Work-Life Balance

Take Your Lunch

by Ruchika Tulshyan
Break!
January 21, 2021

Tetra Images/ Getty Images

Summary.   Widespread remote work has led to longer workdays and more emails
and meetings for many employees. Combine that with a back-to-back meeting
culture, and foregoing breaks can be hard to avoid. But taking real lunch breaks
has been linked to improved job... more
In 2019, I was invited to share what I would consider a life well-
lived. While 2019 looked considerably different than 2020, upon
reflection, my answer remains the same:
“I’d consider my life well-lived if I took time to eat lunch during
the workday almost every day. This means not at my desk, not in a
meeting or while working, but connecting with someone, or even
myself, while I eat mindfully.”

I’m committing to doubling down on this in 2021.

Remote working has made it nearly impossible to keep a

commitment I try to stick to: to step away from work to eat lunch
or go for a walk in the middle of the day. As we try to make sense
of the painful year that just passed and plan for 2021 and the new
normal at work, I’d like to add: let’s normalize a proper, generous
lunch break — both in the remote work environment and
especially when we return to any sort of regular, in-person office
environment.

North American workers are famously overworked; in 2018, they

took an average of 17.4 vacation days, leaving 768 million vacation
days on the table. And that’s if they were lucky enough to have
vacation days at all — the U.S. has the distinct (dis)honor of being
the only country in the OECD that doesn’t guarantee a single day
of federally mandated paid time off. The nation’s workers also
eschew lunch to work longer. In fact, 62% of American workers
say they eat lunch at their desks.

Research shows that, thanks to remote work, we’re spending an

average of 48.5 minutes more at work each day, attending more
meetings, and navigating more emails. While I’ve long been
dedicated to my lunchtime commitment — whether it’s eating
away from my desk, catching up with a friend, or going for a walk
— I found myself succumbing to the “eat mindlessly in front of
your computer” habit (and skipping meals and walks altogether)
for much of 2020.

That’s a shame, because as a Singaporean, lunch time has always

been sacred for me. And indeed, we have the privilege of having
convenient, quick, relatively healthy, and cost-effective options
(for example, hawker centers) in close proximity to most
businesses, which creates ideal conditions for team lunches. I’ve
frequently seen people from all different backgrounds, cultures,
job functions, and levels convene during lunch, even in pandemic
times. There are enforced pandemic norms, including a limit on
the size of groups, but making time to connect and gather for
meals (safely) remains important to the average Singaporean
worker. I’ve heard of teams that work remotely but still make a
point to meet for lunch in small groups. While dining out might
not be an option for most workers in other countries for the
foreseeable future, the commitment to taking a break, mindfully
eating lunch, and ideally even connecting with a team member or
the whole team (virtually) is one I advocate wholeheartedly.

The onus lies on leaders to create the psychological safety for

employees to take time for lunch. Managers must ensure that
their teams don’t get penalized or viewed as less productive and
foster an environment where taking time for lunch is a norm
within the organization.

Everyone benefits when workplace lunches are normalized. One

survey found that North American employees who take a lunch
break every day reported higher engagement based on metrics
including job satisfaction, productivity, and likelihood to
recommend working there to others. Recent research also found
that firefighters who ate lunch together reported that it was a
“central component of keeping their teams operating effectively.”
I’d be willing to bet that more organizations could benefit from
greater team effectiveness, and normalizing lunch is a great place
to start, whether it’s to reduce stress and burnout, encourage
team-building, or foster an organizational culture that doesn’t
equate overwork with productivity.

Here’s how employers can realize those benefits by leading the

charge on creating an inclusive lunch culture at work.

Take lunch — visibly. The most impactful action is the simplest.

When managers take time to step away from their desks and take
a break, it creates an environment where we don’t always have to
be busy (or act like we are) to be considered productive. Infosys
co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, famous for high employee
morale at the Indian tech giant, ate lunch in the cafeteria with
employees whenever he could, even standing in line for his meal.
His values-based leadership was so profound that the company
experienced high attrition when he retired.

As a leader in the remote work environment, that could be

creating an “at lunch” notification, mentioning at the team
meeting that you’ll be away from your screen during lunch, or
verbally acknowledging in the afternoon, “I’m back from lunch.”

The important thing here isn’t the meal itself, but rather to make
it okay to leave your workplace (remote or not) and take a break,
whether that’s to eat, exercise, or go for a walk. When leaders take
breaks and make it known that they’re protecting that time,
employees feel empowered to do the same. When I worked in
tech, seeing most managers eating at their desks (or just working
through lunch) made me feel uneasy about taking a lunch break.
Instead, I’d snack incessantly at my desk, which had a terrible
impact on my health and left me feeling exhausted and burned
out at the end of most workdays.

Limit meetings at some mid-day hour. Back-to-back meetings

are characteristic of North American work culture and cause
employees at many companies to skip lunch. If companies
instead designated a time for all employees to eat or even run an
errand or two every day, more of them would actually take that
time for themselves. Lead by example by telling your team, “This
is my lunch hour. Don’t schedule meetings at that time, unless it’s
to casually connect. Please take your full hour for lunch, too.”

Encourage recurring lunch events. One leader I interviewed

years ago mentioned having company-sponsored, monthly
“culture lunches” at her company, where employees from
different backgrounds could sign up to bring in a meal from their
culture to share with colleagues. According to her, it created a
lively environment where employees from diverse backgrounds
could celebrate their culture with colleagues. If you work in a
large organization, you could facilitate rotating, smaller-group
culture lunches, both as a way for people to get to know their
colleagues and to break down silos between departments.
Research shows that women and people of color are
disproportionately saddled with these kinds of “office housework”
tasks, so make sure they’re distributed evenly across employees.

Organize lunchtime networking events, and ensure leaders

are present. Employees are more likely to leave their (virtual)
desks to attend scheduled activities when they see the value in
doing so — for example, in connecting with leaders. Research
continues to link social interactions with greater team trust, and
organizations that encourage employees to build relationships
with one another benefit in many ways. One organization I
consulted with held a reading club where teams could learn and
discuss a new concept and apply that knowledge to problems they
were already working on, which spurred innovation. These
relationships can also break down silos and create greater
inclusion of underrepresented team members, who may not
always have access to leadership without deliberate opportunities
to connect. Another bonus of lunchtime networking is that it’s
inclusive of people who can’t make evening events because of
family, caregiving, or other commitments. Importantly, these
events should be in addition to — not a replacement for — self-
directed lunch breaks.

Prioritize lunch, even if you work for yourself. When I first

started my consulting practice, I quickly stopped listening to my
own advice and routinely worked through lunch. Eventually, it
became clear that I was going to burn out — not taking breaks was
just not sustainable. When I take the time to take a proper lunch
break, I notice I eat healthier food, and the forced break helps me
refresh and clear my mind, bringing a fresh perspective to my
work. When I’m safely back to an in-person environment, I plan to
intentionally make time for at least two to four lunches a month
to build relationships that end up also having business benefits.
For now, I’m finding comfort in afternoon virtual walk-and-talks
to connect with colleagues or friends (like Nilofer Merchant
encouraged back in 2013).

Last year showed us the importance of human connection, and

most of us are aching to spend in-person time with our colleagues
when it’s safe. Let’s make it more than okay to take a (lunch)
break, whether we choose to spend it eating alone, going for a
walk, or dining with colleagues. I, for one, hope the back-to-back
meeting environment is something we can leave behind in 2021.

For me, that’s a life well-worked and lived.

Ruchika Tulshyan is the author of The

Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality
In The Workplace and the forthcoming book
Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional
Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at
Work. She is the founder of Candour, an
inclusion strategy firm.