A Japanese company, Piala Inc., rocked the media as it introduced additional six days paid-salary holidays for its non-smoking employees. Immediately after the incentive circulation by the incorporation, 31 of 120 workers availed the freebee.
The perk characterized as ‘Smo holiday’ was hosted when one of the non-smoking employees complained to CEO Takao Asuka about the several cigarette breaks that triggers them to work for more hours than smokers every day.
Responding to the resentment in non-smokers which accounts for nearly 65% of 120-staffed company – Asuka announced the privilege to compensate them as well as neutralized the disparity in working hours of smokers and non-smokers.
Instead of slapping penalties and coercion to smoking workers, this unique system of preferential treatment by the Tokyo-based marketing support company obliged a few employees since some of them have already started smoking cessation.
The global tobacco market is estimated at around $770 billion – about 91% of which comes from cigarette consumption worldwide. There are nearly one billion adult smokers around the world consuming 5.6 billion of cigarettes every year.
The initiative is likely to be opposed by Japan Tobacco (JT) – the makers of Winston, Mevius and Camel – that is the third-largest tobacco company in the world (excluding China) behind Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT).
According to a joint report by World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Cancer Institute of the United States of America, the tobacco industry leaves a deadly impact and costs world economies more than $1 trillion annually in healthcare expenditures and lost productivity.