Lunch Breaks for Salespeople

California employment law requires that employees take a 30-minute lunch break within the first 5 hours of any workday longer than 6 hours. Lunch breaks must be taken before the end of the 5th hour of work. Since we arrive at 10:00am, lunch breaks must be started by 2:59pm. The Company expects all employees to comply with the law and take the legally mandated breaks that are required. Employees may voluntarily waive a 15-minute rest period but employees may not waive a lunch break. Not taking daily lunch breaks as required by law may result in disciplinary actions up to and including termination.

Employees are now required to physically clock out for the lunch break and clock back in at the end of the lunch break. It is no longer sufficient to write your break times on your timecard. Failure to clock out and back in for lunch breaks may result in disciplinary actions up to and including termination.

It is our policy to relieve salespeople so that they can take their lunch breaks daily. We know that the sales floor can get busy, and we need to ensure that we have sufficient coverage at all times, for customer service as well as security. Therefore, when salespeople are ready to take their breaks, they should notify the Receptionist. The Receptionist will determine if more coverage is needed, based on the flow of customers, and will notify the COO or the HR Director if the COO is not available. The COO either will cover personally or will assign someone to cover while the salesperson is on break.

Salespeople are not to use the busyness of the sales floor as a reason to skip breaks, including the 30-minute lunch break. Even if you are the only salesperson on the floor, you may still take your breaks by notifying the Receptionist so that coverage can be pulled from other departments. It is advisable to take your lunch break between 12:00pm and 2:00pm to ensure you are not with a customer at 3:00pm and haven’t take your break yet. 

If you are with a customer at 2:30pm and will not finish by 2:59pm, you are required to turn over your customer to another salesperson or assistant to finish the sale so that you can go on your break. The sale will be split per the splitting sales policy.

Salespeople are not to be interrupted during their lunch breaks. If their customer Ms. Moneybanks walks in while a salesperson is on lunch break, someone else must help her and not even tell the salesperson she is there. When the salesperson finishes the 30-minute break, they can take over the sale to Ms. Moneybanks and it will be split per the splitting sales policy.