Tobacco addiction is one of the most common bad habits of our era, yet it has many health hazards and its effects can be devastating to the body. The media as well as many associations are making an effort to raise awareness to inform the public about this, but it seems that there is a company that has also decided to engage in this fight.
A plague that grows because of ignorance
At present, more than 16 million French are smokers, which represents a third of the population whose age is between 15 and 85 years. Knowing that 36% of these smokers are men and that 28% are women. But the most disturbing is that few people are really aware of what each cigarette holds in their hands.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was able to carry out a telephone survey between 2014 and 2015 in order to have a better knowledge of the image that smokers have of tobacco and all the behaviors that go with it. Despite the fact that information is more accessible than before and that consumer culture has become a reality, many smokers are still unaware of the real danger of smoking.
A very original way of fighting cigarettes
In the workplace, it must surely have happened to you at least once to be disturbed by the fact that smokers are entitled to more nicotine breaks than the rest of their colleagues. Of course, smoking is not an advantage, it is even something quite dangerous.
Despite the fact that many smokers have already tried to quit and despite their knowledge of the dangers of smoking on health, some non-smoker employees continue to see these extra breaks as a completely unfair measure.
It is in this light that the Japanese company Piala Inc. has decided to offer its non-smoking employees extra days off to compensate for the time they spend working while their colleagues take advantage of their cigarette breaks .
It all started with a simple remark
The story began when an employee left a paper in the company's suggestion box. In fact, he emphasized that cigarette breaks reduced productivity and left others in need to redouble their efforts to take over.
Hirotaka Matsushima, spokesman for the company said, "Our CEO saw this remark and agreed to act accordingly. We are now giving non-smokers a little more time to make up for this gap. "
What you need to know is that for this company, the smoking breaks are specifically problematic since the offices are on the 29th floor of the building. This means that every time an employee wants to smoke, he has to wait for the elevator, the same for the return. Which also means that each break must last at least 15 minutes, knowing that most have more than one in a single day's work.
Dissuasive measures rather clever
Instead of sanctioning smokers, company director Taka Asuka chose a different direction: "I am doing this in the hope that employees can quit smoking by incitement rather than through sanctions or constraints. "
Therefore, within the company, non-smokers are now entitled to a 6-day increase in the duration of their statutory paid vacation. And that seems to work because 4 people have already stopped smoking.
Asuka hopes that this trend will continue, since in the end everybody wins, the company, the employees and even the environment! And what do you think of this measure?
