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  3. Europeans suggest that the reason why so many work-life initiatives come first from America is that American firms have more sco

Europeans suggest that the reason why so many work-life initiatives come first from America is that American firms have more sco

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问题     Europeans suggest that the reason why so many work-life initiatives come first from America is that American firms have more scope for improvement. Paid holidays there, for instance, are considerably shorter than in Europe. Flexible working and the occasional sabbatical may be the local alternative to Europe’s longer annual leave, a one-off levelling of the non-pay elements of remuneration in the face of international competition.
    The introduction of flexible working, of itself, gives no guarantee that employees’ work life balance will improve. The same technology that enables them to work flexibly from home or on the road also prevents them from ever leaving their office. There are lots of people who choose to sleep close to their mobile phones and their BlackBerries.
    Is the fashion for work-life balance here to stay? Plenty of companies eschew such corporate programmes. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia recently told employees to leave if they were not prepared to work weekends and long evenings over the coming months for no extra reward. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Centre for Work-Life Policy in New York, says that many workers still have what she calls "extreme jobs". Global responsibilities and "always on" communications leave little room for balance.
    Charles Handy, the author of several books on the changing nature of work, says that young workers today are increasingly "chunking" their lives, dividing them into discrete bits. These include work, parenting, travelling and doing something completely different. He believes this marks a change in attitude that is slowly filtering down from elite knowledge workers to manufacturing employees.
    Heavy lay-offs in the early 1990s, mostly the result of enthusiasm for the ephemeral fad of re-engineering, changed attitudes to work. For many, downsizing sounded the death-knell for having a job for life.
    Some go further, arguing that in the not-too-long term, the desire of global firms to entice the West’s educated elite may disappear in a flash of enthusiasm for the graduates of India’s and China’s tertiary-education systems. Even today, less than one in five of the world’s university graduates are white men.
    However, Liz Ramos, the partner at Bain & Company in charge of human capital, says that though employers are looking to India, it will be a while before India’s business schools produce graduates comparable to those from Europe and America. Despite all the political heat it arouses, moving offshore satisfies only a small part of the demand for skilled labour in developed economies.
    For some time to come, talented people in the West will demand more from employers, and clever employers will create new gewgaws to entice them to join. Those employers should note that for a growing number of these workers the most appealing gewgaw of all is the freedom to work as and when they please.  
The author cites what Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia said to illustrate that ______.
选项 A、the fashion for work-life balance has been fostered
B、most workers are still forced to work extremely hard
C、many companies reject the programmes for work-life balance
D、global firms take heavy responsibilities for the world economy
答案C
解析 第三段的主题句是其第二句“Plenty of companies eschew such corporate programmes”。该段第三句“Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia recently told employees to leave．．．for no extra reward”是用来说明主题句的。所以，C应为答案。
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