What Should An Employer in England and Wales Know About Rest Breaks?

As an employer, you should know your staff’s legal entitlements for rest breaks. This applies regardless of whether your staff work from your usual workplace or from their home. Providing rest breaks is a legal requirement that overlaps with your duty towards protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of your staff. This article will explain what you need to know about rest breaks for your staff. It will detail minimum requirements, where these may vary, exceptions and other considerations. 

What Are Rest Breaks?

Rest breaks are the time your staff have as a break away from their job. Breaks can be during the job or between days or shifts. Your staff are required to have breaks whether they are in the office or working remotely. Most workers over the age of 18 years are legally entitled to these. There are three main types of breaks from the workplace:

• rest breaks during work;
• daily rest; and 
• weekly rest.

Each type of rest break has a minimum legal requirement. However, you can allow your staff more than the minimum legal requirement if you choose. However, when you do offer more breaks, record that amendment within your employment contracts.

Rest Breaks at Work

Rest breaks at work are the breaks your staff take when working for you. If you have staff who work longer than 6 hours during the day, they are legally entitled to a rest break lasting 20 minutes. This break must not be interrupted and could be when they eat a meal. However, you are not legally required to pay them when they take their rest break and their employment contract should detail whether you choose to do this.

Daily Rest 

Daily rest is the rest your workers take between their daily hours of work. The legal requirement is that your staff must have 11 hours of rest between each working day with you. Therefore, if your staff finish work at 9 pm, they are not allowed to start work with you the following day before 8 am. 

Weekly Rest

Your staff are entitled to a rest within their working week known as a weekly rest. This must be either:

• 24 uninterrupted hours away from work interrupted per week; or
• 48 uninterrupted hours away from work per fortnight.

Variations To Standard Work Break Entitlements

Although there are legal requirements regarding your staff’s rest break entitlements, there are also some exceptions and variations to the entitlement. 

The following are an exemption to when a person has the right to rest breaks:

• where their work involves dealing with disasters and they belong to the army, police or other emergency services;
• where the role allows them to choose their own hours;
• where their work is not measured in terms of set hours;
• where they work in sea transport; and
• mobile workers, which are those who work in air or road transport. However, where anyone’s health and safety is at risk, regular rest is an entitlement.

Compensatory Rest Breaks

The total amount of rest breaks a worker may take is an average of 90 hours per week which does not include their entitlement to the standard breaks at work.

Compensatory rest breaks may apply to your staff if, for example:

• they work in shifts, and therefore, daily and weekly holidays are not possible in between;
• your business has busy times during the year compared to the rest of the year;
• their working day is disjointed such as working in the morning and then again in the evening; 
• they have more than one workplace, and the distance between the workplaces is reasonable; or
• something is happening at your business, such as an accident or an event, and you need them to work.

Other Considerations in Terms of Rest Breaks

Whilst there are minimum legal requirements in terms of your staffs’ work breaks, you also need to consider their health and safety when granting rest breaks. For example, where your staff work on a production line, this work can be monotonous. Therefore, you may decide to give your staff more work breaks than legally required. 

As an employer, you have a duty of care towards your staff, and therefore, work breaks are part of this. However, where your staff work as domestic workers in a private house, health and safety reasons are not valid to allow rest breaks.

There are other important considerations in terms of your staffs’ work breaks:

1. You can decide when your team takes their rest break. However, the break must be in one chunk, near the middle of their working day and away from the exact spot where they usually work, such as a workstation.
2. If you ask your staff to return to their place of work, such as their workstation before 20 minutes is complete, your staff have effectively missed their legal entitlement to a work break.
3. Unless stated in their employment contract, your staff do not have the right to a smoking break in addition to their legally required rest break. 
4. If your staff drive a passenger-carrying vehicle or a goods vehicle, they have a different legal requirement to breaks. The break relates to the hours a person can drive before taking a break.
5. Different legal entitlements to breaks apply to young workers. Workers who are above school leaving age but under 18 receive a 30-minute break when working more than 4.5 hours, daily rest of 12 hours and weekly rest of 48 hours.

Key Takeaways

Generally speaking, most employers are legally required to allow their staff rest breaks. For example, ensuring breaks during work time as well as daily and weekly breaks. You can choose to allow your staff more than the minimum entitlement. Additionally, it might be necessary for more breaks to ensure health and safety. Some jobs and situations may mean that your staff cannot take their rest breaks. Where this occurs, your staff may be entitled to compensatory breaks. There are more requirements regarding the entitlements for young workers or the timing of rest breaks. 

If you need help understanding working hours and rest breaks in England and Wales, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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