The last post concerning our Right To Know request of the NH Department of Environmental Services (primarily) and Department of IT (secondarily) covered the NH policy on lunch and rest breaks:
DES’s standard workday is 8:00 am through 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday. This reflects a 7.5 hour/day, 37 .5 hour/week basic workweek which, consistent with NH Admin. Rule Per 1201.03, accounts for a half hour lunch period that is not considered work time. Also, pursuant to Per 1201.03, the workday includes a 15 minute rest period every 4 hours. Lunch and rest periods do not have to be taken at specific times during the workday. Mr. de Seve is assigned to a 37 .5 hour per week schedule that coincides with DES’ standard workday/workweek. As to the DOIT “Computer Use document” referenced in this request, please refer to the Response to Request 3, above.
Well, one of the Groksters read that and had a question (again, with an eye to the quantity of blogging that Mr. Richard de Seve did as he was allegedly working:
Are employees allowed, with their lunch break and rest breaks, to “stitch them” together and form one large break? If that is true, are they allowed to take them earlier or later than the normal lunch times (i.e., use them at the beginning of the day to come in later or delay them until the end of the day and leave early for the day)?
The DES RTK Dude wrote back this afternoon with his answer:
Neither the lunch period nor the rest periods are supposed to be used to shorten the work day. So, an employee that misses breaks isn’t entitled to leave early. However, breaks are generally not otherwise pinned down to a particular time of day. Generally, the nature of the work assignments and program demands often are more efficiently and effectively met when some flexibility is allowed in the timing of the breaks. This is to ensure that timely responses are delivered and services are not interrupted. Therefore, breaks tend to be taken when time allows. As the personnel rules provide, they’re supposed to be taken “insofar as practicable in the middle of each 4 hour period of working time…”. On some days they may be taken closer together than others, or even consecutively. But, if it becomes a pattern, such as if an employee regularly takes an hour for lunch by aggregating all the breaks, a supervisor’s approval would be required.
Exceptions to the limitations above can be made, but they have to be approved by a supervisor on a case by case basis. For example, an employee who needs to leave early for an appointment can specifically request to work through lunch instead of taking leave. Similarly, if an employee has a reason to aggregate his or her break time on a particular occasion, they may do so upon receiving permission.
You can also refer to the Personnel Rules, particularly Per 1201.02 and 1201.03. Here’s the link.
As always, the questions are always oriented to the main idea: has Mr. de Seve exploited (or ignored) official State policy so as to blog during the day, given the timings of his many postings over at the Concord Monitor. We Groksters know how long a quick comment takes to write, an off-the-cuff post (even a slap-dash cut-and-paste one), and a long quality post. I know, from personal experience, that it is common to spend more time on one post than the official lunch time and rest breaks.
