The other day, I was thinking about how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed me in unexpected ways. For example, I used to hate grocery shopping, but now I find it’s better than ordering delivery and receiving green onions when I ordered broccoli. And I enjoy being home more often than I used to.
But a recent article, “The Future of Work is Lunch” in Businessweek, caught my eye because it discussed something that hasn’t really changed for working people in the U.S.: the weekday lunch.
When working, most people eat lunch at their desks, bringing in leftovers or a hastily made sandwich. And that’s primarily because, as Businessweek reports: “During the past half-century, the workday lunch has been cast as a wasteful indulgence, the enemy of productivity … . Before the pandemic, more than 60% of U.S. professionals ate lunch at their desks, more than half ate lunch alone, and over a third rarely, if ever, took a lunch break at all.”
But taking a true lunch break can have more benefits than drawbacks.
Businessweek reports a 2016 Finnish study demonstrated workers who took time to get away for lunch for an entire year were able to detach themselves physically and psychologically from their jobs and showed increased energy when they returned to work in the afternoon.
In fact, French labor codes prohibit workers from eating lunch at their desks or in the workplace in general (though this briefly paused during the pandemic). Employees must leave the premises to have their lunches (even if brought from home) for a change of scenery and spend time with colleagues away from the workplace. They also are discouraged from speaking about work-related topics.
This short freedom from work can allow employees to look at the world in a new way, opening up channels to imagination that can benefit their work when they return to their desks.
“Even something as banal as an advertisement glanced on the way to the elevator can lead to a new idea or thought about a product or project,” says the Businessweek article author.
Maybe as a belated New Year’s resolution, you can try to take your lunch away from the office and encourage your team to do the same. I started doing this, and, like me, you might be pleasantly surprised.
AMBIKA PUNIANI REID is editor of Professional Roofing and NRCA’s vice president of communications.
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