October 03, 2018
What can we do about an employee who takes excessive smoking breaks?
We have an employee who is taking an excessive number of smoking breaks in a day. Can we limit the number of times a person takes a smoking break?
If the employee is not working their required weekly hours because of the smoking breaks, you can take disciplinary action.
Aside from that, you can:
- talk to the employee about the issue and request that they take fewer breaks; or
- incorporate into a policy that employees are limited to a certain number of smoking breaks per day (unless the breaks are permitted by an award, agreement or employment contract).
