Working hours | Lunch breaks vs less hours: what do workers really want?

The lunch break is the traditional time for employees to unwind. Employees are encouraged to spend some time away from their desks to eat, socialise with colleagues or sneak in a little wellbeing practice to refresh themselves, ready for the afternoon ahead.

However, it seems that many workers just aren’t feeling the benefits – with 24% willing to swap breaks for higher pay, and 40% wishing they could have reduced working hours so that they could come into work late or leave early, according to research from Glassdoor.

Some employees reported feeling pressure to cut their lunch breaks short. One in four people (25%) said that they would cut their lunch break short out of fear of falling behind in their work. A fifth (18%) reported that they sometimes feel that they have to work through their lunch break because everyone else at work does.

As a result, Glassdoor found the average UK lunchbreak is just 31 minutes long.