Amid the pandemic, the widespread closures of offices spurred a new era of remote working. That, of course, came with its fair share of changes. Telework suddenly became the new norm. Same with casual attire — as opposed to business casual attire. And same with the lack of corporate lunch culture.
The traditional lunch break is defined as a period of time when one stops working to eat lunch — whether by themselves or with co-workers. In the past decade, the popularity of the communal office kitchen has made lunch breaks more of a social and joyous affair. But when remote working took off, lunch breaks quickly became non-existent. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that during the post-lockdown period, people spent an average of 48.5 minutes more at work each day. Spending more time in meetings and responding to emails also meant less time away from the computer to enjoy lunch.
When asked back in 2019 what she would consider a life well-lived, Ruchika T. Malhotra said it’s “a proper, generous lunch break.”
“I’d consider my life well-lived if I took time to eat lunch during the workday almost every day,” she wrote in the Harvard Business Review. “This means not at my desk, not in a meeting or while working, but connecting with someone, or even myself, while I eat mindfully.”
Malhotra continued, “I’d like to add: let’s normalize a proper, generous lunch break — both in the remote work environment and especially when we return to any sort of regular, in-person office environment.”
Unfortunately for Malhotra, it seems like the lunch break we once knew still hasn’t made its grand comeback as more people returned to the office.
Last week, Meta fired more than 20 employees from its Los Angeles office for misusing the company’s meal vouchers to purchase personal care items like laundry detergent, toothpaste and acne treatment pads instead. The vouchers — $20 for breakfast and $25 each for lunch and dinner — are given to employees who work at smaller offices without food services. They allow employees to eat while working at the office, which often includes incredibly long hours, per CNN.
Some of the LA-based employees used the meal vouchers to purchase non-food items, according to an internal investigation. Others had meals delivered to their homes, a source familiar with the company told CNN.
“When you’re paying someone $400,000 a year, as one terminated employee claimed, why would you care if they occasionally used their meal vouchers for other things?” inquired human resources consultant and self-proclaimed "evil HR lady" Suzanne Lucas in an op-ed for Inc. “Well, precisely because you’re paying that someone to work. The point of meal vouchers is not, and never has been, to be kind. It’s to keep people working through their meals.”
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Lucas continued, saying the meal vouchers “incentivize that behavior.”
“Using that money to buy household items doesn’t incentivize people to work longer hours. Indeed, I would doubt that extra toothpaste — which the aforementioned employee told the Financial Times they purchased using their voucher — encourages people to keep working.”
Working long hours often means employees are sacrificing their lunch breaks. This seems to be a growing trend amongst a younger generation of workers. A recent survey by catering company ezCater Inc. found that Gen Z workers, in particular, are much less likely to take a lunch break compared to other demographics. Forty-seven percent of Gen Z workers said they miss lunch at least twice a week. Seventy-five percent of Gen Z workers said that even when they do schedule time for a lunch break, the time gets used to complete additional work — like last-minute meetings or assignments.
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Millennials (38%) were second most likely to miss lunch at least twice a week.
The survey, which examined the workplace lunchtime habits of 5,000 full-time U.S. workers, also found that inflation played a major role in influencing lunch-related decisions. Seventy-eight percent of employees said inflation has changed their lunch habits. That means more folks are purchasing lunch less frequently, choosing cheaper options (i.e. packed home lunches) or cutting their lunch budgets.
As for Meta’s terminations, Lucas argued that while the company took harsh measures, they could have “approached it differently” by “removing the privilege of meal vouchers for employees who violated the rule.”
In an announcement made on Oct. 17, Meta said it is currently laying off people “as part of a series of separate restructurings,” CNN reported.
“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in a statement. “This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.”
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