Office supplies retailer’s study finds lunch breaks in Britain last an average of 30 minutes rather than an hour.
Fresh Business Thinking reports on the findings of a study conducted by Cartridge World into British lunch break habits, which suggests that employees spend an average of 30 minutes and 25 seconds taking a lunch break – half the time that most workers are allocated, with one in 10 taking less than 10 minutes away from work.
The findings indicate that 48 percent of the 1,500 UK employees surveyed feel under pressure from bosses not to take the full hour-long lunch break that they should be entitled to.
The activities people choose to undertake whilst on a lunch break were also surveyed, the most popular activity being online shopping, which one third of those surveyed indicated that they do on their lunch break.
It was also found that 23 percent of workers under 35 visit a nearby pub, one in seven like to gossip about colleagues, and five percent engage in some form of exercise. Updating Facebook statuses and calling partners on the phone were also amongst the most common lunchtime activities.
The survey was conducted as part of Cartridge World’s “Reclaim Lunchtime” campaign, which aims to encourage workers to “make the most of their lunch breaks”.
John Richardson, UK Chairman for Cartridge World commented: “We all enjoy a lunch break, it is a integral part of the great British working day but our research has shown just how differently colleagues like to spend it […] we are encouraging workers to embrace lunchtime, whatever it is that they enjoy doing.”