Human Resource Blog

Smoking Breaks

Hello,
We are a company with approximately 50 employees. At this point smoking breaks are not regulated by designated break periods. What guidelines for smoking breaks can you recommend (quantity, how long, etc.).

thanks,

Tim

First of all, the best practice in HR is not to give smoking breaks at all. That may sound harsh, but why should you give additional breaks to smokers and deny them to non-smokers? And, if this policy has a disparate impact on a protected group (based on race, color, sex, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability,etc.) then you open the door for a successful discrimination suit…even if it is not your intention to discriminate.

So forget about calling them smoking breaks. Instead, you need to set a break policy that will apply to all employees. Whether they choose to chat, make a personal phone call, drink a cup of coffee, read a book, study the bible, pray or smoke on their break…is entirely up to the employee.

The best practice in HR is to give employees an unpaid meal break of 30 minutes or more, per 8 hour shift. Most employers give an additional meal break if the employee has to work 12 hours or more.

In addition, the best practice in most industries is to give workers a 10 to 15 minute break at approximately the mid-point of each 4-hour work segment. Usually this translates into a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon break. Under the federal FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act, rest breaks of less than 20 minutes must be paid. (Meal breaks that are longer than 20 minutes may be unpaid if the employee is relieved of all duties during this period.)

These breaks have been shown to actually increase employee productivity. However, research has shown that additional breaks reduce employee productivity.

You can certainly give employees more breaks than that. For example, you could give every employee two or three 10-to15-minute morning breaks, and two or three 10- to 15-minute afternoon breaks. This is what most smokers would prefer. (On average, it takes about 7 minutes to smoke a cigarette.) However, since these breaks must be paid, you are looking at payng every employee for an extra 40 to 90 minutes each day, when the employee is not productive. Before you implement this measure, figure out exactly what it will cost you. If your average employee earns $12 per hour, and you are paying for an extra hour per day…that’s $12 x 50 employees x 5 (days per week) x 52 (weeks per year) or about $156,000 in extra payroll per year. More than $3,000 in extra payroll each week, for non-productive time.

Once you have determined how many breaks to give employees, the bigger challenge is to enforce the break policy. Inform everyone in writing what the new break policy is. Even though you must pay workers for short breaks, you can certainly have the employee clock out anytime they are on a break, simply for tracking purposes. An employee who takes too many breaks, or is on break (or away from their work station) but failed to clock out, could be disciplined or terminated. Just be sure that you do pay employees when they take a break of less than 20 minutes.

Because you are taking this measure, you may also want to offer employees who smoke support to quit. Many state agencies offer free posters, hotlines and other advice for smokers who would like to quit smoking.

There are 9 U.S. states that require employers to give rest breaks to all employees. Usually they require a 10 to 15 minute paid break for each 4 hour work segment, or major portion thereof. If you suspect you are in one of these states, post another question. No state requires an employer to give additional breaks to smokers.