At Restaurant Associates, we believe a great workday isn’t just about what happens at the desk, it’s about what happens away from it too. And right now, breaks are shrinking. Recent workplace research shows the number of employees taking a proper break three to five times a week has dropped sharply over the past few years, with many people skipping breaks altogether or cutting them down to fifteen minutes or less.
So, how can companies turn this trend around?
It’s easy to treat a break as optional when the to-do list is long, but the research tells a different story: regular breaks support physical health, mental wellbeing and, in turn, productivity. Workplace burnout, by contrast, is estimated to cost businesses millions of dollars a year through lost productivity, absenteeism and turnover.
Sitting for long stretches without a proper pause has real physical consequences too, with extended sedentary time linked to a higher risk of heart disease and other chronic conditions. The break isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s part of how a healthy workplace functions.
Smaller, smarter breaks
Interestingly, many employees, particularly younger generations, are gravitating toward shorter, more frequent breaks rather than one long lunch. The challenge for employers isn’t necessarily restoring the hour-long lunch of decades past, it’s making sure every micro-break, however brief, actually counts.
- Create genuinely inviting spaces to step away to, not just a desk with a different view
- Offer food and drink formats that suit a five or ten minute pause, not just a sit-down meal
- Normalise stepping away from screens, even briefly, as a marker of a healthy, high-performing team
At Restaurant Associates, this is exactly where we like to help. From thoughtfully designed café spaces to food that fits a genuine micro-break, we work with our clients to make sure breaktime is treated as the valuable, restorative part of the day it should be, not an afterthought.
