Okay ! now since i am so thrilled with this website, i think i am going to post questions daily to all those sea of questions i had.

I had a question on the break time we could give a staff. For example staff are required to work 8.5 hours on a 5 day week which means 42.5 hours in total for the week. Keeping this figure in mind, what are the math involved to decipher the break time. I know the answer would vary depending on the respective labour laws of each country, but just in general what is taken into consideration. At present this is a debatable question in my organisation, we used to allot break times of 1hr 15 mins to each staff, however there was an audit held recently where the same had to be reduced to 45 mins...how did that figure come about ?

We're probably not going to be able to help as as you say it's
very country specific.

In the UK it's x minutes break after y hours.
Although I can't remember the exact figure at the moment.

Odd that an audit would flag excessive time, normally I'd
expect it to flage deficiencies not excesses.

Unless of course it's an internal productivity audit, in
which case they've probably given you the local minima.

At the very least on a 37.5hr working week in the UK
the statutories are in a 7.5hr day 2*15 min breaks and
1* half hour. I've got the idea that 2.5hrs appears somewhere but.....

Not my field I'm afraid.


HTH

DaveA

Dave is right. The length of time leading up to breaks is a key concern of health and safety regulators, not simply the total time taken. Quoting from the relevant Prevent-IT! health and safety training and assessment module, schedule a five minute break away from the computer every hour or 15 minutes every two hours.

The first of these corresponds both to the Display Screen Equipment Regulations' requirement and to good practice specified for voice health. The longer interval /longer break option was also specified until recently and remains featured as an aid to scheduling flexibility. With flexibility in mind, the same module encourages team members to take scheduled breaks at times when call volumes are lower.

There's an important distinction between these and rest breaks. If there's work to be done away from the computer, correspondence related or team updates, for instance, scheduled break time is available for that.

It's in line with official guidance in the UK as regards scheduled breaks, and there is convergence in legislation across the EU.

As regards rest breaks, the Working Time Directive states that employees should work a maximum of six hours before a break.