Meal periods are intended to provide employees with an opportunity to take a break and relax. Generally, full-time employees are permitted a one-hour lunch break (45 minutes during the summer schedule). Other employees will receive at least a thirty-minute break after working six hours. Non-exempt employees are not paid for their meal break. Employees should consult with their managers and co-workers to schedule meal breaks at mutually convenient times that take into consideration the department’s business needs. Employees must be prepared to resume work promptly at the end of their meal period.
All non-exempt employees who take meal breaks must be relieved completely from their job responsibilities. Non-exempt employees should not work during their meal breaks. Managers are expected to monitor meal breaks to ensure that non-exempt employees are not continuing to work (including checking email or voice mail, answering phones, greeting visitors, etc.). If a non-exempt employee does work during a meal break, then the employee must be paid for that time and that time will count as “hours worked” for purposes of determining when overtime is owed.
Meal breaks may not be combined, added, saved up or used to leave work early without prior permission from an employee’s manager and cannot result in a lunch break of less than 30 minutes on any day.
Employees may take a break from time to time, at the discretion of their managers and depending on business needs. Smokers are not entitled to additional break time.
Bentley’s academic programs or centers may solicit employees to participate in activities such as surveys or consumer testing, either on a voluntary basis or in exchange for payment or some other form of remuneration. Those activities can only be engaged in during an employee’s lunch break or after the employee’s work hours.
Date last revised: April 15, 2015