Quit for holidays

A COMPANY has come up with a novel way of encouraging workers to quit smoking – an extra week of annual leave.

Japanese firm Piala wants to compensate its nonsmoking workers by giving them an extra six days of leave because they don’t take breaks to smoke.

The scheme was devised after an employee complained about the time lost because colleagues went out for regular cigarette breaks.

The initiative has led to four of the 42 smokers – from a workforce of 120 people – to quit smoking.