Small business owners or not, we have all been there. Rolling over in bed, you see the clock reads 08:45 and you realise you have just 15 minutes to trawl through drawers and clothes to find something socially acceptable to wear for work and get there too. Unfortunately, this just happens to be the day that your partner has off (and they get particularly grouchy when it comes to being woken up just because you have work), so you have to achieve the impossible by unearthing matching socks in the dark before tripping over the dog, falling down the stairs and landing on a strategically placed Lego brick. No time for broken backs, though, as you are late for work and still haven’t had your morning hot beverage. So just how important are tea breaks and tea making facilities at work? We’ve taken a peek at what the current research and opinions are on the matter.
Leading academics say that tea breaks make better teams
This insight from the Fresh Tracks team (@FreshTracks) claims that there may be no “i” in team but there is a “tea”. This rather witty pun actually has a lot of relevance in this situation because their claims are that having tea breaks with people from your department is a great way to increase productivity, so much so that one US bank claims to have seen a productivity increase to the tune of $15 million. The American firm also note that in their call centre, there has been a reduction in staff turnover thanks to increased employee satisfaction because of synchronised tea breaks, which give the staff time to talk and chat about things, thus taking their mind off the job for a while.
Unfortunately however, not all people are accustomed to wanting to take tea breaks or socialize. For some people that prefer to work alone without interaction, the idea of a tea break being synchronised or them having to sit with other people can be quite anxious. The idea should be tailored that people get to take a break to do what they want to do, rather than made to go and sit somewhere with people when they necessarily don’t want to.
Tea breaks make your employees more productive!
This next article focuses on how having a cup of tea can help you break from the hold of work and simply enjoy a moment to yourself to reflect and re-gather your thoughts. However, an interesting point that Darren Tracey (@DarrenTracey) makes in the article is that free tea and coffee facilities costs businesses around £276 per year, per employee. That amount obviously gets a lot larger when the business grows in size. However the benefits do outweigh the costs in this particular study because it was observed that the time spent making the copious cups of coffee wasn’t wasted, with 72% of those involved engaging in conversation and 69% of these conversations being work-related. This is extremely interesting because we all feel the physical and mental effects of going to grab a brew because it is a literal separation from our work.
Try this the next time you are at work: When it comes to your next break, try sitting and taking it at your desk. Have a cup of tea with you but don’t touch or look at any work. Then when it comes to your next break, go and make a cup of tea or coffee, take a walk around, sit and have a chat with someone but don’t go back to your desk until your break is over. You will notice that the latter of the two will be more likely to make you feel better, more alert and more switched on due to the physical separation from your work. Just try not to disturb everyone else whilst you’re at it, eh?
Is a tea break at work good for productivity?
The final article that we have taken an insight from is direct from the Beeb. This article takes more of an opposing approach however to the daily tea rituals that the majority of us undergo. The article, written by Tom De Castella (@TDeCastella), explains that it takes 24 minutes per day for a coffee break, which costs businesses on average around £400 per year, per employee. A lot more than the £276 that Tracey quoted in the previous article, but both show that the tea and coffee break are actually costing businesses money.
The article goes on further to say that after years of studying caffeine in tea, it does not help towards mental stimulation and the actual feeling that someone gets from drinking tea or coffee is actually stemming the withdrawal symptoms of not having their cup of joe. He then goes on to say that the 24 minutes are not wasted because if a worker is feeling tired, a cup of tea does help to restore them back to “normal” levels of concentration for a while. We think it’s a great piece, but fails to take into account any social and constructive benefits that the hallowed tea or coffee break has, as described by the previous articles.
Tea breaks seem to prove to be extremely good in helping people to separate from work for a 15 minute spell as well as encouraging conversation – which is invariably work related. So after the disaster of turning up to work looking like you have been dragged through a hedge backwards, it is obviously extremely important to have good, working, clean and sociable tea making facilities. At least it helps to restore some calm to your employees. Try our water boilers to cut down the amount of time wasted spent waiting for the kettle to boil.
Related content:
Back