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Should non-smokers get
extra vacation days to compensate for the time smokers take off during the day
for smoke breaks?
Many workers
say they should. A whopping 42% of non-smokers feel they should get 3-5 extra
vacation days than non-smokers and 28% of smokers agree with that amount,
according to a new survey.
To understand
how workers feel about the time their co-workers spent smoking, e-cigarette
maker Halo surveyed 1,005 American adults.
According to
the survey, 25% of non-smokers said 1-2 days is a fair amount. However,
14% said 6 or more days was fair.
More than 38%
of smokers, on the other hand, didn’t think that non-smokers deserve any extra
vacation days. Twenty-percent of non-smokers agreed they did not deserve extra
vacation time.
The survey
found that more than 81% of smokers said smoke breaks were fair. Only about 25%
of non-smokers agreed.
How severe of
a work productivity issue is caused by smoking breaks?
The average
smoker wastes around 6 days a year on work smoke breaks, according to Joe
Mercurio, Halo’s project manager for the study.
One company
giving extra vacation days a try is Japan's Piala Inc. Last September the
Tokyo-based marketing firm added six extra vacation days for its non-smoking
employees after a non-smoker complained about the problems smoking breaks were
causing.
To date, no fewer than
30 of Piala Inc.’s 120 employees have taken additional days off under the new
system since it was introduced.
The USA Center for
Disease Control and Prevention reports that smoking related illnesses cost
more than $156 billion in lost
productivity each year in the U.S. That includes $5.6 billion due to secondhand
smoke exposure.
Looking at
CDC 2016 data, about 15% of U.S. adults 18 or older, smoke cigarettes - an
estimated 37.8 million people.
In 1965, 45 %
of Americans were smokers. In 1997, 25% of Americans smoked.
So, what
would it take to get smokers to give up the habit at work? According to the
survey, smokers said on average that they’d give up the habit at work for 11
extra vacation days each year.
If you are interested in the survey, click HERE
Article source: The Telegraph and USA Today
