Japanese Company Gives Non-Smokers 6 Extra Leave Days For Forgoing Smoke Breaks
A marketing firm in Japan is giving its employees a new reason to quit smoking after reportedly offering nonsmokers six extra days of vacation per year.
The perk from Tokyo-based company Piala Inc. is meant to compensate nonsmokers for not taking smoking breaks, which is said to consume at least 15 minutes of each workday. Non-smokers have complained to the company that they were working harder than people who ran out for a nicotine fix several times a day. The company, after investigating, agreed—and CEO Takao Asuka set the new policy.
“One of our nonsmoking staff put a message in the company suggestion box earlier in the year saying that smoking breaks were causing problems,” Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesman for the company, told the paper. “Our CEO saw the comment and agreed, so we are giving nonsmokers some extra time off to compensate.”
The offer was made to the employees back in September and since then at least 30 of the company’s 120 employees have taken advantage of the perk and taken extra time off, said Matsushima.
“I hope to encourage employees to quit smoking through incentives rather than penalties or coercion,” he said.
[via Bored Panda, opening image via YouTube]
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