Why Should Employers be Required to Provide Rest and Meal Breaks?

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Robert instructor

English 102

December 8, 2018

Why Should Employers be Required to Provide Meal and Rest Breaks?

Current break laws in the united states originate from labor laws passed between 1935 and 1974. In 1938 Fair Labor Standard act was passed. ( Fair Labor Standards Act, 2018). Congress passed the bill to cap the maximum number of hours that could be required of employees. Surprisingly, the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require employers to give their employees breaks. Believe it or not, there are no federal laws requiring meal and rest breaks during a work shift. However, most employers do provide meal and rest breaks due to the benefits for both employees and employers. In today's fast paced world, a lot of employees choose to skip there breaks or eat at their work stations, never allowing their brain to reset. Employers should be required to provide meal and rest breaks during the work shift and employees should be required to participate in the breaks. Although many states have laws requiring break periods, there should be federal laws requiring these breaks. A break in the cycle of a work day benefits employers and employees. Some benefits include but are not limited to, increase in productivity, overall better mental health and a fresh perspective to allow employees to complete difficult tasks.

There is a universal notion that employees who participate in routine breaks are more productive. According to Careerbuilder, workplace psychologist Dr. janet Scarborough Civitelli says marginal returns are reduced when the brain is required to exert continuous pressure during an eight hour shift. (Ferguson, 2018). Its common for employees with high stress jobs to frequently skip breaks. Some employers even encourage employees to work strait through the entire day, praising them for hard work and dedication. But in all actuality this behavior may not only hurt the employee by causing them to burn out, but also the employers bottom line. Break rejuvenate employees. Almost the same as when a computer is restarted because its lagging. Taking breaks is like hitting the reset button on your brain, allowing you to complete tasks more accurately leading to fewer errors. Too many mistakes made may cause an employer a decrease in finances. Mistakes can be costly.

An overworked brain can be detrimental to an employees mental health. The mind can only take so much data or activity, to much can ultimately lead to stress.( Kohll, 2018). Stress is linked to bad work performance. ( Alkubaisi 2015.) Stress can cause bad behavior such as irritability, a sense of hopelessness and more accidents. Skipping a meal break can cause fatigue to Focus is an important factor contributing to successfully completing work duties. Disproportionate focus overworks the focus circuits in the brain. It can drain energy causing a loss in self control, being more impulsive and less helpful. As a result, decisions are less thought out, and the employee becomes less collaborative. ( Pillay, 2017). A recent survey by Tork shows nearly 90% of North American employees claim that taking a lunch break helps them to feel refreshed and ready to get back to work.( Kohll, 2018). Taking regular breaks makes a more diligent employee. Taking breaks during a hard day at work can give employees a fresh frame of mind.

Consider how frenzied you may become when you are looking for something you misplaced. You turn over every table, look in every closet and any other place the missing item may be. If you stop looking for a while and focus on something else for just a few minutes, then return to your search, you might discover that the missing item has been right in front of you the entire time. By walking away from the search you allowed your mind to relax for a few minutes and gained a fresh perspective on where the missing item might be. And voila`, it appeared.

Another example: the company accountant is trying to balance the accounts, but to no avail. They have re figured, revisited each account transaction and looked through every receipt becoming flustered. She decides to get up and leave her desk, maybe refill her coffee or use the restroom or just simply walk out of the office for a few minutes. When she returns, she revisits the issue at hand and realizes she missed a whole section of un noted transactions that she forgot to include. She reset her brain, calmed down and was able to problem solve successfully. Taking routine breaks during work can help an employee to feel higher levels of job satisfaction and feel more valued by their employer, increasing company morale.( kohll, 2018). Happy employees will work harder to please there employers leading to a better chance at a successful business.

In conclusion, overworked employees can easily get burned out and become lackadaisical. Failing to engage in sufficient breaks from work, can lead to employee productivity, overall mental well being, and overall work performance to begin to suffer causing the bottom line to decline. It would benefit everyone involved for a federal law to be put in place requiring employers to provide rest and meal breaks and employees to be required to partake in regular scheduled breaks.

Works Cited

"Fair Labor Standards Act." Dictionary of American History. Encyclopedia. 16 Dec. 2018.
Ferguson, Grace. " The Importance of Employee Breaks." Small Business
Pillay, Srini. " Your Brain Can Only Take so Much Focus." Harvard Business Review.
Kohll, Alan. " New Study Shows Correlation Between Employee Engagement and the Long Lost Lunch Break."
Alkubaisi, Dr. Muwafaq. " How Can Stress Affect Your Work Performance?" Quantitative Field Study on Quatari Banking Sector.

Alicia, your essay has too much theoretical presentation and cited paraphrasing but not enough factual data presented. Convincing any reader will require numerical evidence to c support the claims being made in your research. Indicating the percentage of work results based on a comparison year to year chart can help illustrate the benefit of regular work breaks. At the moment, you are presenting theoretical discussions and citations from experts but you lack numerical data to back up your claims. You can do a comparison of work force data related to the effectiveness of break times in the workplace over 5 or 10 continuous years.

You should come workplace accidents and it's rated a period of time to help defend the reasons why employees need to take regular breaks as well. Right now, the research seems to be saying the same thing repeatedly using different sources. Consider adding more relevant research to the paper based on my content suggestions above. Those added information should help you create a more definitive research paper on terms of relevant content.