This move has already shown positive results as two employed smokers, out of 42 smokers, have quit the bad habit.

The extra vacation days mean more to them than smoking. This company has added to non-smokers six extra days of vacation!

Piala Inc. in Japan, where smoking is significantly more frequent than in, say, the US, has decided to change its paid vacation policy by making non-smokers employees happy and giving them an additional six days off per year.

They made the decision after a non-smoking employee complained that smokers were less likely to work, that is, taking a cigarette break more often. These six days, according to the company, should be compensated for non-smokers.

One of our employees left a message on the proposal board saying that smoking breaks were causing problems. Our CEO saw this and agreed to give non-smokers extra days off as a kind of compensation – said Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesman for the company.

CEO Takao Asuka believes the move will encourage smokers to stop smoking. He believes that incentive is always a better choice than punishing an employee.

“I hope this decision will make employees stop smoking as an incentive, not a punishment or coercion,” he said.

The move has already shown positive results as two employed smokers, out of 42 smokers, have quit this bad habit.

The extra vacation days mean more to them. One of them is Shun Shinbaba (25).

He said he was very pleased with his decision and that the money he used to spend on a pack of cigarettes every two days would now rather be spent on something else. He says he plans to use the extra vacation days to play tennis.

In Japan, about 130,000 people die of smoking-related diseases each year and about 15,000 of them smoke another person’s cigarette smoke.

According to a study by Halo Cigs, a company that sells electronic cigarettes, smokers spend an average of 20 minutes each day with a cigarette during business hours. In a year, it’s like smoking for 20 working days, a study found.

But 81.2 percent of smokers said they did not see anything wrong with such breaks and thought it was fair. And 25.2 percent of non-smokers agree.