Japanese firm gives non-smokers extra six days' paid holiday
A company in Japan is giving its non-smoker workers an extra six days of holiday a year - to make up for the time off smokers take for cigarette breaks.
The Tokyo-based company, called Piala Inc, introduced the new rule in September after non-smokers complained they were working more than their smoking colleagues.
See also: Man jailed for nine years after smoking on flight and causing fires
See also: Drunk passenger punched when he wanted to smoke midair
The company determined that the smokers' cigarette breaks lasted an average of 15 minutes each time, and worked out that six days' extra holiday a year for non-smokers was fair.
The problem seemed to be that the company's head office is on the 29th floor of an office block in the Ebisu district of Tokyo, and anyone wanting a cigarette had to go to the basement level, with each smoking break lasting around the aforementioned 15 minute mark.
Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesman for the company, 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."
The company's CEO, Takao Asuka, took the complaint very seriously and came up with the extra holidays as a solution.
According to the Independent, he also hopes the extra holiday will be an incentive to smokers to kick the habit.
Mr Matsushima said that four people had so far quite smoking, and that he himself had benefited from the scheme, treating his family to a break at a hot spring resort with the extra time off.
