Messing with employee breaktimes is the management equivalent of playing with fire.

There are times when it is necessary and even helpful to shake up routine when it comes to the times of day that people get to unwind and eat. However, it is rarely that much of a big deal that there can’t be some flexibility around it. Most workers need that small part of the day to themselves to be able to perform at the level that is expected of them. Start making changes that endanger that, and they are not going to be happy.

A manager on a power trip is always going to make some enemies among those who work for them, and if they try to prove themselves by moving around breaktime privileges, that guarantee gets even stronger. Hangry people are not people who are pleasant to work with, so ensuring that an employee skips a meal is almost always more about manipulation than productivity. It is one of the benefits of having strict rules around working hours, although that is not so popular in this era of hybrid working and flexible schedules. From an employee’s point of view, the best that can be done is communicating personal boundaries and breaktimes clearly.