Human Resource Blog

How can we legally enforce our employees to take a lunch hour in Texas?

We are a small company of 20 employees located outside of Dallas, Texas. How can we legally enforce our employees to take a lunch break? How should we enforce this policy in writing? If our hours of operation are from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, how long should their lunch break be? In other words, should it be one hour or thirty minutes? Please advise.

Thanks, in advance, for your time and efforts!

Like most states, Texas does not have a law that requires the employer to give a meal break to workers. But the employer certainly can (and should) require that workers take a meal break. As long as the break is longer than 20 minutes, and the employee is relieved of all work duties, the employee need not be paid for the break.

By law, if an employee works through the break then he or she must be paid for all time worked. However, you can discipline or terminate any employee who skips a break without the supervisors permission. (Supervisors are still free to request or require that employees skip meal breaks when there is a lot of work, or the company is understaffed.)

The length of the break is a matter of company policy. With 20 employees, even if they earn only the minimum wage, you will save an additional $18,850 per year on payroll by having employees take a 60-minute unpaid break rather than a 30-minute break.

To implement this policy, simply issue a written memo that all hourly employees are expected to take a 60-minute unpaid meal break each day, and breaks can be skipped only with the supervisors permission. Then follow progressive discipline for any employees who violate this rule by issuing a verbal warning, three written warnings and finally a termination if the problem persists. We can almost guarantee that after one or two written warnings, even the most hard-headed employees will get the idea that they have to take an unpaid meal break each day.