Random work question

blondie42107 · July 2015

I'm on a committee at work where we try to find ways to boost moral, plan work events, etc. I've been reading articles about work stress and burnout. Most casual surveys report that employees don't take breaks away from their desk for various reasons (guilt, too much to do, etc). I see that in our office.

Im looking to come up with a plan, to run by our committee, to encourage appropriate breaks/lunches and make our break room more inviting and enjoyable.

So what do you love about your break room? What do you wish it had?

jtmh2012 · July 2015

blondie42107 said:

Im looking to come up with a plan, to run by our committee, to encourage appropriate breaks/lunches and make our break room more inviting and enjoyable.

Personally, I think the biggest thing is to have break room use being part of the company culture. If I have to worry about my manager walking by and seeing me talking to someone else, then I'm not going to use the break room except to get what I need and get out.

AprilZ81 · July 2015

Some of this is highly dependent on the type of work being done, you would treat office workers different than factory workers.

If this is an office environment what about doing a monthly snack break and do an ice cream social, cookies and milk, popcorn or something easy? Something like that would show that the break room is available for use and encourage people to get up from their desk AND by the company spending a little money on snacks would be a token of appreciation for their work.

You can also do a program to put people on teams and encourage people to take a walk for 15 minutes every morning and evening. That helps everyone be a little more active and gives everyone a chance to clear their head.

No matter what you guys implement it needs to start from the top. If you want people to take a break they have to see management and their own boss take a break or they won't believe it is okay. If the "work hard and don't take a break" culture has been in place for a long time it will take awhile to change it.

jessica490 · July 2015

Usually on our 3 breaks a day we get (2- 15minutes and 1/2 hr lunch) my co-worker and I walk outside and if it's raining we walk inside the halls. It's a good way to get up and move. I don't use our breakroom nor eat my lunch in it ( I eat at my desk and then walk). It's just cold and un-inviting. When I do take breaks and not walk, then I got into our "library" which is a carpeted room with big comfy chairs, a huge floor to ceiling window, bookshelves with books, tables with magazine, and a few computers (for work of course). That is my favorite room to go to

formerlyGDaisy09 · July 2015

we don't have a break room. I bet there was at some point, but i'm certain it's been converted to an office. I work in a medical facility, no one runs on the same schedule, most productive meetings happen during lunch.

I'm most likely to take a break if I have a friend to meet me for coffee, or on days when I go to yoga during the lunch hour (12-1) and eat my lunch at my desk before or after. most days I eat at my desk. when there are department sponsored lunches I might leave my office for 10 minutes to get food and be a little social, but those things there is generally a little pressure to eat and get back to work.

I'm not sure I work in a culture that would be accepting of leasurly lunches, but good luck!

bcarb · July 2015

We are allowed an extra 20 minutes for physical activity. We can take that with our 30 minutes lunches. A lot of people dont utilize it, I dont think, but I do every day, even when it is 15 degrees out!

I also like the idea of doing monthly snack days, lunches out as an office etc.

Erikan73 · July 2015

I use my lunch hour to do things like do errands or on Mondays I sit at my computer to do my finances/budget for the week. I try to get as much of that kind of stuff done on my lunch hour as possible to free up time at home for other things or just to relax with my husband.

brij2006 · July 2015

We do not have a breakroom, and people don't take breaks. Everyone eats lunch at their desks, because we're a small office and someone needs to be able to answer phones or help people out. So none of us take a break.

However, our company used to have weekly morning pump up meetings. They were every Tuesday morning, for 30 minutes. It was used to have the bosses tell us any changes that were happening within the company, and keep us "in the know." That helped morale immensely. It's been 4 years since they've had one, and we can all tell it's taken a toll on the employees. Now we all feel like things are secrets and none of us have any idea what direction the company is taking. We all miss the weekly meetings that just kept us "in the know."

als1982 · July 2015

A wine vending machine?

I'm one of those people who rarely takes breaks away from my desk at work. My breaks typically only come in the form of checking The Nest forums on my phone.

And I always eat lunch at my desk. I figure I'd much rather come in a little later and leave a little earlier than take a lunch or other breaks.

IMO, genuine gratitude and appreciation go a long way to boost morale and employee loyalty, rather than forced activities or pushing breaks on them that they may not want or have time to take. If burn out is such a serious issue, then you may need to look at increasing staff or scrapping high effort low impact projects in order to maximize staff time.

blondie42107 · July 2015

Thanks for the responses!

I work for a nonprofit. Our office is on the casual side compared to a big corporate office. We have a business casual dress code but our executive director did implement Friday's as "jean days" about a year ago.

Our full time employees enjoy flex schedules - working 9hr days, with a paid lunch, Monday through Thursday with every other Friday off. On the Friday you work, it's an 8hr day.

We have about 125 employees total but have a few satellite locations. I'm in the main office with my team, administration (HR, finance, director, etc). We all get along pretty good. We have a holiday party each December. Just the other week a group of 25 of us met up (with our family) for a baseball game. So no one would be worried about eating lunch with HR or taking a break with a supervisor.

I think we all just have so much to do, we forget that breaks are healthy.

blondie42107 · July 2015

Right now our room has two tables, six chairs, a small couch, fridge, microwave, coffee pot (gross coffee!), tea hot chocolate, water, and all your Styrofoam and plastic utensil needs!

A bunch of the coffee drinkers would love a better coffee option - a keurig (even by bringing in their own K-Cups) or just a better brand coffee.

People frequently bring in treats to share. We had a goodie table set up with snacks just before 4th of July to celebrate.

bridejl · July 2015

Our office has a breakroom and a lounge. The breakroom has the coffee/fridge/dishwasher, etc and no one hangs out in there.

The lounge is large with couches, chairs, tables, a tv/Xbox, and a ping pong table. Some people use breaks to play a couple games of ping pong, and having the table has created a fun camaraderie/friendly competition atmosphere. It's a nice way to get up and move for a few minutes. Although, none of us take advantage of the lounge as much as we should on lunches. We tend to forget it's there lol.

We also have happy hour at 4pm on Fridays in the lounge. The company keeps a beer stock in the fridge and we hang out, have a drink and play ping pong. I'd say that ending the week on a positive note with your coworkers is a morale booster.

short+sassy · July 2015

The company I worked for where I saw the most break-taking happening...but appropriately...had a good sized breakroom with free soda from 2-liter bottles. People often ate lunch in that breakroom also. And you were guaranteed to see people taking a break in there on Friday mornings because one of our vendors would always bring goodies.

Where I currently work, you will always see people taking a break if it is someone's birthday and there is cake or other treats. We have a conference room right next to the breakroom and that is typically where people congregate. People fairly often will eat in groups in the conference room, but not the breakroom. It only has two small tables and a couple chairs.

Cake=Break!

Both of the above companies also had stated break policies with how many breaks should be taken, for how long, and during what time frames.

dragonstarjk · July 2015

There is a committee at my work right now who is renovating our break room. They sent a survey to all of us asking what we would like to see. Some of the popular results were:

-Comfy recliner to read/hang out

-Desk/craft space for people to bring little projects like homework, or wedding invitations, or whatever they might want to spend a few minutes doing on their break. I would like this because I find myself going home on my lunch and trying to get these little tasks done.

-Exercise equipment

I don't really use our break room and most other people don't either, because it's a dark dingy basement. It's a large space with a full kitchen though, so maybe they'll be able to make it nicer.

Xstatic3333 · July 2015

My current workplace is pretty unusual-we're a tiny nonprofit where we have lots of trust that we will get our work done and clock our own time (everyone is paid hourly, even my boss) but are able to take a break as needed to, say, make business-hour-only phone calls or run to the store. For that reason, I'm not likely to ever take a long break. I would only feel like it would delay my getting home. I do take small mental breaks throughout the day when I can to check TN/FB for 5 minutes, and zone out and read articles online while I am actually eating.

In past jobs where we have had a break room, I haven't always used it. I often feel pretty brain-dead at lunch and want to be able to zone out, play on my phone, or read a book without seeming antisocial. For that reason, I think a large break room with different "zones," one of which could have a quieter feel for reading, would be really nice.

Another reason I have often stayed away from break rooms is that they are not well kept and feel gross and unclean. Dirty dishes in the sink, refrigerators where everything is left to rot, etc., really skeeve me out and might encourage me to stay at my desk.

At my first job, the break room was always stocked with People magazines and similar and that was honestly a big draw. I think an array of books and magazines that people wouldn't purchase on their own is fun.

I love the idea that a PP mentioned of extra break time if you use it to get outside and walk. I would definitely take advantage of that if it was ever offered. Also ditto PPs that this will need to come from leadership to truly work.

jjbmstinco · July 2015

We are in a similar situation. To help, our boss has implemented that everyone gets 1 hr of "personal hour" per week. You have to have it documented on your calendar but you don't have to tell them what you are doing. No questions asked.

formerlyGDaisy09 · July 2015

I agree with several others here, I'd much rather come in a little late or leave a little early and work through lunch than be told to take a lunch break.

I'd rather work at work, and relax at home. though I am finding with the pregnancy I'm having to force myself to take a few breaks to step away from my desk to move or do something other than stare at a computer, but again, I do that on my terms and plan my work day accordingly.

blondie42107 · July 2015

formerlyGDaisy09 said:
I agree with several others here, I'd much rather come in a little late or leave a little early and work through lunch than be told to take a lunch break.

I'd rather work at work, and relax at home. though I am finding with the pregnancy I'm having to force myself to take a few breaks to step away from my desk to move or do something other than stare at a computer, but again, I do that on my terms and plan my work day accordingly.

No one is told that they have to take a lunch in our office. But because it's a paid lunch, we can't skip taking it just to come in late or leave early.

formerlyGDaisy09 · July 2015

blondie42107 said:

I agree with several others here, I'd much rather come in a little late or leave a little early and work through lunch than be told to take a lunch break.

I'd rather work at work, and relax at home. though I am finding with the pregnancy I'm having to force myself to take a few breaks to step away from my desk to move or do something other than stare at a computer, but again, I do that on my terms and plan my work day accordingly.
No one is told that they have to take a lunch in our office. But because it's a paid lunch, we can't skip taking it just to come in late or leave early.

I'm salaried, so my lunch is "paid" too. OP was asking about ways to encourage breaks for lunch etc. So while no one would tell me to take lunch I'd probably roll my eyes at anyone coming into my office and encouraging me to spend a chunk of my time at work not working, my goal most days is to maximize what I get done at work so I have to spend as little time there as possible.

Wulfgar · July 2015

For me, I play card games with a co-worker at lunch. This gives me a mental break mid-day that I need. I burnt myself out over the years so I can no longer work 8 to 10 hours straight without some mental down time.

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