This Japanese company is offering nonsmokers extra vacation days
Japanese marketing firm Piala is rewarding nonsmokers in the best way it knows how: with vacation days.
In September, Piala's CEO announced that employees who did not smoke would receive six extra vacation days per year, The New York Times reports. The move was aimed to encourage smokers to quit, but it's also about equality.
Smoking is a big part of Japan's business culture, with office buildings often offering indoor smoking rooms. But Piala's smoking room is in the basement, which caused smoking employees to leave the 29th-floor office for breaks multiple times a day. Because smokers and nonsmokers would still leave work for the day at the same time, nonsmokers started complaining.
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Since the initiative started in September, the company says four of its employees have decided to quit smoking. Piala's CEO said he hopes incentives, not penalties, will help more employees nip their habit in the butt — er, bud.
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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
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