The recession seems to permeate every area of our life these days and now it is our lunch that is suffering.New research has revealed that workers are either taking much less munch time or are simply skipping the midday meal altogether.
The survey, conducted by supermarket chain Spar, revealed that almost a quarter of us hard-working Brits are doing without a lunch break, while 10 per cent confessed to taking a less than relaxing 20 minutes.
As we would expect, many are spending less money on food in the workplace as the recession continues to dent our purses, but previous research has also found that the redundancy 'fear factor' is also key to our working lunches.
Internet survey specialists Tickbox.net discovered that many were afraid that taking a full hour for lunch might put them first in line should the dreaded R-word be mentioned and those aged 45 to 54 were found to be taking just 15 minutes for lunch.
A half-hour lunch break is the legal minimum for the average working day and with a many employees have a full hour-long break factored into their contracts.
Which means employers are benefiting from free manpower as staff make lunch-break cutbacks.
We're guessing that pub lunch with work pals is starting to look more appealing by the minute.
shopping spree
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Monday 12 October
Written by Chris R
A lot of this stems from the targets mentality of modern management. Yes, speaking as a manager targets are of benefit to overall productivity; however it is when they become a weapon that staff feel insecure.
If you are told that you have got to X number of phone calls an hour, or resolve Y number disputes then people will work through their lunch hours for fear of their jobs. You can compare this with the Dickensian attitudes, and the hire and fire mentality of the early 1990's. This hire and fire attitude was extended by the Americans and actually palagarised in Monty Python's: "Life of Bryan".
What is odd, is that employers never seem to learn. Not only is a member of staff who is not taking their mid-day break, and more to the point eating during it, less productive but the are not necessarily concentraing as hard as they would.
Employers have also forgotten that how you treat your employees when things are down, has a direct effect on staff turn over when things do pick up.
Those where qualified and down graded their specification to get the job are immediately made redundant, because they were "too expensive". This accounts for the reason why so many call centres appeared from 1995 onwards.
It is this call centre mentality which causes the problem later for the employer. When the market improves, those people who employed as cheap labour leave to find better jobs. Actually the employer is shooting themselves in the foot because had they looked after that person they were more likely to stay with the firm. Instead the employee leaves, and the employer then has to recruit a replacement: a very expensive exercise.
Returning to the point about skipping lunch, the employer is actually breaking the law (as you point out) and there is nothing to stop the employee who leaves the company making a retrospective claim for Constructive Dismissal, if it can be shown that the employer has used cohersion.
A difficult case to prove for a solitary claimant; but as a Class Action very destructive. The only problme is too many imployees do not know how to about these things. They either become over aggressive (in some cases violent), or alternatively just walh out en-bloc.
Employers can't have it both ways:
They can't cry in their beer about staff loyalty if they have the hire and fire and mentality (which we appear to have inherited from our American Cousins). Equally they cannot use the "gun against the head" method of management (if you don't meet your targets...) and expect to keep staff. Making people redundant, only to find that you have to re-recruit 12 months later is very expensive, both in terms of recruitment fees to employment agencies and the costs of making the original staff redundant in the first instance.
However bearing the above in mind, it may account for the number of contract staff and posts which are now frequently on a Fixed Term basis.
Don't skip lunch, do your job within its specification and well; and if the employer doesn't like it, providing you have been in their employ for more than 12 months, take legal advice and issues a summons. An employer cannot sack you for a successful claim in Law.
A lot of employers rely on their fiscal power to defend a Court Claim, again intimidating the employee. If in doubt seek specialist advice through The Green Form Scheme and Solicitors who specialise in Employment Law. If are many of you who feel the the same way or are been taken advantage of, you can always bring a joint (class) action and share the costs between you.
Should your action be succesful, you will be re-imbursed by the Court.
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