主们倾向于雇用和自己相像的候选人，这使得工作场所变得愈发同质化Orchestras, for example, used to be mostly male. Recruitment of female musicians went up only when they introduced “blind” auditions behind a screen.例如，管弦乐团过去主要由男性组成，唯有当它们启用了从屏障后“盲选”之后，聘用的女音乐家比例才开始上升3 Algorithms can act as virtual screens, making hiring fairer. 算法可以充当虚拟屏障，使招聘更公平Pymetrics, a startup whose clients include companies such as Unilever, a consumer-goods giant, and Nielsen, a research firm, offers a set of games for candidates to play, usually at an early stage of the recruitment process, . 创业公司Pymetrics拥有消费品巨头联合利华和研究公司尼尔森等客户，它通常会在招聘早期阶段让候选人玩一套游戏that ignore factors such as gender, race and level of education Instead they test candidates for some 80 traits such as memory and attitude to risk. 这套游戏无视性别、种族和受教育水平等因素，而测试候选人的约80种特点，如记忆力和对风险的态度Pymetrics then uses machine learning to measure applicants against top performers and predict their suitability for a role. Pymetrics随后利用机器学习将申请者与业绩最优者做比较，并预测他们对于某个职位的适合度This can help candidates without conventional qualifications. Another firm that is helping companies become more diverse is Textio, a startup that uses AI to improve job descriptions. 这可以帮助传统上没有资格的候选人。 另一家帮助企业变得更加多元化的公司是Textio，这家创业公司使用AI来改善职位描述For example, it has found that corporate jargon like “stakeholders” and “synergies” tend to drive away certain candidates, especially non-whites, and that women are less likely to apply for a job that is described as “managing” than “developing” a team. 例如，它发现像“利益相关方”（stakeholder）和“协同效应”（synergy）这样的企业行话往往会吓退某些候选人，尤其是非白人，并且女性不大爱申请被描述为“管理”而非“发展”一个团队的职位Tweaking job descriptions can get 25% more qualified people through the door and boost recruitment among minorities, says Kieran Snyder, Textio’s boss. Textio的老板基兰·斯奈德（Kieran Snyder）说，调整工作描述可以将前来应聘的合格人员数目提升25%，并提高少数群体的受雇水平Another time Recruiters often come across candidates who have good qualifications but are not the right fit for the particular position they are trying to fill. 下次再说 招聘人员经常会遇到资质良好，但不适合所申请职位的候选人In the past, there was no way of redirecting them to other jobs as they became available. 过去，如果公司日后出现新的岗位空缺，并没有办法把这些人引导到新岗位上AI will make it possible to “repurpose candidates we have attracted before”, says Sjoerd Gehring, vice-president of talent acquisition for J&J. AI将有可能“重新利用我们之前曾吸引到的候选人The health-care giant uses HiredScore, a startup, to grade candidates. When a vacancy opens up, the system automatically generates a shortlist of candidates that could be a good fit. 强生的人才招聘副总裁斯杰德·戈灵（Sjoerd Gehring）说 。这家医疗保健巨头使用创业公司HiredScore给候选人打分，新岗位空缺出现后，系统会自动生成一份可能适合的候选人名单This will bring big cost savings, says Mr Gehring. AI can also help with managing employees. HR professionals and recruiters at big firms cannot possibly know all their own talented workers across countries and departments, says Chris Louie of Nielsen. 戈灵说这将节约大量成本。 AI还能帮助管理员工。尼尔森的克里斯·路易（Chris Louie）说，大公司的人力资源专业人员和招聘人员不可能了解遍布各个国家和部门的所有人才His company is using AI to improve internal mobility. Twine Labs, a startup that is working with Nielsen, suggests internal candidates for new roles, based on employee data and job requirements, taking in hundreds of variables. 他的公司正在使用AI来改善内部流动性。与尼尔森合作的创业公司Twine Labs考虑数百个变量，根据员工数据和工作要求来为新职位推荐内部人选Around half the candidates it suggests are approved and promoted, says Joseph Quan, Twine Labs’ boss. That is about the same success rate as for a human recruiter. Another use for AI is to help employers reduce staff turnover. Twine Labs的老板约瑟夫·权（Joseph Quan）说，其推荐的候选人中大约有一半获准晋升。这与人类招聘专员的成功率大致相当。 AI的另一个用途是帮助雇主减少员工流失On average, replacing a worker takes around 20% of annual salary, sometimes much more. Workday, a software firm, has started to predict how likely employees are to leave. 平均而言，更换一名员工的费用约为年薪的20%，有时还高得多。软件公司Workday已经开始预测员工离职的可能性It looks at around 60 factors—such as pay, time between holidays taken and turnover in managers to whom the employee reports—and flags those at risk of quitting so companies can try to retain them.它会考虑大约60个因素，诸如工资、休假间隔，以及员工上司的换人频率，把有离职风险的人标记出来，以便公司尝试挽留他们 Arena, a startup that works with hospitals and care-home companies, where turnover is high, considers retention even before it takes someone on. 创业公司Arena与医院和护理公司合作，这些地方的人员流失率很高。该公司甚至在雇人之前就会考虑留任的问题By using data from job applications and third parties to predict which applicants are likely to stay for more than a year, Arena has reduced its clients’ median turnover by 38%, says Michael Rosenbaum, Arena’s boss. Arena的老板迈克·罗森鲍姆（Michael Rosenbaum）说，通过使用来自工作申请和第三方的数据来预测哪些申请人可能会工作一年以上，Arena已将客户的员工流失率中位数降低了38%，In future AI may also be used to determine pay. Infosys is looking into using AI to decide when to give employees a rise, based on their performance and their pay relative to that of colleagues. 未来，AI也可能被用来确定工资。印孚瑟斯正在研究利用AI来决定何时给员工加薪，AI会基于员工的业绩表现和相对于同事的薪酬水平做出决策The technology will make pay fairer by taking biases and personality traits out of consideration, says Sudhir Jha, head of product management and strategy at Infosys.该公司的产品管理和战略主管苏迪·贾（Sudhir Jha）表示，这项技术会把偏见和个性特征排除在外 But there is a risk that workers will try to game the system. All this points to a broader issue in AI: transparency. 从而使薪酬更加公平。但是也会有员工钻系统空子的风险。 所有这些都指向了AI中一个更普遍的问题：透明度Companies will need to ensure that algorithms are being constantly monitored. In America, where it is illegal to discriminate against protected grou

ps such as racial minorities, firms must be able to prove that they are hiring from these groups roughly in proportion to the population and are not introducing any bias, says Mr Rosenbaum. 公司需要确保算法一直受到监测。罗森鲍姆说，在美国，歧视少数族裔等受保护群体是非法的，公司必须能够证明他们从这些群体中招聘的人员数量大致与人口成比例，且没有引入任何偏见Startup bosses say they offer their clients transparency and regularly check their algorithms to make sure they are free of bias. But as AI becomes more prevalent, concerns will grow that algorithms could reinforce discrimination.创业公司的老板们说，他们为客户提供透明度，并定期检查算法以确保其中没有偏见。但随着AI越来越普遍，人们会更加担心算法可能加剧歧视 Recruitment is just one example of the technological disruption that AI will bring to the workforce. The number of recruiters will come down, because AI will handle many of the mundane tasks they used to do, and face-to-face interviews will become rarer. 招聘只是AI为职场带来技术颠覆的一个例子。招聘人员会越来越少，因为AI将会接管他们先前所做的许多琐事，而面对面的面试也会越来越少At Unilever only shortlisted candidates are now interviewed, after several rounds of AI-enabled screening and recorded interviews through HireVue. 在联合利华，在经过几轮AI辅助筛选和HireVue的录像面试之后，只有入围的候选人才会进入现场面试For the remaining recruiters, though, AI will make work easier and more interesting.不过对于留在岗位上的招聘人员来说，AI会让他们的工作变得更轻松有趣。 AI甚至会帮到一些被它取代的工人 It may even help some of the workers it displaces. Accenture is rolling out a custom-built tool called Job Buddy which tells employees how vulnerable their job is to automation and predicts what training they might need so they can develop the right skills for the future.埃森哲正在推出一款名为“工作伙伴”（Job Buddy）的定制工具，它会告诉员工他们的工作受到自动化的威胁有多大，并预测他们可能需要哪些培训，以获得适应未来的技能 Ms Shook of Accenture says that around 80% of the people who have tried it are taking the advice it offers. But they may not have much choice.埃森哲的舒克表示，大约有80%的人尝试过它提供的建议。但他们可能没有太多选择。