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If you're salaried, yes. If you're hourly, you at least have some protections under the law.
At my current employer, we're only a four person with one being hourly. The hourly person has a dedicated lunch period. I almost always take an hour. The other two will sometimes take a lunch or quickly run out and get something and bring it back. There's no expectation from my manager to not take lunch.
Personally, the lunch period is darn near sacrosanct to me. I work in IT and a lot of the work is stressful enough as it is. Lunch is my chance during the day to get out of the building, away from people asking for things, and clear my head. Sometimes I may go out to eat, other times I'll eat here before lunch and go to the gym or run an errand, etc. I really need the time to avoid feeling like a dog tied to a tree.
At my previous employer, lunches were officially forbidden for all salaried staff at HQ. I worked a satellite office, reported to a different manager, and would take a lunch - eventually this got whittled down to no more than 30 minutes, while the rest of the staff not reporting to my manager routinely took the full hour. Our team felt crapped on, and it was a factor in my decision to leave. The one guy on my team who worked at HQ had multiple blow-ups over it.
I'm reasonable and understand things come up occasionally, but an employer that doesn't want me to take lunch is an employer I don't want to work for.
I've had an hour for lunch, basically any time I feel like taking it, at both jobs I've had since 1984. I don't always take the full hour, and sometimes I take a little more (such as when I visited my uncle at the nursing home the other day).
I had a half hour, which sucked, at a machine shop I worked at in 1983. It was an old-fashioned smokestack kind of place where a loud buzzer went off, loud enough to be heard over the machines downstairs but also very loud in the offices upstairs, for the begin/end of morning break, lunch break, and afternoon break.
So yeah, in most office environments where you're not punching a clock you can take a full hour. But if "corporate culture" indicates you shouldn't, then get used to it.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We have the option of 1 hour, or half an hour and leave that much earlier (I do the latter). That applies to all, salaried or hourly. I still eat at my desk, however, because I use the 1/2 hour to take a walk along the waterfront and get some fresh air and exercise. Most of my staff also take the half hour, only one uses an hour and he likes to go out to eat at one of the local restaurants. We have a restaurant down stairs, but the food is mediocre.
reason i ask is i am now with my second company in which it appears most (at least in my group) don't leave or even take a few minutes for lunch.
they go downstairs to the on-site cafeteria, get something quickly and head right back to their desks.
i don't know yet if the workload is so great where that is necessary but both of these companies are highly ranked in regards to "best places to work".
so, is this becoming some sort of trend? if you leave your desk for 30 minutes - 1 hour for lunch, is that frowned upon?
Not where I work.
As I've stated many times before, the overwhelming majority of my coworkers are south Asian and they definitely have their own way of doing things.
Some things I don't like.
However, you can set your watch to their lunch breaks. As soon as the clock strikes 12, they get up en masse and head to the break room. They spend a full hour there sitting at tables chatting and laughing. Occasionally they all go out to eat in a group. I like that they do that. They feel absolutely no pressure to eat at their desks.
Nobody thinks it's weird, though the few of us who aren't south Asian do feel excluded. We sometimes invite them to go to lunch, but they never invite us.
To stay on topic...yes, they very VERY definitely take a lunch break. It is not frowned upon at this company at all. People think I'm weird for eating at my desk.
I've seen this trend of people not taking their lunch break and I think it sets a dangerous precedent. Unless you have a completely cushy job with little to no stress, a person needs that 30 minutes to an hour to refresh themselves. Eating at your desk doesn't count toward any kind of break and I would think it would cause job burnout very quickly.
With the economy the way it's been for years, it seems people are afraid to take lunch breaks or even vacations. Other developed nations have no problem with taking 3 weeks of vacation a year, six months maternity leave, etc.
We are training our employers to expect us to be drones and it needs to stop. Take your damn lunch break and don't take it at your desk!
i don't know yet if the workload is so great where that is necessary but both of these companies are highly ranked in regards to "best places to work".
The irony is that companies ranked "best places to work" are usually the companies that expect employees to work long hours for low pay and poor benefits. What happens is, the people who enjoy that type of environment are the only ones who survive (or the only people who ever start working their in the first place), and they are the only ones rating the company, so they rank it as a great place to work. Especially if it's a company that is honest about expectations.
I know that in my field, the alleged "best company to work for" is one that openly admits on their website that it's not a company for people expecting 9-5 or a work-life balance, and that you should expect long hours, including many late nights, weekends, and holidays. Sad, but true. On the other hand, most other civil engineering firms at least give lip service to work-life balance.
It all depends on the company. All the companies I've worked for have allowed salaried employees to more or less set their own schedules provided that their hours are relatively consistent and they are at the office for the bulk of the day.
I spend about 20 minutes eating at my desk reading the news most days, then I'll go for a 10 minute walk around the building or outside.
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