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."
Mr. Weishaupt shares a surname with a notable historical figure, Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illuminati (May 1, 1776).
Owl Labs is an interesting name for his business, as the Owl of Minerva was the Illuminati symbol chosen by Adam Weishaupt.
A skeptical, cynical person might say, "hidden in plain sight."
The time I'd otherwise be online and working before 9am is spent commuting. When I WFH I'm online working by 7:30am.
The time I'd be otherwise be online working after 5p is spent commuting back home.
It's 90 minutes each way. I'm forced to be in the office 3x / week. So when I'm asked why my productivity dropped I point to the fact that my employer made a conscious decision to have me return to office 3x/week eliminating 9 hours of productivity that they were getting from me prior to June of 2022, which is when they mandated RTO.
They *clearly* didn't think through the ramifications of their decision to mandate RTO for no other purpose, than mandating RTO.
Finally, YES, I've seen "coffee badgers" and it thoroughly pisses me off people do that. As much as I don't like the RTO mandate because people such as myself are as effective/moreso WFH as we are in the office, my employer does have the right to determine where I am required to work from. That they haven't thought through the consequences of their decision just makes me laugh. Seriously.
I'm financially well enough off that I'm retiring soon anyway.
Retiring doesn’t mean you need to cease working from home.
For health and well being, find something you have been doing that is salable and make a few bucks doing it. You have salable skills someone needs
That’s too bad. Before wokeism, innocent flirting in the workplace was fun and broke the monotony.
Drew Carey Show - This Is Sexual Harassment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlNq2Qaa4XY
Coffee Badgers don’t care
I saw that too! Very coincidental and strange indeed!
When I do go to the office, 99% of my meetings are online, because we have more than one location, across the country.
Being at the office, with the butt-high cubicle walls, in rooms that hold over 80 cubicles, is maddening. You hear everyone’s conversations, and so few are about work. I definitely catch up on what people are doing, outside of work, and get multiple opportunities to go walking with people and get coffee or other things.
I am reminded just how little anyone actually gets done, when I am at the office.
Consequently, I highly encourage going to the office, if you want to get nothing done.
Doing the bare minimum at a job is still doing the job.
“It’s also how many of us met our wives.”
Yep. I did. My husband, not my wife.
Toxic corporate culture has a lot to do with it. Especially if you’re an older (strike one) white (strike two) guy (strike three).
FReepmail.
Posted twice ( by accident, i have done so), so does that count as extra work? SARC
I asked the mods to have one removed
Coffee Badgers don’t care.
Excellent 😊. Your work here is done today, you can take the rest of the day off.
No, no, no, it’s added volume 😎
It’s your friggin’ company. Fire their asses.
Or they hate their family and homelife!
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