According to a recent study of Staples employees, many of them feel guilty about taking breaks at work other than their lunch break, despite working longer-than-average shifts.
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Even with 90 percent of bosses encouraging regular breaks and 86 percent of workers agreeing that they make them more productive, more than a quarter of employees neglect to take them when working more than eight (8) hours in a shift.
Taking short breaks during the work day has been proven time and time again to increase individual productivity, loosen the mind up, and make for more creative and relaxed employees.
Why employee breaks make sense
Buffer recently outlined the reasons this is so in an excellent roundup:
So if we all know the rejuvenating benefits of taking breaks at work, why do 76 percent of workers feel tired most of the week, with 15 percent admitting to falling asleep at work? The answer may be that renewing one’s self at work is a skill that needs to be practiced, and we’re just not getting the right encouragement.
Lost energy
Tony Schwartz is CEO of Energy Project, a consultancy that helps Fortune 500 companies get more productivity out of workers by getting more serious about how they take breaks and renew their energy over the course of a workday. He explains the core dilemma in a New York Times opinion article:
When our workloads increase, Schwartz argues, our tendency is to hunker down and work even harder and longer, which only exhausts our brainpower more quickly, lowering the overall quality of work in the long run. Taking small pit stops during the day is more conducive to the way our brain naturally works; greatly increasing focus in short bursts, resulting in higher overall productivity and energy levels.
Preventing burnout
More important, breaking frequently during the day goes a long way to preventing employee burnout, which can understandably wreak havoc on engagement.
A 2012 Towers Watson study found that the top two drivers of performance were having leaders who demonstrate a sincere interest in employee well-being and having manageable stress levels with a reasonable work/life balance. Getting your employees to be more conscious about their personal time than their work time is not always easy, but necessary.
To paraphrase an old saying, people may be “willing,” but they may not always be “able.” The mind needs rest just like the body does.
Serious downtime
But never fear, we’re here to help. There are three prevailing strategies for taking breaks effectively at work:
An essential survival skill
So however you take a break at work, the point is to choose a reliable method and learn to do it when your workload becomes too much, and to keep doing it consistently to protect yourself from burnout.
In a world where a 47-hour work week is the norm, paid maternity leave isn’t mandatory, and unused vacation time is at a 40-year high, it’s an essential survival skill.
About I.C. Collins
I.C. Collins is grateful that he can pursue something that is both interesting and has value on several levels. For over three decades in the Automotive Sales Industry a bottom-line guy Collins doesn't shy away from telling the truth in ways that cut through the noise to deliver streetwise and corporate knowledge from someone who's been there and done that, many times over.
He aims to create “a long-lasting major brand that for generations is a company that is business-critical to the leading brands in the world. We are focused every day on creating something that’s valuable and has permanence.”
P. S. Urgent if you’re looking to optimize your interpersonal skills for success get your copy of " How to Succeed in the Automotive Sales Industry " today @TechAutoCareers.com. Then settle in for a satisfying read that will surely enhance your interpersonal skills for success this year, it is not just a book we are a service.
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