You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Some companies say that if an employee wants to smoke they must leave the building and smoke outside. This takes time away from work, and the employers insist that this time should be counted as break time. This may not be fair to the smokers who may have to wait a long time to get out of the building. How could this problem be resolved?
Give reasons for your answer.
You should write at least 250 words.
Sample Answer 1:
Human nature is open to a variety of addictions such as alcohol and smoking. Some of these addictions affect working quality and as a result of this, alcohol is banned from workplaces. On the other hand, because of smoking doesn’t affect working, employees are allowed to use it during their shift. But, during last two decades government approved a new bill which forbids smoking inside buildings and as a result of this, people who would like to smoke cigarettes should leave the building first. This essay is going to examine which solutions could be used to close time gap for required to leave the building.
First of all, using the same amount of breaks is right of each employee. It should be calculated somehow. For instance, employers should give break time counter to each employee and inform them that if they will go outside, a counter will calculate total time spent outside. If an employee works without breaks, he or she should receive incentives such as bonus or company internal usage points
Secondly, employers might reorganise employees desk near to exist to prevent wasted times during walking out of the building. Furthermore, companies might add a balcony on each floor in order to create smoking zones. This idea might be useful for employees, but I this solution might create massive expenses during construction. Moreover, some companies like “Google” allow their employees to work without defined desks and this gives mobility to employees. This might be a solution without spending any to avoid wasted times for smokers. Lastly, there might be a program to deter employees from smoking while giving them chance to smoke during work hours. For instance, employees who joined the program quits smoking, completes the program successfully and they receive incentives such as bonus cash or company points. This solution has benefits to each side and it could be used for the betterment of life and working standard.
In conclusion, there are a variety of solutions to avoid the smoking issue and both sides should try their best to fix it before it became pandemic.
Sample Answer 2:
Smoking is such a bad habit that it affects the working efficiency and health of the workers and smoking in the office premises brings potential harms to colleges’ health and emotional well-being. Positive solutions should be taken to tackle this worrying trend.
I believe that employees should not be allowed to smoke inside the building as all of their colleges will be the passive smokers in this circumstance. It should not be allowed in the first place as the non-smoking workers and employees’ health will be badly influenced by such working environment. In particular, this behaviour will be harmful to female workers who are pregnant and their unborn babies would be greatly harmed. Working environment should be smoking-free area and those who want to have a smoke break should be in the right place.
Employees are paid refer to their actual working hours in most industrialised areas. If a worker who smokes and takes frequent breaks during working hours should be either salary-deducted or should work extra hours to compensate the time s/he spends for smoking. It is fair enough because there is a saying that how much you will be paid depends on how much you work.
I can understand that many argue that it would be unfair because smokers have to spend a long time walking to smoking areas. It could be solved by construing a smoking room for those certain group of workers on every floor so that it reduces their time in travelling if necessary. However, on the other hand, employees should be encouraged to quit smoking for health reasons by providing a professional course for them. If they could stop this unhealthy habit, the company is no longer necessary to worry about the fairness of walking time of smoking break and building an extra room for them to smoke.
In conclusion, smokers should pay for themselves if they hope to smoke in the working and employers have the responsibility to provide staff welfare for them to help to form a good working or living habit.
Sample Answer 3:
It is a common concern among employers that their smoker employees take too much break and this few times should be counted as non-effective hours and even they should not be paid for them. In my opinion, employers are free to choose all of their employees among non-smokers and if they want to employ a smoker, they should not whine about some short breaks that they take to satiate their needs.
Employers oddly believe that more someone works more s/he will earn. Although this belief turns out true for machines, it does not apply to the human resource. On the contrary, more a human being work, more personal needs arise and less productive would the work be. Employers that are seeking for productivity should appreciate the necessity of breaks, even if they believe that smoking is a bad habit, and provide enough breaks for anyone rather than counting employees who try to buy some time for them.
If there is an honest concern for smokers’ health and justice for non-smokers, probably the best solution would be that to encourage smokers to quit smoking. For instance, the sixth clean month of an old smoker could be awarded a little platelet or a cake that they can share with their colleagues to celebrate their healthy new lives. As a corollary to this, the number of breaks would decline.
In conclusion, my personal view is that breaks are beneficial for birth employees and employers since the refreshed employee would remain productive. Therefore employers should think about giving more breaks to everyone rather than arguing on the breaks that smokers take. If they are not content with the frequency of breaks, they also have an option not to employ the smoker or they can try to wean their employees away from smoking by giving some incentives.