SHARING OUR KNOWLEDGE:
Employee Productivity
The effect of lunch breaks and annual leave on productivity were explored in our latest Australian/New Zealand Workplace Series.
We found that the average designated lunch break is 45 minutes with employees generally taking 60% of this time. One in five employees take all their allocated lunch break while a similar amount take one quarter or less.
Over half of all respondents eat lunch at their desk rather than leaving their office, and in a revealing trend 41% said it shows increased commitment to their employer to take less than their allocated break.
Yet three quarters of all employees surveyed said their productivity benefits from taking a break away from the office at lunch time and a similar number said it would be further enhanced if they were able to choose their own break times.
"While productivity is a complex issue, these results do show that taking a break away from the office at lunch, whether for 5 minutes or your full entitlement, improves employees' productivity," said Jacky Carter, Director at Hays. "With business activity currently high, the tendency can be for employees to decide to work through lunch, yet even taking a short break will help improve productivity, effectiveness and efficiency."
The survey also looked at annual leave and found that over half of all respondents do not take their full annual leave entitlements. Yet one in three said their productivity is affected by not taking all their leave. Over two thirds said productivity is compromised when they can not take leave when needed, but over half said there are restrictions on when annual leave can be taken.
"There are times, such as peak workloads and end of month or end of year requirements, when annual leave may not be available and full breaks may not be taken," said Jacky. "However generally speaking, taking a lunch break and taking regular annual leave can lead to not just higher productivity, but decreased stress and absenteeism. Breaks help to create a productive, healthy and safe working environment."
The survey also found that productivity is generally highest in the morning and that it begins to fall after 7 hours. If working in excess of 8 hours per day, 41% of respondents said they start making errors. One in three said overtime makes them work harder but not smarter.
585 people were surveyed.
