This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

TOKYO, Japan — It can be a frustration for non-smokers at work — watching their co-workers who smoke take several breaks throughout the day.

Those breaks can add up over time.

That’s why a company in Japan is offering non-smokers an additional six days of vacation time to make up for the time off smokers take for cigarette breaks, The Telegraph reported.

“One of our non-smoking staff put a message in the company suggestion box earlier in the year saying that smoking breaks were causing problems,” Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesman for Tokyo-based marketing firm Piala Inc. told The Telegraph.

The company is on the 29th floor. They estimate that each cigarette place takes at least 15 minutes.

“I hope to encourage employees to quit smoking through incentives rather than penalties or coercion”, Takao Asuka, the Piala Inc CEO, told Kyodo News.

So far, he said, four employees have quit.

According to the World Health Organization, 21.7-percent of Japanese adults smoke.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 15.1-percent of adults smoke in the United States.