老问题还无解：美国人不爱休带薪假

这是个老问题了，美国人就是不喜欢享受应得的带薪假期。美国旅游协会本周二发布的“休假项目”研究显示，2016年问题仍然存在，54%参与调查的员工没休完带薪假，合计牺牲了6.62亿个假日。

虽然半数以上受访员工拖到年底仍放弃了带薪假，但研究调查结果中也有一些亮点，说不定美国人可能改变有假不休的坏习惯。

2016年，未能请带薪假的员工占比实际上比2015年下降了一个百分点，降至54%。员工实际平均带薪假天数为16.8日，较2015年16.2日有所增加，2013和2014年平均假期天数均为史上最低的16日。

“总体而言，美国人利用的带薪假在增加，”“休假项目”高级主管、报告的执笔者凯蒂•丹尼斯说，“略见增长。”她还说，这可能是个转折点，预示着今后合理休假会变为常态。

It's become a perennial story: Americans are terrible at taking all of their allotted vacation days. That was true again in 2016, with 54% of employees ending the year with unused time off, collectively sacrificing 662 million vacation days, according to a study the U.S. Travel Association’s Project Time Off released Tuesday.

While more than half of employees forfeited paid time off at year's end, some bright spots in the survey results hint that Americans may be in the process of reversing their bad vacation habits.

The share of employees who failed to use all their vacation time was actually down one percentage point from 55% in 2015. And the average number of vacation days logged by employees—16.8—was up from 16.2 in 2015 and an all-time low of 16 in 2014 and 2013.

" Overall Americans are using more vacation days," says Katie Denis, senior director of Project Time Off who authored the report. "There's been a slight uptick," she said, adding that it could be "the beginning" of a more significant turnaround.

上升趋势部分由男性员工带动。2016年48%的受访男员工用完了所有带薪假，占比较2015年高3个百分点。尽管表示带薪假期“极为”重要的女性占比为58%，高于男性的49%，却只有44%的女性用完了带薪假期。

整体来看，2016年员工请假最大的挑战是担心返工时工作积压太多，另一个主要原因是认为其他人无法胜任自己的工作。

这些担忧可能没什么根据，也可能有些夸张，但管理者很少明确指出。虽然绝大多数经理都认为，假期有助于员工的身心健康（82%），提振士气（82%），减轻职业倦怠（81%）。三分之二的受访员工表示，“公司文化对休假的态度比较矛盾，并不很鼓励，或者传递的信号不明确”。2014年以来，有这种看法的员工占比几乎没变化。

上述研究认为，沟通不善“导致了认识‘真空’，引发了许多负面看法。”

“休假项目”估算，2016年浪费的带薪假给美国经济损失了2360亿美元，因为假期原本可拉动消费，而且员工的个人收入也有负面影响。项目研究认为，和大方享受带薪假的员工相比，放弃休假的员工绩效较低，去年一年获得擢升的可能性更低（前者可能性为27%，后者为23%），过去三年加薪或者获得奖金的可能性也更低（享受所有休假者为84%，放弃休假者78%）。这么一看，放弃带薪假的员工自称压力更大也正常。（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审稿：夏林

The positive trend was driven, in part, by men. Forty-eight percent of them used all their vacation time last year, up three percentage points from 2015. Just 44% of women, meanwhile, took all their allotted days off despite being more likely than men—58% to 49%—to say vacation time is "extremely" important to them.

Overall, employees' concerns about returning to a mountain of work was the top challenge to taking time off in 2016, followed by the feeling that no one else can do the job.

Those concerns may be unfounded or exaggerated, but workplace leaders fail to say so even though a clear majority of managers agree that vacation improves health and well-being (82%), boosts morale (82%), and alleviates burnout (81%). Two-thirds of employees surveyed said their "company culture is ambivalent, discouraging, or sends mixed messages about time off," a share that's virtually unchanged since 2014.

That communication divide "has created a vacuum where negative perceptions thrive," the study says.

Project Time Off estimates that unused vacation days cost the U.S. economy $236 billion in 2016 because of lost spending, but there are also penalties to pay at the individual level. Employees who forfeit vacation time are lower performers, the study says. Compared to counterparts who take all their vacation time, they are less likely to have been promoted within the last year (23% to 27%), and to have received a raise or bonus in the last three years (78% to 84%). And, unsurprisingly, they are more likely to report being stressed.