How often should someone doing physical work take breaks?

Piret Kaljula, working environment consultant at the Labour Inspectorate, responds:

In addition to the breaks during the working day (lunch breaks) provided for by the Employment Contracts Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act provides for breaks that are included as part of working hours.

Under subsection 2 of § 9 and subsection 2 of § 9¹ of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the employer must enable the employee breaks counted as part of working hours to prevent physical stress and damage to health arising from psychosocial hazards. If an employee’s work is physically demanding, includes working in a forced position, or is mentally demanding, the employee must be able to take breaks to be included in the working time.

The frequency and duration of breaks are not determined by legislation. The provision of breaks should be based on the risk assessment of the working environment, which identifies any hazards that make it necessary to enable breaks that are included in the working time. The employer determines the length and frequency of the breaks, but they must be sufficient to allow the employee to restore the employee’s work ability and prevent physical stress. In determining the duration and frequency of breaks, the level of difficulty of the work must also be considered – the more demanding the work, the more breaks need to be provided for the employee. For instance, if a customer service representative cannot sit down even briefly during work, they should be provided with more frequent breaks than an employee who can sit occasionally.

A common practice in Estonia is that employees can take a 10 to 15 minute break after every two hours of work. Breaks must be able to be taken in a suitable resting room or a room adapted for this purpose, with seats with backs. In order for the break to be beneficial for recovery, the employee must be able to take a rest break away from the situation from which they need to rest.

The duration and frequency of breaks must be communicated to employees, for example, by describing them in the work organisation rules or the risk assessment of the working environment. It is essential that employees are actually able to take their breaks. If the employee has to constantly monitor what is happening in the store during the break and, if necessary, immediately go to serve the customer, such a break does not serve its purpose, because the customer service representative must be constantly on alert.