The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 3 plus 5 letter word TEA BREAK
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
T
E
A
B
R
E
A
K
More clues leading to the result TEA BREAK
- Bags packed prepared for this short time off work?
- Time to drink and eat?
- Leaves baker worried for rest of workforce
- Bear moving into wood for short refreshment stop
- Bear wandering about in wood gets opportunity for refreshment
- When to have a drink and eat?
- Leaves opportunity for rest of the workers, briefly
- Bake tarte without topping for a change to give you a brief rest
- Bear to wander in wood in rest from work
- Brown allowed each brother a unionist demand?
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "rest of workforce" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case rest of workforce = tea break.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.