Free Republic

Do you swipe in to your office building to meet your in-person mandate, but leave as soon as possible? There’s a word for your covert strategy: “coffee badging.” It is where you show up to the office long enough for a coffee or a meeting expressly to fulfill in-office mandates — while primarily continuing to work from home whenever you can. This new workplace lingo was popularized by videoconferencing company Owl Labs. The company defined it as “showing face at the office and then leaving.” In its 2023 report of 2,000 full-time U.S. workers, 58% of hybrid employees said they...

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...