Rest Breaks at Work (Employers’ Guide)

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The rules on taking breaks at work are covered by the Working Time Regulations 1998 and your employee’s own contract of employment.

Whether or not these breaks are paid is entirely your decision as the employer, and should be stated in the employee’s contract.

Most employees have a right to a break of twenty minutes if they work for six hours or more. The break can be away from their desk and, as stated, does not need to be paid.

The break may be taken at any point during the working day, but cannot simply be tagged on to the beginning or end of an employee’s shift.

There are some employees who do not qualify for this break, for example senior executives, the emergency services and police, and transport workers.

Below we summarise the key points for employers when dealing with rest breaks at work, including the recent exceptional contingency measure to relax drivers’ working hours in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

 

What does the Working Time Directive say?

The Working Time Directive is a piece of EU law that became UK law in the form of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR).

The WTR give the employee the right to:

  • A maximum of 48-hours on the working week, which includes overtime.
  • A compulsory break of twenty minutes after six hours of work.
  • A break of 11 hours in every 24.
  • One day off a week or two days off a fortnight.

 

Opting out of the Working Time Regulations

It is possible for an employee to opt out of the first of these, relating to the 48 hour maximum working week, by signing an opt out agreement. This is voluntary and can be for a certain period of time, or indefinitely.

Even if the opt out provision is contained in an employee’s contract of employment, an employer must allow an employee to opt back in if they request to do so.

The employee should give notice that they want to opt back in, and the employer can specify the length of this notice, which can be between seven days and three months.

The WTR state that you must keep ‘adequate’ records of the hours worked by your employees, and payroll data is usually deemed to suffice.

It is not possible to opt out of any of the other obligations under the WTR, although there are exceptional cases where the entitlements to normal rest breaks do not apply. These cover employees in specific types of work who are instead entitled to compensatory rest, and are discussed separately below.

 

Other protections under the WTR

There are special provisions if you employ someone who is over school leaving age but under 18. In that case, you must allow them to take a break of 30 minutes if they work for 4 hours and thirty minutes or more, and they must have twelve hours rest per day and two days of rest per week.

Night workers also receive additional protection under the WTR. A night worker is someone who works for at least three hours during the night, and the night is defined as being between 11pm and 6am. In such a case, employees’ hours are capped at an average of eight hours for each 24 hour period, calculated according to a seventeen week reference period. Modifications to the deemed night time period can be made by collective agreement where you have a unionised workforce.

Night workers whose jobs involve special hazards, or heavy physical or mental strain, are only allowed to work eight hours in any 24 hour period, with no averaging. An employee is deemed to fall into this special category if a collective agreement identifies them as doing so, or a risk assessment made by the employer has identified a significant risk to the health or safety of its employees from this kind of work.

Finally, the entitlements to rest breaks also apply to those employed on zero hours contracts.

 

What is compensatory rest?

Compensatory rest is where an employee misses out on a rest break, so has to take a break at another time to make up for it.

Under Regulation 21 of the WTR these are known as ‘special cases’ and include the following categories of employees:

  • those working in security;
  • those working in industries which “involve the need for continuity of service or production” such as hospitals, residential institutions (like care homes and boarding schools), television and radio production and utility providers;
  • those whose jobs involve “a foreseeable surge of activity”, for example, in tourism; or
  • employees who miss out on a rest break due to “unusual and unforeseeable circumstances” that are “beyond the control” of their employer.

 

Length of compensatory rest

In these cases the employer is legally obliged to, wherever possible, allow the employee to take an equivalent period of compensatory rest, which should be a reasonable period of time after the missed break, and as long as the break would have been.

A recent case in the Court of Appeal clarified the nature of compensatory rest periods. In Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v Crawford [2019], the employee worked as a signaller whose role it was to regulate railway traffic. Because of the continuity of service involved, Mr Crawford fell within the special cases in Regulation 21 of the WTR. Therefore, he was entitled to compensatory rest.

During his eight hour shift, Mr Crawford was able to take many short breaks of five minutes, which exceeded twenty minutes in total.

However, he was not able to take one interrupted break of twenty minutes. The Court of Appeal held that the period of compensatory rest did not need to be identical to the original entitlement, and found that the employer’s obligation to provide compensatory rest was satisfied by the frequency and total length of breaks enjoyed by the employee. This was seen as a relatively reassuring result for employers, but it should be noted that the court examined closely the working pattern in this case in order to reach its conclusion and will presumably take a similarly forensic approach in the future.

 

What if I cannot provide compensatory rest?

If the employer simply cannot provide the compensatory rest break, it must still take steps to safeguard the health and safety of an employee who is missing out on their breaks. Such steps should be meaningful and documented. For example, the employer can offer a free health assessment to the employee, to check that the employee’s working hours are not having a detrimental effect on their health. The employee is not obliged to accept this offer.

The employer could also assign them to lighter duties after the period of intense activity has subsided, or offer assistance in the form of a temporary extra member of the team.

As stated, the courts have shown that they will assess each case on its own merits, so it is important that adequate records are kept for each employee.

 

What are the rest break entitlements for 8 hour shifts or longer?

There is no extra entitlement to a rest break if your employee works a shift of longer than eight hours. However, you must bear in mind the employee’s right to a break of 11 hours in every 24.

There is a separate provision in the WTR for those employees engaged in a monotonous pattern of work “such as to put the health and safety of a worker…at risk”. This could be work on a production line, for example. In this case, Regulation 8 states that the employer must ensure that the employee is given “adequate rest breaks.” There is no detail on what these may be, but it is safe to assume that additional breaks are required to fulfil this obligation.

 

Health and Safety obligations

An employer owes a duty to the employee, under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, to take reasonable care of their health and safety at work, including providing adequate bathroom facilities. You will owe additional obligations to some employees and these are outlined below.

 

Pregnancy

Once an employee tells you that they are pregnant, you must carry out a risk assessment. This should address the risks posed to the employee by long working hours and standing or sitting for long periods without sufficient breaks. You should discuss with the employee what amendments might need to be made to their working pattern, for example, increasing their number of breaks.

 

Medical conditions

If an employee tells you that they have a medical condition that requires them to use the toilet more frequently, then you must allow this. If you deem it necessary, you can ask for medical evidence to support the employee’s position.

Whether or not an employee needs to visit the toilet more or less during the working day will depend on a myriad of factors, including age, menstruation and the menopause. Several protected characteristics could be engaged by you restricting toilet breaks amongst people in these groups. Therefore, you must take a cautious approach in order to avoid committing indirect discrimination.

 

Drivers’ working hours 

Under drivers’ hours rules, there is a daily limit of 9 hours of driving between daily/weekly rest periods. The daily limit can however be increased to a maximum of 10 hours driving in a day but only twice in any one week.

There is a maximum of 56 hours weekly driving limit and a maximum of 90 hours fortnightly driving limit.

Although there isn’t a set daily restriction for how long a driver can work in a day (between rest periods), the requirements for a decreased daily rest period of 9 hours in a day essentially prohibits truck drivers from working days longer than 15 hours more than three times per week. The longest workday is 13 hours when a driver is taking their 11-hour daily rest break in its entirety.

The working day is comprised of time tracked for driving, other tasks, breaks, and availability intervals in between daily/weekly rest periods. The breaks and availability times must be taken into account when calculating the working day for a lorry driver even though working time only involves driving or other work in order to ensure that the required amount of daily rest has been obtained.

A period of availability refers to waiting time, that is neither a break or a rest. A HGV driver’s period of availability must include the time they are available to start working or pick up where they left off. The period and its length should be known to the driver in advance, either before leaving or before the beginning of the relevant period.

 

Need assistance?

When dealing with workforce issues, it is important to consider the full legal risks and rights of your workers. DavidsonMorris’ employment lawyers are on hand to help you assess the circumstances and understand the options that are in your best interests, not least to avoid unwanted tribunal claims and damage to reputation.

As employment law specialists, we can assist if you have any queries relating to working conditions, employee rights and the legal risks of making changes to contractual terms. Speak to our experts today for advice.

 

Rest breaks at work FAQs

What are the rules for toilet breaks?

There are no specific rules for toilet breaks; the only compulsory daily break is that of twenty minutes after six hours of work.

However, it is not recommended to try to restrict toilet breaks, as this could cause health problems for employees, and does not send a positive message to employees. Therefore, it is expected that both employee and employer will approach this in a responsible and respectful manner.

What are the rules for lunch breaks?

Lunch breaks per se are not covered by the Working Time Regulations. However, most employment contracts contain the right to a lunch break of one hour, and should also state whether this is paid or unpaid.

Can employees take longer breaks during hot weather?

No, there is no provision for employees to take longer breaks during hot weather. In fact, there is no specified legal maximum temperature in the workplace at all (although there is a minimum temperature). The Health and Safety at Work Act states that the temperature in the workplace should be reasonable, which depends on what type of work is being done and where. However, employers should take account of employees who may be especially sensitive to the heat, and need extra breaks as a result. For example, pregnant employees, those with medical conditions and older employees.

Last updated: 26 August 2022

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