‘Coffee badging’ may not be good for workplaces

Greater Noida-based Anupam Gupta travels 120km to make a trip to his office in Gurugram and back home. He does the trek twice a week. His organisation, the tech company where he works as a senior pre-sales solution architect, started hybrid working four months ago after a few years of remote working. Though office transportation is provided, the fixed timings do not match Gupta’s since his schedule is dependent on interactions with international clients. He ends up making enough of an appearance on office days to mark his presence, grab coffee or lunch with colleagues, and leave to do most of his work at home.

Gupta’s reluctant presence in the office is echoed by some employees in reaction to return-to-office mandates. In fact, there’s a term for it: coffee badging. It describes employees showing up in the office because they have to, swiping in, spending some time to mark their presence, grabbing a coffee or lunch with colleagues, and leaving. “I plead guilty of being a coffee badger for at least half of my recent office visits,” says Gupta, 43. “Visiting the office is an obligation one must fulfil. Travelling to work is an ordeal. Four hours on the road makes me prefer working from home.”

While there’s no statistics on the trend in the Indian landscape, a US report shows that the coffee badging trend is becoming a way for workers to get around return to office mandates. The 2023 State Of Hybrid Work report by tech company Owl Labs, for instance, shows 69% of the surveyed American employees feeling that they were required to be in the office because of traditional work expectations; and 58% of hybrid employees “coffee badge”.

Tanuja Agarwala, human resource management and organizational behaviour professor at Delhi university’s Faculty of Management Studies, sees coffee badging as a way in which employees express their resentment for being forced to come to office. “Employees now view work from home and flexibility as the new contract, where performance or contribution matters rather than presenteeism. Therefore, when firms are seeking to implement ‘return to office’ plans, employees perceive this as unreasonable.”

Coffee badging may also be displayed in ways beyond brief appearances, where employees come to the office not for deep or productive work, but for a social outlet to catch up with colleagues, break the isolation of working remotely, and enjoy some team bonding. Whichever way, coffee badging appears to reflect a deeper change in traditional work culture where conventional spaces and schedules are viewed as unnecessary.

Using time in the office to socialise is not necessarily a bad thing. Chirag Thakkar, 32, recently joined a publishing house. Both his present and prior workplace required employees to be in the office twice a week. “Most meetings and collaborative aspects of work are planned for these days,” says Thakkar. “This is also the time to bond with colleagues, get to know them better and develop friendships and camaraderie.” But one day in office each month is adequate for this, and it’s more useful for new employees to acclimatise in their first year, he says. “As you get more familiar with the work process and culture, I don’t see any need for being in the office frequently. What helps are occasional mixers, team lunches, huddles and brainstorms.”

At the Gurugram-based telecom company where project manager Richa Singh, 47, works, there is a three-days-in-office policy. Working with global stakeholders does not require her presence in the physical office, but she finds this time useful to connect with her manager and colleagues. “I mostly spend the whole day in the office when I visit but I have observed multiple people coming for a couple of hours, spending time with friends either just talking, grabbing a coffee or lunch and then leaving. So, they may be spending just half a day in the office and doing the rest of the work from home,” she says.

While coffee badging can foster collaboration and connection, Singh’s observation highlights the imbalance between employees like her spending the complete working day in the office on mandated days, while others spend just a few hours. “I like coming to the office for the social connect and working without distractions. I now have fewer engagements at home since my daughter has left for college,” she says. “But people with families, young kids, or living far from office may need some extra motivation to come to work.” Not everyone, however, may have as generous a view as Singh’s.

Manu Saigal, director (general staffing), at HR solutions organisation Adecco India, believes that some employees seemingly gaming the system, while others put in their all, could lead to an erosion of trust and fairness. “Resentment can fester within teams, questioning each other’s commitment and work ethic.”

Other coffee badging downsides, according to her, include reduced productivity if workers feel pressured to be seen in the office when it is not conducive to their working style; companies’ investment in office space and benefits being underused, diverting resources from other crucial needs; and a breeding of inauthenticity and distrust through a company culture that is built on presenteeism.

Prof. Agarwala believes there are no quick solutions or one-size-fits-all approach to navigating the shift from flexibility of remote working to office going. “Firms and managers will have to deal with the tension between the return to office mandate and employee preference for flexibility gradually and through communication with the employees,” she says. “Firms need to find ways to make employees want to come to the office.”

Reem Khokhar is a Delhi-based writer.