‘Coffee Badging’, A New Coping Trend!

The “coffee badging” trend is a creative way that workers have found to get around return to office mandates to save time and money. Employees are showing up to the office, swiping their badge as proof of being on site long enough to have a cup of coffee and then going home to do their work. Owl Labs (a company that builds 360-degree videoconferencing solutions) released its 2023 State of Hybrid Work report.

The Owl survey discovered why employees are resisting. People don’t want to spend time and money on frequent office visits. The data shows that many companies have more work to do to provide an attractive, productive and stress-free office environment that makes employees want to gather.

 

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org

 These findings add to the workforce attitude that demands more workplace flexibility. Other highlights of the report, which surveyed 2,000 full-time workers in the United States, include the following:

· Eight percent of the workers said they haven't been coffee badging but would like to try it.

· Despite their hesitations, 94% of workers are willing to return to office.

· More than 38% would be more likely to go to the office if their companies paid for their commuting costs, while 28% could be swayed by day-care or eldercare subsidies or on-site alternatives, a likely result of the caregiver shortage.

· 72% said a flexible or non-existent dress code is important to them.

· 31% think AI will compete with their jobs, and 23% are concerned it will steal their jobs altogether. Another 32% believe AI will cause ethical issues in their workplaces.

· About 44% of employees believe AI will help them do their jobs faster and more effectively, and 35% think it will create new jobs and team growth. 

One reason workers are not staying the full day is because it's expensive to commute. Commuting time also is likely affecting this trend. With 61% of workers spending 30 minutes to one and a half hours commuting each day. 

A total of 69% believe their employers are requiring them to work from the office because of traditional work expectations. But 60% of hybrid workers think they’re more productive when they work from home. A full 58% of hybrid workers are “coffee badging,” while another eight percent say they haven't been coffee badging but would like to try it. 

Flexibility is the key. There could be 2-3 days in a week that employees work in the office and leave the other days as work from home. For working from home, accounting firms do the time-log method while others may use CCTV to monitor. Whichever is done, dialogue and discussion help in setting the issue instead of ‘coffee badging’. 

Reference:

‘Coffee Badging,’ New coping trend to get around in-office mandates, Bryan Robinson,
Forbes, 29 Sep 2023