What type of workday break is the most effective?
Dr James Hewitt
Human Performance Scientist | Keynote Speaker | Consultant & Advisor | Empowering knowledge workers with science-based tools to achieve sustainable high performance
Prior to the pandemic, many employers were considering how to improve the effectiveness of breaks in the workplace, and actively encouraging employees to take breaks during the day as a way to re-charge, improve wellbeing and performance.
Business looked like it was booming for meditation room builders, nap pod purveyors and ping pong table manufacturers. But many of us are working from home now, and it seems that we're more in need of recovery than ever before.
54% of people feel overworked, while 39% describe themselves as exhausted, according to Microsoft's 2021 Work Trend Index . If you get time to step away from your screen, what type of break is the most effective?
As I mentioned in an earlier post , some research indicates that time spent on Microsoft Teams calls has increased by over 2000% since the start of the pandemic, with a 30% increase in working hours associated with this. For many of us, these changes mean that we have even less time for breaks during the working day.
It's no surprise that Microsoft is getting increasingly interested in how we can address these challenges. The company is working on several features to reduce fatigue and make it easier to take breaks during the day, such as ‘Together mode’ and a ‘virtual commute’. The company’s Human Factors Lab also recently shared the results of a small study into the effects of meditation breaks. Their findings suggest that even a brief meditation break could improve recovery and subsequent engagement, when the participants returned to work.
The study did not test any other break types, such as simply sitting quietly, or taking a short walk. Consequently, it’s not possible to determine how much of an effect mindfulness had, relative to other recovery practices. However, there is a large body of existing research suggesting what types of breaks are the most effective. I created this video to share some examples.
What Types Of Micro-Breaks Are Most Effective?
Like many people, I find myself reaching for my smartphone when I want to take a break from work. I might scroll through twitter or a news website for a few minutes. The popular press is doing a pretty good job at making me feel guilty about my smartphone habit, but I’ve not found many evidence-based alternatives to suggest what I should be doing in my brief respites from work.
In 2015 a group of researchers set out to investigate the relationship between four different types of micro-breaks and job performance:
?The study is interesting from an academic and practical perspective. While a significant amount of research has explored off-job recovery experiences and their positive outcomes (i.e. how we recover outside of work, and what benefits this has), relatively fewer studies have investigated ‘on-the-job recovery’.
Is It The Coffee Or The Conversation?
The data in the 2015 study was generated from twice daily surveys and sales performance results, over two working weeks, from a group of 71 employees. Surprisingly, while relaxation, socialisation and cognitive activities were positively related to increased positive mood and improved performance, micro-breaks for nutrition-intake, such as drinking a coffee, did not predict positive mood or job performance. After controlling for caffeine consumption and mood, the findings suggest that nutrition-intake breaks are effective because they often coincide with other break activities, such as socialisation. So the coffee doesn’t matter as much as the conversation.
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Examples Of Effective Micro-Breaks
According to the paper, effective micro-breaks include:
Relaxation activities:
Socialising activities:
Cognitive activities:
?The researchers even recommended giving employees free internet access, books, magazines, and newspapers so that they could take a mental break from work demands.
Why Work Engagement Matters
The study results also suggest that work engagement moderated the effects of micro-breaks on performance, via positive mood. Basically, the results indicate that, if you’re not feeling particularly interested or engaged with your work, boosting positive mood is an important predictor of work-performance as it plays a central role in motivation. Consequently, finding ways to increase positive mood (such as by taking a micro-break), is effective. However, if you already feel highly engaged and interested in what you’re doing, positive mood, and by extension micro-breaks, don’t matter so much; you are more likely to feel motivated and be able to get on with the job and perform.
Taking A Break Doesn’t Mean That You Can’t Do Anything
As is this case with a lot of workplace research, the results are quite intuitive. Micro-breaks are useful, especially if you aren’t feeling very motivated or engaged, and the most effective breaks include activities that help you to relax, interact with other people and detach from work, even if that does involve your smartphone. And for those of us who find it difficult to switch off and stop completely, I find the idea that taking a break doesn’t mean that I have to ‘do nothing’ quite liberating.
References
Kim S, Park YA, Headrick L. Daily micro-breaks and job performance: General work engagement as a cross-level moderator. J Appl Psychol. 2018;103(7):772–86.
Kelly CM, Strauss K, Arnold J, Stride C. The relationship between leisure activities and psychological resources that support a sustainable career : The role of leisure seriousness and work-leisure similarity. J Vocat Behav [Internet]. 2019;(April 2018):103340. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2019.103340
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3 年very good article