Lifestyle

Company Gives Nonsmokers Days Off to Compensate for Smoke Breaks

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“One of our nonsmoking staff put a message in the company suggestion box earlier in the year saying that smoking breaks were causing problems. Our CEO saw the comment and agreed, so we are giving nonsmokers some extra time off to compensate,” the Huffington Post quotes Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesperson for Japanese marketing firm Piala Inc. The company has made headlines for their decision to give non-smoking employees an additional six days off to compensate for the amount of time they potentially would spend on a smoke break as a smoker.

WFLA writes that employees noticed that smokers would take about 15 minutes to take a break due in part to their offices being on the 29th floor of their Tokyo building and the smoking area residing in the basement. “According to the World Health Organisation, 21.7 percent of Japanese adults smoke, and that figure is much higher among males and older generations,” WFLA explains. Piala Inc hopes that by offering the additional days off, employees will attempt to give up smoking in order to get the time off to do something more worthwhile.

At this point, 30 employees have already happily taken their time off, and Piala Inc. only has 120 employees.