Generous Boss Rewards Non-Smokers With 4 Extra Vacation Days A Year

Generous boss Don Bryden, who runs a training company in Wiltshire, England, has decided to even the scales at his business by offering the non-smokers on his staff four additional days off every year to make up for all the missed time the smokers incur over the year. It’s a novel approach for sure, but it definitely seems fair.

  1. Smokers take a lot of breaks from doing actual work. Depending on how much an employee smokes, they may need a cigarette break once every hour or so, taking up to 10 minutes every time they go out. How is that fair on the non-smokers who are sitting at their desks getting stuff done all that time? It’s not and Bryden knows it.
  2. Bryden believes smokers are partaking in their habit for up to an hour a day. “They have four, five or even ten cigarettes a day and take around ten minutes outside each time,” he told the Swindon Advertiser. “I looked at the other guys during these breaks and they’re always on the phones, typing away and trying to do their work, so I thought they should be compensated.” Good for him!
  3. Smokers on his staff promised to quit over the move. According to Bryden, who heads up the logistics firm KCJ Training and Employment Solutions, several of the smokers on his staff promised they’d give up the habit when they discovered they could get four more days of annual leave if they did. “Funnily enough, when I made the announcement some of the workers said they weren’t going to smoke anymore, but it doesn’t work like that,” he said. “If they can give up smoking for 12 months, I’ll give them the extra four days.”
  4. This is a great way to build morale on the team. As someone who’s often been the one regularly working while I saw many others slacking off or doing next to nothing while still collecting the same amount of money, there’s nothing worse than feeling taken advantage of. Bryden understands and wants to make sure morale stays high on his team. “I’ve worked for recruitment for national and private businesses for 20 years and, a lot of the time, you get used and abused and you just become a number,” he said. “I’m trying to give something back to the staff, little incentives to encourage them.”
  5. Frankly, this is more than fair. Do you agree? Why should smokers get up to an hour off a day that they’re getting paid for while everyone else has to sit and get on with things just because they don’t have a disgusting, smelly habit that will end up killing them? Bryden is evening the scales and it’s awesome.
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