Those quick smoke breaks some employees take for a few minutes at a time throughout the day add up, giving them extra time outside of the office than nonsmoking employees.
One company in Japan, where smoking is deeply ingrained into culture, decided to do something about it. After a non-smoking employee submitted a complaint about how smoke breaks were affecting productivity, marketing firm Piala Inc. made a change to its paid time off policy.
The company granted non-smoking staff an additional six days off each year to make up for the time smokers take for cigarette breaks.
Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesman for Piala Inc., told The Telegraph, "One of our non-smoking staff put a message in the company suggestion box earlier in the year saying that smoking breaks were causing problems."
After hearing about the complaint, the company's CEO, Takao Asuka, decided to give nonsmoking employees time off to compensate.
The frequent cigarette breaks meant many employees were away from their desks upwards of 15 minutes each day, Matsushima added.
TwentySickSheep on July 31st, 2018 at 13:02 UTC »
This is huge! Smoking forms a massive part of the daily routine for many of the people I met in Japan. Once, I was told off by my boss for wanting to drink a beer at a sushi place in Osaka. "It ruins the flavour!" he cried, then proceeded to smoke about 20 cigarettes during the course of the meal.
ajlueb on July 31st, 2018 at 12:55 UTC »
I've posted this story before, but it's relevant again.
I was in the Navy, and I used to take smoke breaks throughout the day. One time, I found my buddy, a non-smoker, hidden away on the chaff deck, kicked back in a lawn chair, basking in the sun. He said he took an hour a day to chill outside since all of the smokers did. I wasn’t mad.
fallinouttadabox on July 31st, 2018 at 12:36 UTC »
I offered everyone at my company an extra 10 bucks a day to quit smoking. No one took me up on it