How can a coffee break help the bottom line?

In Swe­den, they call it fika. Essen­tial­ly it is a com­ing togeth­er where staff take a break and time out to socialise and pro­mote well­be­ing. York-based staff man­age­ment soft­ware com­pa­ny Rota­Cloud intro­duced fika to the work­place in 2018, to “help make people’s days bet­ter”, accord­ing to co-founder James Lin­tern. “It’s a time when every­one can make a cup of cof­fee, have a snack and talk,” he says. 

“We don’t force peo­ple to take a break, but we strong­ly encour­age it and we use auto­mat­ed alerts on Slack to remind peo­ple.” Lin­tern says the prac­tice has had a pos­i­tive impact on staff and, in turn, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. 

“Hav­ing this time set aside with­in the work­ing day is very impor­tant,” he con­tin­ues, “because it cre­ates an envi­ron­ment of shar­ing and learn­ing, and helps employ­ees build a sup­port sys­tem with­in the office. This is about fos­ter­ing a men­tal­i­ty that makes it OK to stop, slow down and reflect.”

While the coro­n­avirus has dri­ven new ways of work­ing and trig­gered an ini­tial exo­dus from the office, this prac­tice is even more impor­tant for both peo­ple and busi­ness­es. The stress of hav­ing to work away from the office, pos­si­bly jug­gling fam­i­ly com­mit­ments in addi­tion to the uncer­tain­ty of the future, has led many peo­ple to work hard­er than before. This approach is counter-pro­duc­tive, says Dr Argy­ro Avgous­ta­ki, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of man­age­ment at ESCP Busi­ness School.

“The more the employ­ee is work­ing, espe­cial­ly if there is no break or rest­ing time, the more the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty decreas­es, because they do not get the chance to recov­er phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly or emo­tion­al­ly,” she says. “Work­ing con­stant­ly with­out tak­ing any breaks between or with­in work­ing days may result in employ­ees who are exhaust­ed, fatigued and stressed.”

Healthy body, healthy mind

Giv­en the sud­den shift to mass home work­ing, where con­di­tions might not be opti­mal, there is even more rea­son to take reg­u­lar breaks, argues Mark Fletch­er, clin­i­cal direc­tor at occu­pa­tion­al phys­io­ther­a­py provider Physio Med. 

“Sit­ting for longer than 20 min­utes has neg­a­tive effects on your body, includ­ing an increase in mus­cu­loskele­tal prob­lems such as back and neck pain, while extend­ed peri­ods of sit­ting can affect the spine, neck and shoul­ders. This, in turn, can also affect the arms, elbows and wrists,” he says, sug­gest­ing employ­ees should move away from their desks every 30 min­utes, even if just for a few paces.

When it comes to bet­ter man­ag­ing remote-work­ing teams, reg­u­lar check-ins are vital, to ensure employ­ees are hap­py with their work and also, arguably more impor­tant­ly, that their men­tal health is sup­port­ed. Busi­ness lead­ers should view this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show their human, com­pas­sion­ate side, says Susan Hod­kin­son, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer at Cana­di­an account­ing firm Crowe Sober­man in Toron­to. 

“Com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be fre­quent and trans­par­ent,” she says. “We have a vir­tu­al cof­fee event, which repli­cates the kitchen cof­fee chat with co-work­ers. You’re try­ing to have those touch­points you would have in the office.

Nico­la Mendel­sohn, vice pres­i­dent, Europe, Mid­dle East and Africa, at Face­book, agrees that vir­tu­al cof­fee meet-ups help keep col­leagues con­nect­ed, even vir­tu­al­ly. She enjoys “cof­fee roulette”, using video­con­fer­enc­ing tools. “You enter your name and then play cof­fee roulette with col­leagues. The ran­dom nature of it cre­ates sur­prise. It’s a great way to get to know peo­ple in 15 min­utes,” says Mendel­sohn, adding it’s espe­cial­ly good for peo­ple join­ing the com­pa­ny.

Benefits of informal catch-ups

Tania Gar­rett, vice pres­i­dent of inter­na­tion­al employ­ee expe­ri­ence at Adobe, says relax­ing cof­fee breaks, whether in the office or while remote work­ing, with oth­er mem­bers of the team are essen­tial for boost­ing morale. “One of the things we hear a lot from our employ­ees is that they are miss­ing their col­leagues and the infor­mal catch-ups,” she says. “As such, we have strong­ly encour­aged our peo­ple man­agers to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for non-work catch-ups like ‘cof­fee chats’ or team events.”  

For the more intro­vert­ed employ­ees, Gar­rett encour­ages small groups for cof­fee chats so “every­one can feel safe and includ­ed in con­ver­sa­tion and man­agers can ensure everyone’s voice is heard”. She adds: “These infor­mal moments are crit­i­cal for our teams to take time out from work and con­nect on a per­son­al lev­el.”

Organ­i­sa­tions seek­ing to make their offices more wel­com­ing to staff should think about the pro­vi­sion of qual­i­ty cof­fee, says Beth Hamp­son, com­mer­cial direc­tor of The Argyll Club, which offers more than 35 flex-work spaces in Lon­don. “Cof­fee at work isn’t just for the caf­feine-fanat­ic any­more; most pro­fes­sion­als now want a qual­i­ty hot bev­er­age every day so offices can no longer afford to have below-par cof­fee,” she says. 

Mem­bers of The Argyll Club can now take advan­tage of Nespres­so on offer at their work­places. “We’ve even had all of our teams retrained on how to make an excep­tion­al cup of cof­fee,” says Hamp­son.

Ulti­mate­ly, it’s peo­ple who pow­er any busi­ness, so look­ing after them, in the office or at home, and pro­vid­ing them with ample oppor­tu­ni­ty to take cof­fee breaks cre­ates a win-win sit­u­a­tion. And as employ­ees do return to the office, those work­places that can offer qual­i­ty cof­fee on-site will claim the hearts and minds of staff.
“After months at home, mem­bers told us they miss the city’s qual­i­ty cof­fee shops, bars and restau­rants as well as their offices and team­mates,” adds Hamp­son. “So bring­ing all these much-loved ele­ments togeth­er in one safe des­ti­na­tion is the future of work for us.”