I’ve had a rather comprehensively conducted report from Bupa about how “UK companies are losing close to £50million a day in lost productivity as over six million UK employees fail to take a their lunch hour”. It’s part of their “Reclaim The Lunch break” campaign.
Unlike lots of these surveys I get sent this one actually has some proper research behind it. Most of the reporting findings are taken from the Bupa ‘Helping You Find Healthy’ report. They also have research data from four other sources.
The basics are that only 13% of UK workers takes their lunch hour. The reasons for this are:
34% of employees experience pressure from managers to work through their lunch hour
50% feel the weight of their workload prevents them from taking a break.
As I’m sure you’ll know the impact of not taking a break can be significant. In their report almost half of workers felt their productivity levels plummet at around 3pm and as a result they lose almost 40 minutes of their day due to this dip.
The solution actually isn’t necessarily to take a full hour for lunch – it’s to take regular breaks. This doesn’t mean you even have to leave your desk; just change the activity you are doing.
Obviously this lack of lunch break isn’t just happening in the recruitment sector – but I can’t think of many recruiters I’ve worked with who have regularly taken any lunch break at all.
So, take a break and increase your productivity and reduce your stress levels!
