What would it take to get you to stop smoking cigarettes? At Piala, a Tokyo-based marketing company, employees get six additional paid vacation days a year if they don’t smoke. The company says that this policy is not intended to punish smokers, but instead to even the playing field for those who don't take smoking breaks. After non-smoking employees complained that employees who smoke spend less time at their desks working, as much as 40 minutes a day, CEO Takao Asuka decided to institute a tiered time-off policy. And in just one month, four of Piala’s employees had decided to kick the smoking habit.
A thank you for not smoking:
- “We don't give punishment for smoking," said a Piala spokesman. "Instead, we offer a benefit for not smoking."
- Piala officials estimated that smokers spend about 15 minutes away from their desks for each cigarette break. That involves taking an elevator 29 floors to the basement to a smoking area.
- The World Health Organization and the U.S. National Cancer Institute estimate that smoking costs the global economy more than $1 trillion USD a year.
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More Info: Fortune
Discussion Comments
A great idea, but did all the nonsmoking employees demand that they also had the extra six days off because by implication, they would be the better employees?
I always said I deserved a cigarette break too and it's great to see a company that sees the logic of it. Non-smokers are more productive, if for no other reason, than they don't need to go fiddling around with lighter, cigarette and very often, going somewhere where they can smoke.
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