Work breaks and rest periods are essential to rest, relieve fatigue, reduce stress levels, prevent burnout, and increase productivity. But, most of the employees skip breaks to complete the work on time.
What are the reasons for skipping breaks at work?
Heavy workloads make employees feel more in need of breaks, but new research suggests they may actually discourage employees from taking breaks at work, despite high levels of stress, fatigue and poor performance.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo found that employees often kept working despite wanting to stop. One possible reason could be that the employees felt pressured to keep working to get everything done on time.
How to use work breaks effectively?
James Beck said, “Our research provides a comprehensive account of the processes involved in the decision to take a break and provides insight into how employees and managers can make more effective use of breaks at work, thereby improving both well-being and performance.” could be improved.” Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Waterloo.
To conduct the study, researchers asked 107 employees about their reasons for taking a break and not taking one. They then surveyed another 287 employees twice over five days about their sleep quality, fatigue, performance concerns, workload and the number of breaks they took each day.
The researchers also found that although previous research has shown that breaks can benefit employees’ well-being and performance, they may resist taking breaks if they perceive that supervisors discourage breaks in their workplace. . While there may be a misconception that breaks are unproductive, Phan notes that many employees take breaks because they are committed to working and maintaining a high level of performance.
“We recognize that it may not always be possible for employees to take more breaks, but if employers can promote employee well-being by addressing situations that make work unpleasant, they may be able to reduce the number of breaks required. Vincent Phan, first author of the study, which he led as part of his doctoral thesis in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Waterloo.
The researchers hope that their findings will help promote employee well-being and that future research will explore the broader structural and contextual factors that influence break-taking.
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