It’s clear that breakout spaces play a vital role in the modern Kent and London office design. We know this through the numerous studies, research and surveys that have been carried out which show that breakout spaces improve productivity, health and happiness.
Research, Studies and Surveys Into The Impact of Breakout Spaces
According to the Fellowes Workplace Wellness Trend Report employees want to work in a healthy workplace. The report found that 87% of workers would like their workspace to have “healthier workspace benefits, with options ranging from wellness rooms, company fitness benefits, sit-stands, healthy lunch options and ergonomic seating.” 93% of workers in the tech industry would stay longer at a company who offer healthier workspace benefits.
The American Journal of Health Promotion’s paper “Designing for Health: How the Physical Environment Plays a Role in Workplace Wellness” says that employers are increasingly aware that the health and wellbeing of their employees impacts their company’s profits and that this “is likely a core reason over 85% of companies with 1000 or more employees offer workplace wellness programs” and that the creation of social and physical environments that promote good health are important in health, wellbeing, and business success.
The importance of breakout spaces is recognised by The World Green Building Council in its “Health, Wellbeing & Productivity in Offices” report. They state that “research clearly demonstrates that the design of an office has a material impact on the health, wellbeing and productivity of its occupants.” In their key findings they say that “there are a whole range of fit-out issues that can have an effect on wellbeing and productivity, including workstation density and configuration of work space, breakout space and social space. These factors influence not just noise but concentration, collaboration, confidentiality, and creativity. Many companies instinctively know this and regularly engage in exercises to optimise layout.”
Buildings.com looked at “Wellness, Wellbeing and Productivity in the Office” at a number of Silicon Valley tech firms and how they were changing the traditional office layout to provide nontraditional office spaces designed to maximise collaboration and creativity and “play and games”. They found that spaces which were designed for routine work activities like email as well as team rooms and quiet spaces proved to be beneficial to health and wellbeing.
Leesman’s “The Workplace Reset” report which looked to establish the “Why of the Workplace” and the most important office design features of workplaces, found that 50% of those who responded to their survey said that “Relaxing/taking a break” was important to them in the workplace and for their workplace to meet their needs. 74% of respondents said that having tea, coffee and other refreshments facilities were also important to them and 63% indicated that having a restaurant or canteen was essential.
In a survey of 200 landlords regarding which features made it easier for them to attract tenants, 60% stated that meeting rooms were very important or somewhat important. 59% rated breakout areas and outdoor spaces. 51% said having a gym was vital, 50% indicated the availability of bike lockers was key, and 43% felt shower and changing facilities help to sell their workspaces.
According to Knight Frank in interviews of the 373 global businesses surveyed 65% want more collaborative spaces including breakout areas, communal meeting spaces and quiet pods.
Benefits of Designing Breakout Spaces Into Your Office Design
We started this article by saying that breakout spaces can improve productivity, health, and happiness and this is borne out by the stats above. Breakout spaces provide multiple benefits including:
“Breaking” From Work
Being able to “switch off” from work for a few moments is incredibly valuable. Research has found that there are significant benefits in taking micro breaks, longer breaks and lunchtime breaks to both employees and businesses.
According to a BBC article micro breaks “can have a disproportionately powerful impact – studies have shown that they can improve workers’ ability to concentrate, change the way they see their jobs, and even help them avoid the typical injuries that people get when they’re tied to their desks all day.”
Senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Robert Pozen agrees and suggests everyone needs to take a work break every 75 and 90 minutes. He goes onto say “That’s the period of time where you can concentrate and get a lot of work done. We know that because we have studied professional musicians, who are most productive when they practice for this amount of time. It’s also the amount of time of most college classes. Working for 75 to 90 minutes takes advantage of the brain’s two modes: learning or focusing and consolidation. When people do a task and then take a break for 15 minutes, they help their brain consolidate information and retain it better. That’s what’s happening physiology during breaks.”
A study by Korpela, Kinnunen, Geurts, de Bloom and Sianoja found that taking lunchtime breaks and detaching from work, decreases exhaustion and can lead to an increase in vigour later. The study concluded that lunch breaks offer an important setting for internal recovery during working days and seem to relate to energy levels at work over time.
Refresh The Mind
Refreshing the mind can help to improve focus and productivity as well as playing an important role in increasing health and wellness.
Taking a break from work may seem counterintuitive when you’re working to a deadline however there are occasions when the brain simply needs a chance to do something different. Changing our mind’s focus from a task and stepping back to allow our brains to rest and recharge can be the trigger that helps us to see solutions more easily, to be more creative, to come back energised and complete a task on time.
Based on research published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, Cornell University states “that taking purposeful breaks (anywhere from 5–60 minutes) from studying to refresh your brain and body increases your energy, productivity, and ability to focus.”
In a paper by the American Psychological Association, four measures were developed for “assessing how individuals unwind and recuperate from work during leisure time.” Analysis showed that relaxing and social breaks can be particularly beneficial in resetting mood and returning mental and psychical functional systems to their baseline.
Prevent Decision Fatigue
Decision fatigue arises when the brain becomes tired or over worked. It becomes harder to make good decisions the more tired the brain becomes. Taking a break can prevent decision fatigue.
A study by Science daily “Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find” looked at the phenomenon where “you begin to lose your focus and your performance on the task declines” known as “vigilance decrement”. 84 study subjects were divided into 4 groups: a control group performed a 50-minute task without breaks. A “switch” group and “no-switch” group were told to memorise 4 numbers (digits) and respond to them when they were presented on their screens. Only the switch group were presented with the numbers. A final “digit-ignored” group were presented with the numbers but told to ignore them. In all groups, except the switch group, participants performance declined significantly over the task. The switch group saw no decrease in performance leading the researchers to conclude that having the switch group take brief breaks to respond to the numbers enabled them to stay focused on the task for the entire experiment.
The National Library of Medicine found that “Individuals lacking recovery experiences [breaks] tend to endure fatigue and to feel negative affect, whereas recovered individuals feel more vigorous and engage in helping behaviors.”
Increase Productivity
Research shows that taking breaks throughout the workday can help to improve workplace productivity.
A cross-sectional study of four worksites participating in a WorkWell KS Well Being workshop observed employees levels of stress and productivity found that higher stress scores were associated significantly with lower productivity scores.
Desktime’s 2014 study looked at the preferred work-to-break ratio for the most efficient workers and found the most productive people work for 52 minutes and then take a 17-minute break (termed the 52-17 rule). When they repeated the study in 2024, they found that timings had changed to working for 112 minutes before taking a 26-minute break. The increase in worktime to breaktime may be a result of remote working. The study shows that the ratio of time to work to break may change but breaks are vital when it comes to productivity.
A Harvard Business Review conducted a review of 80 studies and confirmed that “pausing work throughout the day can improve well-being and also help with getting more work done. Counter to the popular narrative of working long work hours, our research suggests that taking breaks within work hours not only does not detract from performance but can help boost it.” They suggests that “the cost of being always-on (and doing it well!) is high” and “both high burnout and low engagement rates are associated with hindered performance.”
Reduce Stress
Stress serves a purpose, however it can be harmful when it continues indefinitely, leading to a variety of potential health issues including sweating, sleep problems, fatigue, stomach upsets and chest pains which can then translate into high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Stress can be the result of working long hours and working without a break.
Mind explains that workplace stress can be managed in a variety of ways including giving yourself short breaks “throughout the day, as well as at least half an hour away from your desk at lunch” and by “spending some time outside.”
According to Harvard Business Review’s “How to Recover from Work Stress, According to Science” employees need to detach psychologically from work. They highlight research which shows that “even thinking about work detracts from your ability to recover from it, and the mere presence of your mobile phone distracts you, leaving you unable to detach from “the office”. They go onto say that “recovery can only occur when our minds return to pre-stressor levels, we need to facilitate that process by cognitively withdrawing from thoughts of work, essentially giving our minds a break.”
The Wellbeing Thesis developed by the University of Derby and King’s College London shows that “Breaks can reduce or prevent stress, help to maintain performance throughout the day and reduce the need for a long recovery at the end of the day.”
Improve Physical Health
We know that sitting in front of a computer all day isn’t good for your mental and physical health. In fact, it can lead to increased health risks including obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, depression, and muscle degeneration.
Taking breaks can help to prevent musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions which can affect your bones, joints, muscles and nerves leading to stiffness, limited movement, pain and potential disability by as much as 65%.
Katharine Metters, the Lead consultant in ergonomics and health and safety at Posturite and Zaheer Osman, Chartered Ergonomist and Human Factors Engineer at Adept Ergonomics both advocate the use of microbreaks as a way of reducing the risk of developing injuries in the workplace as they encourage movement.
The benefits of moving around or moving to another area or breakout space (and in effect taking some exercise) can make all the difference to health and wellbeing. It’s true that “movement Is medicine”.
Aid In Collaboration
Teamwork and collaboration are a vital part of many businesses and having an office layout that incorporates areas which enable people to come together to connect, brainstorm, share ideas and information, collaborate and meet away from their desks is a must. Breakout areas can fulfil this need.
Leesman’s report the “Why of the Workplace” found that providing “enclosed spaces” like meeting rooms as well as quiet areas were seen as being mission critical in delivering a minimum viable office space and employees felt these spaces were part of “the non-negotiable elements needed to create an appealing, supportive and efficient corporate workplace.”
Ultimately it’s about incorporating different types of spaces into your office design to allow staff to work alone in private, work as part of a team, collaborate with others in small or large groups and to be able to break away from work when they need some downtime.
Encourage Socialisation
Breakout areas can provide the space to allow staff from across a company to come together to build a sense of community and foster new relationships, unwind and socialise in an informal or formal setting, which in turn can have a positive impact of reducing stress levels and improving health and wellbeing as well as potentially increasing creativity and productivity.
Health Assured says the average person spends around 90,000 hours at work and its important during this time to develop and maintain good workplace relationships. However, 65% of people don’t feel they have the opportunities for connections at work and 25% want more connection in their workplace. They go onto say that connection and friendship “can protect us from mental health challenges in the workplace, such as anxiety, PTSD, and loneliness. In fact, in a recent study involving over 500,000 people, 90% of them reported that having higher social connection significantly protected them from depression.”
Bupa also state that studies have shown that where people have good social interactions they are more inclined to have lower rates of depression and anxiety and are more able to cope with stress. They also say that research has demonstrated that social connection can positively impact wellbeing and physical health and can even increase lifespan.
Ideas For Breakout Spaces
It’s clear that breakout spaces can provide a great many benefits in the workplace.
A well-designed breakout area can serve a multitude of purposes from providing a “get away” space from the hustle and bustle of a busy office, to catching up with colleagues on a social break, to an impromptu meeting space to meet and greet clients or colleagues or to grab a bite to eat or rehydrate. A breakout space can be anything you need it to be. Below are some of the many types of breakout area that could benefit your business.
A Space For Privacy
Having a breakout space that’s made purely to get away from the noise of the main office area, to provide privacy and a quiet space for a few moments can be one of the simplest and best breakout spaces available to staff. Booths or pods can offer privacy and quiet without taking up a great deal of space. They come as freestanding rooms with acoustic options that can be dismounted and moved if necessary.
Alternatively, areas with comfortable high back chairs or sofas that provide a degree of privacy away from the commotion of the modern office place are also ideal for privacy.
A Meeting Space
Having a dedicated meeting space where staff can come togther to collaborate, discuss projects and new ideas and brainstorm is important.
Meeting spaces usually have traditional office furniture and video and audio technology which allow for remote working and presentations however this doesn’t always have to be the case and will depend on whether your meetings will be formal or informal.
A Tea Point Or Kitchen Area
Where space is at a premium an office tea point can provide a valuable breakout space for employees who want to step away from their desk to make themselves a hot drink, allowing them a few moments to recharge before heading back to their desk.
A kitchen area delivers a place for staff to prepare drinks, snacks, and meals. It can also act as a social gathering area where staff can have breakfast or lunch and catch up with each other.
A Space For Socialisation
Providing a breakout space that specifically allows staff to come together within work hours to simply socialise and catch up can be beneficial. These types of spaces can also double up as collaboration spaces where different employees from different departments can meet and brainstorm.
Socialisation breakout spaces can have formal or informal furniture or a mixture of both depending on the purpose the space needs to meet.
A Wellness Room
A wellness room is a dedicated breakout space that’s specifically designed to allow employees to be able to switch off from their work and workplace and concentrate on their health and wellness. They provide a break from the noisy office environment and a place to destress and unwind.
Wellness spaces usually incorporate muted colour schemes designed to soothe, comfortable ergonomic furniture and elements of nature such as natural light, plants and greenery. It should be a space that inspires calm and serenity.
A Gym Or Fitness Area
Having a gym or fitness area can help a business to promote health and wellbeing and allow staff to destress.
Focus on providing equipment like treadmills, steppers and rowing or cycling machines or an area for yoga, pilates or tai-chi, all of which allow for low-intensity aerobic exercise which can help build endurance and strength while at the same time being gentle on the joints.
A Games Room
A games room or relaxation room can provide employees with a breakout space where they can unwind and relax.
Areas such as these are designed to provide a space where employees can come together to socialise, have fun, and destress. Games breakout spaces typically have a comfortable seating area which could include armchairs, couches, or bean bags alongside an area where games like darts, table tennis, snooker, table football or arcade machines can be played or where short movies or videos can be watched.
Breakout areas can play a vital role in all office environments. Analysing your business and staff needs will help you to identify the right type of breakout areas that will work for your company and employees.
JBH Refurbishments, Experts In Office Design and Refurbishment
JBH Refurbishments are a cat a and cat b fit out contractor and have over 30+ years experience in Kent and London office design, office refurbishments and fit outs. We understand what’s required to carry out an office refurbishment, identify the perfect breakout spaces for your business and can provide the right expertise for your Kent or London office refurbishment. From your brief, to putting together a project plan, to developing your office design and layout to delivering your office fit out JBH Refurbishments will provide the right expertise for your project and peace of mind. You can contact us via our contact page or by calling us on 0333 207 0339 today for a free on-site consultation.
