This Japanese Company Gives Non-Smoking Employees Extra 6 Days Off Every Year
Japanese company Piala Inc reportedly gives its non-smoker employees extra 6 days off every year, in a bid to motivate smoking staff to quit the habit.
Cigarette breaks are a common thing in most offices around the world.
Employees who are smokers tend to take those quick smoke breaks in between their office time, with those few minutes of every smoke break adding up to give them extra time outside of the office than non-smoking employees.
That¡¯s why one company in Japan decided to do something about it.
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As per a report by The Telegraph, marketing firm Piala Inc made a change to its paid time off policy after a non-smoking employee submitted a complaint about how smoke breaks were affecting productivity.
The Decision
Upon receiving the complaint and thinking about it, the Japanese 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., had told TheTelegraph a few years back ¡°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.¡±
He added that the frequent cigarette breaks meant many employees were away from their desks upwards of 15 minutes each day.
So, after hearing about the complaint, the company¡¯s CEO, Takao Asuka, reportedly decided to give nonsmoking employees time off to compensate.
Aim To Encourage Employees To Quit Smoking
The CEO had told Tokyo based news agency Kyodo News ¡°I hope to encourage employees to quit smoking through incentives rather than penalties or coercion¡±
According to the WHO, Japanese men are three times more likely to smoke than Japanese women, said a report in CNBC. It also stated that the leave policy announcement by Piala Inc. seemed to be working well towards its motive, with some of its employees already giving up the habit of smoking.
One of those new non-smokers, Shun Shinbaba had told CNNMoney that he used to smoke a pack of cigarettes every two days and that he plans to use his newfound vacation time to play tennis!
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