Rest breaks at work are important to support employee wellbeing, optimise workforce performance and, in many work environments, ensure safety. As such, employers have to give their workers appropriate breaks and opportunities for rest while at work.
As an employer, if you fail to meet the minimum legal requirements, or to offer a suitable compensatory alternative, you risk workplace complaints and, potentially, employment tribunal claims.
In this guide, we explain the different types of rest breaks at work, the rules on frequency and duration of rest breaks, and how many hours per week an employee is allowed to work.
Rest breaks at work laws
The rules governing employee rest breaks are primarily set out in the Working Time Regulations (1998). You can also find information in the Working Time Regulations pertaining to holiday time and paid time off.
Further rules in the Equality Act 2010 relate to breaks at work for different types of employee; for example, employees with disabilities may be entitled to longer breaks, or more breaks throughout the working day. the Equality Act also discusses rest break rules for employees in high-risk jobs.
In addition to the minimum statutory requirements for breaks at work, employees may also be entitled to further rest breaks if this is stipulated in their employment contract.
Types of work breaks
Workers over the age of 18 are generally entitled to three types of work break: rest breaks at work, daily rest and weekly rest.
Daily rest breaks at work
Unless otherwise stated in their contract of employment, an employee can work for up to, and including, six hours without being legally entitled to a rest break.
When an employee works a shift of longer than six hours, you must allow them to take a break of at least 20 minutes.
The employee has a right to take this 20-minute break away from the workplace and without interruption. This means you cannot force them to take two or more shorter breaks, nor can you expect them to perform work-related duties during their break.
Furthermore, breaks at work cannot be scheduled to occur at the beginning or end of the employee’s shift.
While you may choose to pay employees for their daily rest breaks, this is not required by law.
Contrary to common assumption, employees have no further right to rest breaks beyond the 20-minute minimum once the six-hour threshold has been surpassed.
However, it is common and fair practice for employers to allow an employee additional breaks at work when they are engaged in longer shifts.
Though you may not have the legal obligation to provide extra rest breaks, you do have a duty of care to ensure no employee works in conditions which may be detrimental to their health or general wellbeing.
In addition, an employer should give an employee enough breaks to ensure their health and safety is not put at risk if that work is ‘monotonous’.
Employers have the right to set out within an employment contract at what point during a shift and employee takes their rest break. The specific timing of breaks at work can also be dictated by managerial staff shift by shift, to position them at the most convenient and appropriate time for all parties. Though, as stated above, breaks cannot be taken at the very start or very end of the shift.
Daily and weekly rest
In addition to daily breaks at work, your employees are entitled to a minimum period of uninterrupted rest each day and each week. These rules must be accommodated when outlining employee rotas and scheduling shifts. The minimum rest requirements are as follows:
- At least 11 hours rest each day
- At least 24 hours rest every seven days, or, 48 hours of rest every 14 days
Though employees are entitled to this amount of daily and weekly rest by law, they may choose to ‘opt out’ and work additional hours.
Exceptions to employee rest break rules
Employees under 18 years old are subject to different rules. Unlike adult workers, underage members of your workforce are entitled to a 30-minute break for any shift more than 4.5 hours long, and a minimum of 12 hours rest each day.
There are few other exceptions to employee rest break rules that apply to certain industries and job types. These are:
- Emergency services and armed forces personnel are not covered by the Working Time Regulations.
- Transport sector employees are usually subject to industry-specific rest break rules.
- The Working Time Regulations do not apply to jobs that have no set hours or for which the work is not ‘measured’.
Compensatory rest breaks
In instances where an employee is unable to take rest breaks or time off work in accordance with the Working Time Regulations, they may be able to take ‘compensatory’ rest at a later point.
This may be the case for employees who would usually be entitled to rest breaks but cannot take them, as doing so would make it impossible to fulfil some intrinsic and essential aspect of their role, such as:
- Hospital employees and medical professionals
- Those who work in security or surveillance
- Shift workers who cannot take the usual minimum amount of rest between the end of one shift and the start of the next
The rules surrounding compensatory rest breaks are not straightforward. Where the demands of a specific role prevent standard breaks at work being taken, employers have a responsibility to facilitate compensatory rest breaks; however, this can be achieved in a number of ways. For instance, an air traffic controller who cannot leave his or her post for an uninterrupted 20-minute break may be permitted to take several, shorter breaks instead.
Are employees entitled to toilet breaks at work?
Nowhere in the Working Time Regulations or the Equality Act does it state that employees are legally entitled to toilet breaks. It is also relatively uncommon now for toilet breaks to be mentioned in an employee’s employment contract.
While employers could impose restrictions on the number and length of toilet breaks taken throughout a shift, it is generally considered bad practice to do so.
Restricting toilet visits could have a detrimental impact on employee comfort and wellbeing.
In this respect, toilet breaks are less of a ‘working time’ issue and more the domain of health and safety. Though the consensus is that toilet breaks should not be limited in an employment contract, employers can discipline workers for taking excessive toilet breaks if the problem is serious enough to qualify as misconduct.
Can employees take smoking breaks?
Employers are not legally required to offer employees smoking breaks. The argument could be made that impeding an employee’s ability to smoke would cause undue stress or impact the quality of their work. However, offering additional rest breaks exclusively to the employees who smoke would likely cause resentment and cause for complaint among non-smoking team members. If you feel smoking breaks are warranted, you may wish to make additional, shorter breaks available to all employees.
Rest breaks for religious reasons
The decision whether or not to allow breaks at work for prayers or other religious practices is at the discretion of the employer.
By law, there is no provision within the Working Time Regulations for breaks at work for religious reasons. This means that your workforce has no legal right to take breaks for religious activities, or on the basis that it is a religious requirement.
However, employers must also ensure any decision they make in respect of breaks for religious reasons does not constitute unlawful discrimination. Religion and belief are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. As such, if an employer refuses a request based on religion or belief, resulting in less favourable treatment for that employee, and the employer cannot justify their refusal, the employee may have grounds to bring a discrimination claim.
As such, many employers choose to allow agreed rest breaks for certain religious reasons to support good workforce relations.
Where you do opt to allow rest breaks for prayers or other religious practice, you should set this out in the employee’s contract.
HGV driver rest break rules
Employees in some industries are subject to a different set of rules concerning mandatory breaks at work. This is the case in any line of work where safety would be a serious concern, should the employee fail to take regular breaks. Drivers of heavy goods vehicles (HGV) are one such example of this, as regular and sufficient rest breaks are essential to ensure they remain attentive behind the wheel.
The UK still applies EU laws in relation to HGV rest breaks. These require that drivers have at least 11 hours of rest each working day. This can be lowered to 9 hours rest 3 times between any 2 weekly rest periods. HGV drivers must also have an uninterrupted rest period of 45 hours per week, which can be reduced to 24 hours every other week. They must also have a break or multiple breaks totalling at least 45 minutes after no more than 4 hours 30 minutes driving. Finally, they must also have their weekly rest after 6 consecutive 24-hour periods of working, starting from the end of the last weekly rest period taken.
If any of your employees work in roles that require mandatory breaks, you must take steps to ensure they are fulfilling this requirement.
Author
Gill Laing is a qualified Legal Researcher & Analyst with niche specialisms in Law, Tax, Human Resources, Immigration & Employment Law.
Gill is a Multiple Business Owner and the Managing Director of Prof Services - a Marketing Agency for the Professional Services Sector.
