Based on a survey of young professionals who are smokers, up to four daily absences from the office are for smoke breaks. The average cigarette break is around 10-15 minutes long, especially when things like elevator rides and bathroom stops are taken into account. This means a minimum of 40 minutes per day, over three hours per week and over 13 hours of work (roughly a day and a half of work) per month spent smoking instead of working. We can’t tell others how to live their life, nor is it necessarily fair to discriminate against smokers. Whether vocalized or not, however, the silent war between the smokers and the non-smokers continues in workplaces across the country.
The Issues
– From an employer’s standpoint, when employees take extra breaks for cigarettes, he or she is essentially paying them to smoke. Especially in our era of start-ups and a still-recovering economy, employers may grow impatient with cigarette breaks by their staff.
– The non-smokers claim that they work harder because they are not parting with their work for cigarette breaks, and this is unfair. They are unhappy that smokers are seemingly rewarded for their habits with breaks and resentful of the few moments of fresh air they are able to have post-cigarette.
– The frequent coming and going of employees from their workstations and the lingering smell of cigarette smoke that follows employees up the elevator may be distracting to non-smoking colleagues, disrupting their work process.
– Smokers claim that it is not only them who take frequent breaks, but that theirs are simply more noticeable. They may point to the habits of non-smoking co-workers who socialize more on company time, constantly update their personal social media page, or take frequent coffee breaks.
– Smokers may feel more productive when allowed their cigarette breaks, and claim that smoking allows them to relax, reflect and generate new ideas. They view smoking as their right and something employers and coworkers must accept.
“I don’t think that smoke breaks affect our productivity in a negative way at all,” says a 25-year-old Calgary female in sales. “As long as the work gets done, it shouldn’t matter. Just because the non-smokers don’t take obvious breaks, doesn’t mean they are more productive.”
“I used to work in an advertising company where, like clockwork, at 10:30am and 2:30pm the office would literally clear out for a good 15 minutes,” said a 30-year-old Toronto young professional. “I didn’t think it was fair, so I started taking personal exercise breaks to refuel while they smoked and would take a walk around the block.”
The Solution?
– Some companies ask smokers to use their regular breaks to smoke and have a policy that dictates break times for all employees, regardless of whether or not they smoke. This means that anyone can step away for a few minutes at his or her discretion, whether it’s to smoke, get fresh air or coffee, make a phone call, or anything else.
– Alternatively, some companies crack down on smokers and make sure that their smoker employees clock out during break times, or receive deductions on their paycheques.
– A growing number of companies south of the border have started to implement tobacco-free hiring policies, where they disclose from the start that they are smoke-free workplaces, and require potential employees to reveal their smoker status on job interviews. Not (yet) as prevalent in Canada, this practice is most common in hospitals and healthcare-related jobs. The Canadian Cancer Society, for example, only hires non-smokers. Hiring bans, however, leads to a slippery slope as it raises questions over hiring other high-risk health groups like, for example, obese people.
– Health risks aside, the debate continues as to whether smoke breaks negatively affect employee performance. We are not suggesting that breaks are a bad thing, nor are we advocates of a lazy workplace. As writers who sit staring at a computer screen for hours on end, we definitely appreciate the power of the break to stimulate creativity and productivity, and an opportunity to revisit the work with a fresh set of eyes. Breaks also help to avoid burnout, exhaustion and the feeling that you are at the mercy of your job. They provide a chance to take in fresh air and unleash energy. In general, what people choose to do with their break times (the obvious no-nos aside) is up to them and the issue in general should be whether break times are being abused.
What are your thoughts on the smoking debate?
