In the new era of work there are always new trends and tricks that keep rising and falling in popularity, and coffee badging appears to be the latest one to keep an eye on. If you’re asking yourself “What Is Coffee Badging???” don’t worry because you’re not the only one confused about this new addition to the HR vocabulary. According to online sources, coffee badging refers to a new workplace trend where employees make a brief appearance at the physical office space to mark their presence at work, leave for a coffee break with coworkers to reach a certain social quotient, and then make their exit to go back and work from home. Why? It’s because new workplace mandates are promoting a return-to-office trend despite serious resistance from employees who refuse to go back to the way things used to be pre-pandemic.
Image credit – Freepik
What Is Coffee Badging and Why Should I Care?
Social media has made it increasingly easy to birth new workplace trends as workers have gotten comfortable with discussing their work life online. Once a hashtag starts trending, more and more workers chime in with their own additions, iterations, and opinions on different trends, making it easier for others to follow along and do the same. Coffee badging is not a new concept—we’re all familiar with coworkers who make guest appearances during projects to ensure their presence is noted, then boost team morale and move on to other priorities in a whirlwind. We have a term for that as well—the personality hire—but in this case, the employee is not seen as a problem, but instead treated as someone whose presence revolves around moving things along in their own way.
Coffee badging is a more distinct practice by employees who do not see the point in working from the office and would much rather make the commute and then return to work from home, rather than give in to these return-to-office mandates and trends being set into motion by their organizations. Employees are growing more and more firm about what is and is not acceptable to them at work, and whether for better or worse, they seem to be sticking to their guns. PR Newswire reported on a study by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI), that stated 47 percent of employees would choose to quit over returning to the office full-time. This is backed by the Great Resignation that has been in force since 2022, with employees quitting in large numbers when their work could not keep up with their personal priorities.
Coffee badging is just one of the many forms of resistance that companies will have to acknowledge as they move ahead with these mandates, and while it is likely still better than an employee quitting entirely, it can become complex to navigate. As a relatively young concept, there isn’t much evidence yet on how this trend affects work and whether strict rules need to be put into place to discourage it, but if the employee’s presence at work is truly only felt during a break, then it’s unlikely that the return-to-work policies are being very effective either. It does become important for HR and management to take a stance, one way or another.
Who Is On-Board with the Return-to-Office Trend?
For a time, the post-pandemic period seemed entirely set on maintaining work online and abandoning the old systems completely. Companies were saving on maintaining office spaces and employees were saving the money and time they would’ve been forced to spend on their commute. Research reports like those from IBI showed that employee productivity had risen by 22 percent, 21 percent of employees were more satisfied, and over 51 percent were more engaged with their work all thanks to working from home.
But despite the positive numbers, many employers remain unconvinced about the long term potential of these work-from-home models. Resume Builder found that more than 90 percent of companies are fully committing to returning to in-person work by the end of 2024, and while many have a more flexible approach that will reduce the number of days employees have to be in the office, others are likely to return to full-time in-person work structures. The Flex Report added their own data to the mix, stating that while employers were primarily pushing for a full-time full-week return to work, hybrid work schedules were gaining ground instead—full-time work dropped to 42 percent in the second quarter in 2023 as compared to 49 percent in the first quarter. Currently averaging 2.53 minimum days required at the office, it seems the hybrid model is here to stay with a basic 2-3 day system.
Despite the unpopular return-to-office trend, most companies do not seem to be backing down from their full-time or hybrid work demands. According to Business Insider, Apple has moved to take action against workers resisting the 3-day in-person work mandate that the company has enforced. Other companies are following in line as well. Among the many techniques, employers use “ badge records” to track how many employees are at work, while also tracking their attendance concurrently. This is likely the origin of the coffee badging term, where employees are turning up to have their attendance recorded at work. Does this reflect their productivity or the active work being done by them? Not necessarily. This is why the hybrid model still stands on shaky ground.
Should You Do Something about Coffee Badging In Your Organization?
The answer is an ambiguous yes. While something needs to be done about the violation of a company policy, excessive monitoring and calling out employees who are taking a break can only serve to damage workplace relations and push the employee further away from the organization. Other employees who are more serious about in-office duties might see their coworkers leaving and feel disgruntled at their behavior having no consequences, further damaging workplace relations. At a time when employee retention has taken a serious seat at the table of priorities, none of these consequences help the cause.
For companies that seriously want to understand what coffee badging is, whether it is occurring at their company, and what can be done about it, communicating with their employees is the only real solution. Businesses need to sit down for a serious conversation with their employees to understand the reasons behind their resistance to return to work, while also conveying their own reasoning behind the return-to-office policy.
Many employees are unable to understand the reason behind the shift to in-person work. They find their productivity unmatched from the comforts of their home, with no small talk and unnecessary socialization needed to get their work done. Especially in roles where the majority of the work happens online anyway, there seems to be little sense in stepping into the office to do the same tasks that they could do from home. Employees who do return to office solely due to the mandate will likely carry their resentment with them. In turn, productivity and satisfaction will suffer and employers will gain nothing from the shortcuts that employees will take, like coffee badging and other new workplace trends that will follow.
Coordination with employees remains the only long-term solution unless companies are willing to push employees to oblige, only dealing with the consequences when they become a serious issue. While coffee badging is easy enough to detect, tackling it is much harder and future work trends will probably only complicate the process further.