Hyderabad|India|December'2009: Employees taking fags at workplaces are invariably a common site at most of the corporate offices in India . It’s been seen that with relatively increased competitive corporate environment, constant competition with colleagues, pressure of dealing with clients or customers and regular performance reviews, employees tend to smoke at work places very frequently, but quite funny is the fact that the so called bosses of Indian Inc, who are otherwise seen as the less-lenient towards giving their employees a free time at work places than their foreign counter parts are seem unaware of the actual amount of time their employees spent on smoking.

According to a recent survey, in India while the amount of time the employees being spent on smoking in one day at workplace is amounted to a mean time of 41.3 minutes, the assumption of the employers on the other hand on the possible time spent is way below, which amounted to a mean time 29.2 minutes. Looking at the facts it seems that employers constantly underestimate the time spent by its employees on smoking, which resulted in a major loss a company faces, as if one employee of a company spent 41.3 minutes in a day by smoking than imagine the huge amount of working time that a company losses during the entire day while their employees enjoying a smoke outside.

The survey was conducted across multiple geographies to assess the attitude towards smoking and tobacco use in workplaces and the implications thereof, India ranked very high on the scale with regard to smoke-free workplaces. The survey, sponsored by Pfizer and published in the International Journal of Public Health, was designed to evaluate the attitudes of corporate employees who smoke, as well as corporate employers (both smokers and non-smokers), regarding workplace smoking, smoking cessation as well as current support for such activities. These results suggest directions for subsequent programs and policies to reduce the prevalence of workplace smoking and assist employees with smoking cessation.

This study questioned the respondents on their take on workplace smoking. Employees and employers had mixed reactions about the statement, ‘‘all workplaces should be smoke-free’’. Although nearly three-quarters of all employees agreed with this statement, there was substantial variation by region, with more than three-quarters of Asian employees, but only 50% of European employees, expressing agreement. Agreement by employees ranged from 33% in Germany and Poland and 37% in Japan to79% in Sweden and 85% in India . More employers than employees (87% vs. 74% overall) agreed that all workplaces should be smoke-free. Agreement by employers was lowest in South Korea (71%) and Japan (73%), and greatest in the UK (94%), Taiwan (95%) and India (96%).

Dr. P.C Gupta, Director of Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health, said, “Smoking is associated with substantial workplace costs. Smoking can increase employee absenteeism, decrease workplace productivity, lead to higher health-care costs and cause more early retirement due to ill health”. He added that a number of activities targeting workplace smoking have been implemented in efforts to improve public health and decrease workplace costs associated with smoking. These range from information campaigns and assistance with smoking cessation to legislation requiring smoke-free workplaces.

The global workplace smoking survey was conducted in 14 countries: South Korea , Japan , China , Taiwan and India (collectively comprising Asia); UK , Italy , Sweden , France , Germany , Spain , Poland and Turkey (Europe); and Brazil ( South America ). These countries were selected based on having high prevalences of smoking as well as changing tobacco control policy environments. All surveys were conducted between 1 July and 18 September 2007. In all countries except India , surveys were conducted by Web-assisted telephone interviews (WAPI), in which interviews were conducted by telephone, with the responses simultaneously recorded by the interviewer into an online survey program. The numbers of employers and employees in each of the 14 participating countries were similar as was their mean age. Approximately, 60% of employers were male compared with 85% of employees. While all of the employees were current smokers (as the employee survey included only smokers), 18% of the employers were smokers.