難関大向け｜英語長文問題126（労働）661語＋和訳・解答解説

The spread of remote work is often described as a story of liberation from the office. Digital tools allow employees to work from home, shared workspaces, or even another city, apparently weakening the old connection between employment and a fixed location. This flexibility can be valuable, especially for people whose family responsibilities, disabilities, or long commutes make conventional schedules difficult. Yet the most important change may not be where people work. Rather, the diversification of work is forcing organizations to reconsider a more basic question: what exactly counts as working?

In a traditional office, effort is partly visible. A manager can see who arrives early, who stays late, and who appears busy at a desk. Such observations have never been perfect measures of productivity, but they provide convenient signals. Remote work removes many of them. As a result, some organizations respond by introducing digital monitoring or requiring frequent online meetings. These measures may restore a sense of control, but they can also reproduce the weaknesses of office-based supervision in a new form. An employee who answers messages immediately may look committed while accomplishing little that matters, whereas someone who spends several uninterrupted hours solving a difficult problem may appear inactive.

This suggests that flexible work requires more than a change of location; it may require a change in how performance is evaluated. If employees are judged mainly by results rather than visible activity, they may gain greater freedom to organize their time. However, this apparently simple solution raises another problem. Results are easy to measure in some jobs, such as processing a certain number of routine requests, but much harder in work involving creativity, cooperation, or long-term planning. A teacher preparing a new course, for example, may produce nothing immediately measurable, although hours of reading and discussion can later improve the quality of instruction. Excessive reliance on measurable outcomes may therefore encourage workers to prioritize what can be counted over what is genuinely valuable.

The difficulty becomes greater when work is collaborative. Remote arrangements are sometimes criticized because informal conversations occur less often outside a shared workplace. This concern is not merely about social contact. A brief exchange before a meeting, an overheard question, or an unexpected conversation with a colleague from another department can transmit information that nobody thought important enough to schedule formally. At the same time, offices do not automatically create meaningful collaboration; they can generate interruptions, unnecessary meetings, and pressure to appear available. The relevant question, then, is not whether physical presence is good or bad, but which kinds of interaction need to happen deliberately when chance encounters become less common.

There is also a less obvious issue of inequality. Flexibility is frequently presented as an individual benefit: workers choose the place and schedule that suit them. Yet the ability to benefit from such freedom depends on circumstances. A quiet room, reliable technology, and control over one’s schedule are not equally available to everyone. Moreover, when some employees work remotely while others remain on site, opportunities may be distributed unevenly. Those who are physically present may receive information earlier or be remembered more easily when desirable assignments are offered. Conversely, workers who must be on site may reasonably wonder why flexibility is treated as a universal workplace benefit when their own jobs provide little of it.

For these reasons, the diversification of work should not be understood simply as a competition between the office and the home. Its deeper significance lies in exposing assumptions that were easier to ignore when most employees followed similar routines. Organizations must decide what they value, how they recognize contribution, and which forms of interaction or flexibility different tasks actually require. No single arrangement will answer these questions for every worker or occupation. A successful workplace may therefore be defined less by maximum freedom than by whether its rules make sense in relation to the work being done—and whether those rules remain fair when employees cannot all work in the same way.

Q1. What concern does the second paragraph raise about judging remote employees?

1. Digital oversight mainly improves productivity by replacing informal office supervision.
2. Remote employees appear less committed because managers cannot observe them directly.
3. Frequent online meetings reliably reveal which employees contribute the most.
4. Visible activity can create misleading impressions about an employee’s contribution.

Q2. What broader concern about workplace flexibility is emphasized in the fifth paragraph?

1. Unequal access to flexibility may create different workplace advantages among employees.
2. Remote workers generally receive better assignments because they control their schedules.
3. On-site employees benefit equally from policies designed to increase workplace flexibility.
4. Differences in technology matter less than differences in personal motivation.

Q3. Which statement is NOT supported by the passage?

1. Flexible arrangements can help people constrained by commuting or personal circumstances.
2. Measurable outcomes provide a broadly reliable basis for evaluating complex work.
3. Useful contributions may be undervalued when performance is judged mainly numerically.
4. Effective workplace rules should reflect tasks rather than impose uniform arrangements.