A lunch-friendly office culture is not so much a luxury as an indispensable tool in maintaining employees’ physical and mental preparedness. Read on to learn more about how you can create a culture in which the proper lunch break is standard, rather than deviating.
Lead from the Top
Culture starts with leadership. More powerful than that, when managers take lunch breaks and encourage their teams to do the same – it gets noticed. When leaders eat at their desks employees will surely feel that they too need to do the same as it is a clear message from them. For Office Lunches, visit crumbsdelivered.co.uk/shop/office-lunch-delivery/
Create Inviting Spaces
Remember that everyone wants to designate where they sit down and eat, not their desk. A real break room with tables, chairs and a window is a nice selling point for the lunch time worker bee. A couple of plants, good lighting and here you have a space that people want to spend time in.
Establish Clear Expectations
Put a lunch break policy in place — this policy is for encouraging and protecting suitable lunch breaks. Add it in your employees handbooks, onboarding and so forth. If we consider breaks optional, this is the first thing to be given away in a busier period.
Facilitate Social Connections
Optional team lunches or lunch and learn sessions. Make an informal system where people can find lunch partners in the office. If eating is done together then not only it strengthens the bond but also makes breaks more interesting which will encourage people to take short-breaks recurrently.
Remove the Guilt
Fix the broken culture that makes people feel guilty for resting. Implement outcome-based celebrations, not those of hours logged. Rest is for better quality of work.
A work environment that actively promotes taking breaks is one where employees are more engaged because they recognise the benefits to health, focus and productivity on offer in simply giving them a break. It’s not lost worktime but investing in the performance of your team.
