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New 'coffee badging' job trend has some business leaders on high alert
Fox Business ^ | December 18, 2023 | Erica Lamberg

Posted on 12/18/2023 4:45:08 AM PST by bert

In post-pandemic times, many employers and companies are continuing to mandate a return to the office for their workers — and some employees are responding with a particular form of pushback.

First, there was the trend "quiet quitting," in which workers did the bare minimum on the job just to get by — and now, say workplace leaders and experts, there’s "coffee badging," another form of employee protest.

What is ‘coffee badging’? As some employees are being called back to the office, many are subtly protesting by returning to the office for as little time as possible, Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs in Boston, told FOX Business.

"Coffee badging is when employees show up to the office for enough time to have a cup of coffee, show their face and get a ‘badge swipe' — then go home to do the rest of their work," said Weishaupt.

His firm, Owl Labs, which makes 360° video conferencing devices, did a deep dive into the trend's data.

"Our 2023 State of Hybrid Work report found that only about 1 in 5 workers (22%) want to be in the office full time, with 37% wanting hybrid work options and 41% preferring to be fully remote," said Weishaupt.

More than half (58%) of hybrid workers are "coffee badging," a study found.

Further, he said the Owl Labs study found that more than half (58%) of hybrid workers are "coffee badging," while another 8% said they haven't done it yet but would like to try it.

How are workers getting away with ‘coffee badging’? People at all levels of companies and organizations are busy with their own jobs, so they don’t have time to keep tabs on everyone else’s whereabouts, said Weishaupt.

"If a coffee badger doesn’t have any in-person meetings or a desk near the boss, the person might not be missed," he said.

"Our data shows that about two-thirds of managers (64%) have ‘coffee badged’ themselves, with another 6% who want to try it," he also said.

"Less than a third of managers (30%) want to go to the office for the full day."

Why is the trend emerging now? Niki Jorgensen, managing director of client implementation with Insperity in Denver, told FOX Business that several months ago, coffee badging began making news as the latest work trend.

"Coffee badging is simply the latest example of the challenges businesses are facing with transitioning employees back to the office after the pandemic," she said.

How can firms address this? It's important for each business to do its own research into coffee badging, Jorgensen suggested.

"There is no need to panic over coffee banging, yet if a business finds most of its employees are coffee badging, that could reflect the need to reevaluate their organization's culture and work-from-home policies," she told FOX Business.

Often, but not always, coffee badging is a reflection of employee dissatisfaction with an organization’s culture or hybrid policies, said Jorgensen.

"Coffee badging can seem disrespectful or even insubordinate to business leaders who expect their employees to spend a full day in the office," she said.

Yet "it's important to understand that the motivations for coffee badging are rarely ill-intentioned," she clarified.

Three fixes to consider Company managers may want to focus on a few strategies to halt coffee badging among employees, Jorgensen said.

Implement flex hours. "To encourage employees to spend more time at the office, consider flex hours so they can come in an hour earlier or later," she said. Encourage employees to get together. Employees want to socialize with one another, said Jorgensen. Given this, "leaders can create opportunities for employees to socialize by planning events over lunch or immediately after hours," she said. Embrace open communication. Coffee badging can be a symptom of overworked, burned out and disengaged employees, Jorgensen suggested. "To combat it, invite employees to speak up about their experience in the workplace and share solutions to help them balance their work and personal lives more easily," she said.

"When workers only come into the office briefly and then leave, they are not spending as much time interacting face to face," she told FOX Business.

"Over time, this can undermine relationship-building and reduce collaboration."

Emily Ballesteros, founder of Burnout Management, LLC, in Seattle and author of the upcoming book, "The Cure for Burnout: How to Find Balance and Reclaim Your Life" (Feb. 2024), told FOX Business that a downside to the coffee badging trend is that it creates unpredictability that can impact others.

"Where there is unrest, there is usually a need to be met."

"Trying to schedule meetings when you're unsure of who is virtual or in-person; planning around commutes to and from the office; needing clarification on whether a meeting is virtual or in-person, etc. — all of this adds a bit more unpredictability to the workday that can cause frustration," Ballesteros said.

To reduce unpredictability, many companies are introducing hybrid schedules.

"They have seen on surveys that their employees would like the flexibility to work from home sometimes," she said.

"So rather than have constant flux and unpredictability around who is where, they create a schedule that meets people in the middle, such as saying that everyone works from home Monday and Friday and everyone is in the office Tuesday-Thursday," noted Ballesteros.

"Where there is unrest, there is usually a need to be met."


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: coffeebadging
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To: Mustangman

My office is in the house where I live. I manage a small corporation and work with remote clients, and make visits to the facilities of their clients. I have been since 1995.

Working from home is actually working in an office that is located in your home. When you go to the office, home is somewhere else. When you go to the office, you are no longer at home.

America was founded and then built by people who worked at home.


21 posted on 12/18/2023 5:18:15 AM PST by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Hamascide is required in total)
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To: Codeflier; Mustangman

I would advocate full keystroke logging and efficiency metrics, enforced rigorously.

Because if you are being just as effective and productive working from home vs the workplace, what is there to be concerned about?

Right?


22 posted on 12/18/2023 5:19:26 AM PST by rlmorel ("The stigma for being wrong is gone, as long as you're wrong for the right side." (Clarice Feldman))
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To: Mustangman

I had to wfh the last few years of my career. I found I was more productive than when I worked in the office. I tended to work much longer hours because I didn’t have to commute. After supper I would get back on my computer and continue what I had been working on.


23 posted on 12/18/2023 5:22:24 AM PST by gitmo (If your theology doesn't match your biography, what good is it?)
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To: bert

For the odd employee that actually shows up at work and takes advantage of the availability and exposure he/she offers it’s a wonderful opportunity to become indispensable to management. Take on those little jobs and efforts management would like addressed as quick as possible, offer to take on increased responsibilities, etc. Those others? Out of sight, out of mind.


24 posted on 12/18/2023 5:23:57 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: Codeflier

Have you ever worked with team?

Associating with a colleague on team is as easy and quicker than face to face down the hall or upstairs.
as a matter of fact, the Team contact can be in a different building or city or country


25 posted on 12/18/2023 5:24:28 AM PST by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Hamascide is required in total)
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To: stanne

26 posted on 12/18/2023 5:25:36 AM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: Codeflier

For me anyway, productivity is probably equal from home or at the office. There are still distractions—just different ones.

But for years I put up with a crappy paying job precisely because they allowed me to work from home full time. It was an instant raise that let me spend time with my young children and hold down the fort if the Mrs. needed to run errands or take one of them to the doctor. In turn, the company got much more bang for the buck with their low salary.

Of course people abuse it. I have heard the horror stories. In those cases, managers shouldn’t allow it or the employees who egregiously violate (mysteriously unavailable for the entire day, etc.) should be immediately fired.

Like anything else, it has to be worked out between employer and employee. I have run my own business from home for 3 decades so I have no problem with a results-based environment that depends on me getting stuff done on my own.

But I am never going back to 5 days a week at the office. Never. For many jobs it’s an idiotic waste of time, required only because the people who *can’t* successfully work from home are utterly unable to imagine that someone else can pull it off.


27 posted on 12/18/2023 5:26:27 AM PST by Claud
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To: Mustangman

No one works from home.


Not a true statement.

I spent the last ten years of my working life “working at home”. This was before it became a thing. I had a home office (which I did NOT take any tax breaks for) that had an extension of the office’s PBX, as well as a fax machine.

For all practical purpose I could have been in a cubicle in the office, and if it was not a 90 minute drive one way, I would have been in the cubicle.

The company I worked for needed the skills I had and so one of the condition for going to work for them was I worked from home.

Since my time was billable to the customer I sent in a completed work order (by fax and later by email) as they were done. It was easy to see the work I was doing.

Working at home is not for everyone. They need the self discipline to actually do the work. Perhaps what is missing in today’s try working at home is the means to document the work being done. In my case it was easy, but others it may take some study.


28 posted on 12/18/2023 5:28:11 AM PST by CIB-173RDABN (I am not an expert in anything, and my opinion is just that, an opinion. I may be wrong.)
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To: FLT-bird

“Some bad managers want to stand over your shoulder and order you around “

I hate those guys!


29 posted on 12/18/2023 5:30:25 AM PST by MayflowerMadam ("A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.")
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To: bert

We’ve got a lot of people that do that. Including the bosses. Some of like being in the office. I never left, some are back on the mandatory days all day. Some badge, scrum and out. Whatever. The work gets done.


30 posted on 12/18/2023 5:31:25 AM PST by discostu (like a dog being shown a card trick)
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To: Larry Lucido
That’s why he’s not Penske material....


31 posted on 12/18/2023 5:32:44 AM PST by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: rxh4n1

“Many men have refrained from having any personal interactions with female co-workers”

That’s too bad. Before wokeism, innocent flirting in the workplace was fun and broke the monotony.


32 posted on 12/18/2023 5:35:24 AM PST by MayflowerMadam ("A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.")
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To: gitmo

“A systems engineer in a major software company said they use agile to get something in the hands of their users, but then they turn around and build it the right way to have a well designed product.”

The company I work for just skips the second step there. Sigh.


33 posted on 12/18/2023 5:40:51 AM PST by T. P. Pole
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To: rlmorel
I would advocate full keystroke logging and efficiency metrics, enforced rigorously. Because if you are being just as effective and productive working from home vs the workplace, what is there to be concerned about? Right?

Then why stop at work from home? Why not full keystroke logging for everyone at the office then? Including the manager?

34 posted on 12/18/2023 5:40:52 AM PST by Claud
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Agile sucks. It’s a fad which tries to keep dots honest about how much work they really do.
And it can be easily gamed.


35 posted on 12/18/2023 5:41:58 AM PST by grey_whiskers ( The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: MayflowerMadam

It’s also how many of us met our wives. I really feel sorry for my son in todays toxic environment.


36 posted on 12/18/2023 5:46:17 AM PST by Woodman
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To: bert

You’d think that after Covid people would be happy to get back to their once normal routines - like going to work.


37 posted on 12/18/2023 5:48:18 AM PST by yelostar (Spook codes 33 and 13. See them often in headlines and news stories. )
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To: FLT-bird

“...and full of interruptions.”

I agree. WFH is like many things...it works under the right conditions. Not for all types of work, not for all personality types, etc.

I think it accentuates the productivity of those who like/hate interruptions. Those who just want to produce and accomplish things are largely set free in the WFH environment. Those who spend their days in the office being interrupted or interrupting others (a work avoidance behavior) are even less productive at home.

When I was allowed to WFH during Covid, it gave me 5 hours a week back from commutes, saved gas money, and gave a constant sense of accomplishment because I was actually enabled to achieve things without the constant interruptions from work-avoiding colleagues.


38 posted on 12/18/2023 5:48:31 AM PST by Señor Presidente (Tyranny deserves insurrection)
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To: grey_whiskers; gitmo

As a longtime project manager, I worked with several PM methodologies over the last 30 years and actually teach a 400 level college course on Adaptive Project Management. My answer to the age old question on which PM Framework is better is always, “It depends.”

I think where companies are going wrong with this is they are trying to adapt how major project efforts are transitioned into a day-to-day activities. That’s the wrong way to look at it. Business as Usual is just that. Projects are temporary endeavors with a fixed beginning and end date.

As to your statement about quantity of work actually being done and gaming the system, I just fired a client for trying to do exactly that. However, a lot of this is due to poor training, no culture to support the transition and there is no vision from leadership.

Agile as a methodology is great however, unless there is buy-in from the workers, and experienced project managers and leaders who can successfully convey what Agile is supposed to be, it will always be a mess. How to get around this conundrum? Too late, companies already fired the most experienced project managers and replaced them with DEI picks who think having a meeting for 15 minutes a day is going to fix the problems the PMO are having. How do I know this? I was one of those project managers purged and replaced with a 25 year old DEI employee with no major project experience. The company is bleeding money now and leadership cannot seem to find what the problem is.


39 posted on 12/18/2023 5:56:40 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (I AM A ZIONIST HOODLUM!)
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To: CIB-173RDABN

You have precisely described the attributes of working in an office that is in the place where you dwell.


40 posted on 12/18/2023 5:58:05 AM PST by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Hamascide is required in total)
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