Is the Lunch Break as an Employee Benefit … Broken?

Few people would argue that workday lunch breaks are important. They are meant to provide employees an opportunity to refuel, refresh and recharge. A recent study, in fact, found that 98% of surveyed workers believe lunch breaks strengthen their job performance. Makes sense, right?

However, that same study showed 49% of surveyed workers are skipping their employer-provided lunch break at least once per week and 33% are doing it at least twice per week. Nearly half of polled Gen Z workers said they skip lunch at least twice a week, despite saying it’s their favorite part of the workday. Gen Zers are also four times more likely than Baby Boomers to feel guilty for taking a break from work.

Is the lunch break officially … broken?

Cold Cuts on a Hot Lunch Report

Sago Group, an independent research company, conducted the aforementioned Lunch Report study on behalf of ezCater, a food technology platform for workplaces. Survey participants included 5,000 full-time employees across the United States who work in business offices or hospitality, healthcare, retail and warehouse settings.

Participating employees cited a variety of reasons for working through their meal periods. Most prominent were:

The fear there isn’t enough time to finish their work (23% of respondents),
Wanting to finish work assignments faster (20%),
Having too many meetings (19%), and
Feeling guilty about taking breaks (11%).

“Lunch breaks are often sacrificed due to tight schedules, but they can play a major role in bringing people together and improving employee well-being,” said Kaushik Subramanian, the chief revenue officer at ezCater.

The Lunch Report is not alone in calling out the importance of breaks as well as workers’ general willingness to sacrifice them.

A systematic review of more than 80 well-being and productivity studies, published in the Harvard Business Review, supported the need for daily breaks during the workday. Findings from the American Psychological Association, research published by the scientific journal BMC Public Health and numerous other research underscore that employees who take lunch breaks perform better, are happier and are healthier than those who regularly skip those breaks.

In terms of exhibited employee behaviors, a 2024 study by digital-payments app Square found midday food spending in the U.S. was down 3.3% nationwide in 2023 compared with 2019. The decrease was steeper in some cities, including Boston, Atlanta and Dallas.

Regulations with a Side of Responsibilities

There is no federal law in the U.S. mandating that employers give such breaks to their workforce. However, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Wage has a webpage that lists the 21 states and two U.S. territories that have statutes and regulations governing meal breaks. For example, New York requires employers to provide a 30-minute meal period for employees who work shifts of more than six hours that extend past noon. Thirty-three states and two territories have separate provisions requiring meal periods specifically for minors.

With a patchwork of legal standards in the background, employers themselves can serve to regulate meal periods. Heidi Dening, a speaker, author and educator on resilience and business optimization, said that starts with organizational leaders demonstrating the right behaviors and promoting a reasonable balance of productivity and well-being.

“We know that leading by example has to come from the top,” she said. “When I’m speaking with leaders and teams, there is a really valid fear right now, and how it relates to lunch breaks is they [workers] want to make sure they’re getting it all done and no one is questioning their efficiency, their output.” 

Working under pressure to complete multiple tasks, meet deadlines and achieve goals is generally healthy, Dening added, but that can reach a breaking point when employees are tempted to start making tradeoffs with their personal health and well-being.

Dishing Out Some Ideas and Next Steps

So, how do you address the current situation?

Experts suggest HR and total rewards professionals should take related metrics (i.e., productivity, retention, satisfaction, well-being, health claims) into consideration when designing workplace policies, benefits and incentives.

“A culture that emphasizes the importance of refueling during the day and signals to employees that their well-being is a top priority can be a force multiplier for employee engagement, productivity and loyalty,” Dilip Rao, the CEO and co-founder of food benefits platform Sharebrite, stated in an article he wrote for Forbes.

Employers who want to strengthen their workplace lunch culture have a variety of tactics at their disposal. According to ezCater’s report, 58% of hybrid employees would work on-site three days a week if they received an employer-provided lunch — a signal that return-to-office initiatives could benefit if more employers added a meal benefit. Formal workplace lunch periods could also be used as mentoring and team-building opportunities.

“As human resources professionals, we could schedule team lunches into everyone’s calendars so we are all sitting down together. If my calendar just says ‘lunch break,’ I could easily shift that to [another meeting] or to myself,” Dening added.

Taking breaks together can also help build connection and trust, she noted, in a moment when many workplaces see declining levels of trust. Whenever employers demonstrate leadership on issues like lunch breaks, they may positively impact their entire workplace culture.

Dening recommended that total rewards professionals look proactively at their workplaces for small interventions that can strengthen team resilience, such as improving access to lunch breaks and factoring well-being/work balance into corporate productivity metrics. 

“I think organizations, if they want to retain top talent, they need [these practices] in place. Organizations need to evolve and prioritize prevention,” said Dening.

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