Company gives non-smokers six extra leave days to make up for smoke breaks
Non-smokers at a Japanese company will be granted an extra six days of holiday leave a year to make up for the time smokers take when they head out for a cigarette break.
Marketing firm Piala Inc, based in Japan, introduced the new paid leave allowance in September after receiving complaints from non-smokers that they were working harder than their smoking colleagues.
Spokesman for the company, Hirotaka Matsushima, told The Telegraph they received a message through the company's suggestion box.
"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 said.
It was then that the company's CEO Takao Asuka decided to give non-smoking employees extra time off to compensate.
According to staff, a cigarette break can last anywhere from 15 minutes as the office is located on the 29th floor of a Tokyo building.
'Cowardly act of terror' kills eight in New York as witnesses hear ute driver yelling 'Allahu Akbar'
Chilling footage shows driver roaming street after New York truck terror
Masked men tie up, threaten Sydney family in terrifying Halloween home invasion
Not only is the initiative set to make the break situation fairer for everyone, but the company is hoping it may lead some smokers to quit.
"I hope to encourage employees to quit smoking through incentives rather than penalties or coercion", CEO Takao Asuka told Kyodo News.
He said so far, the scheme has encouraged four people to give up the habit.
And around 30 of the company's 120 employees have taken advantage of their extra days off since the scheme was introduced.
According to the World Health Organisation, 21.7 percent of Japanese adults smoke, although the figure is higher among males and older generations.
In recent months, there have been various anti-smoking regulations set up across Japan.
In July, Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike made plans to impose a smoking ban in public places across the Japanese capital ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Reddit users were quick to predict how the new initiative would work out and share their own stories of office smoking politics.
"This is actually how I started smoking," one person wrote.
"In the Army, I realised I was working as much as three hours more than the smokers per day. First I started just standing in the smoke pit, but my Sgt wouldn't let me do that. So I was just like, 'give me a cigarette then'."
"Or just don't allow smoke breaks, cheaper and more productive solution. My company does it, it's not a problem, you can smoke as much as you like on allocated breaks," another person suggested.
"Holy moly. Can companies in the US please start doing this," one person asked.
"I've got nothing against people smoking but I swear the smokers in my office get up every 15 minutes for a 10 or so minute smoke break while I only get two 15 minute breaks every day."
One person worked out the math in how the company might have decided on six days.
"If you smoke for 15 mins a day, and you work five of every seven days, then it works out to 8.1 (8-hour working) days of time in a year. Given holidays already, six days sounds pretty close. That's a lot of lost time," the person said.
Today's top videos
