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A company in China has come under fire for fining employees if they don't walk at least 180,000 steps a month, it's reported.

According to Information Times, employees at an unnamed real estate firm in the southern city of Guangzhou have been fined 0.01 yuan (0.1 cents; 0.1 pence) for every step that they fail to make .

One employee, 'Little C', told the paper that frequent overtime made it difficult for staff to walk at least 6,000 steps a day outside of work hours.

"I understand that the company wants to encourage us to get more exercise," she said, "but I don't even have enough time to sleep because I need to take walks to meet the target."

Liu Fengmao, a representative from a local law firm, says that the company has no legal grounds for tracking staff members' steps as a measure of performance, and that such a workplace rule could create further complications for the employer.

Mr Liu says that staff could potentially claim that walking outside of the office constitutes as overtime, or that a walking injury was a workplace incident.

Information Times says that this is not the first known case of a firm introducing a workplace walking rule. In January 2017, a technology firm in Chongqing in the south-west of the country was criticised for urging staff to walk 10,000 steps a day. The Chongqing Evening Post says that the company .

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Many on the popular Sina Weibo microblog have expressed bemusement at the workplace rule, but . "This company is just looking for a reason to deduct money," one user says of the Guangzhou firm.

But others argue that such a regulation comes with some benefit. "The reward is that you're healthy!" one user says.

Reporting by Kerry Allen

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