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Is Coffee Badging the latest in coffee marketing attempts to gain your loyalty? No, but it does have something to do with creating employee loyalty. Created in 2023, coffee badging is where employees come into the office to show their face, engage in social interaction, and flex their work schedules between the office and remote work. In 2024, we are seeing companies implement put in increasingly more restrictive return to office policies. This is resulting in something called Shadow Policies [1], where managers are operating under-the-radar to circumvent these new requirements. [2] Some managers allow employees to work remote, even though it may violate company policy. They understand that flexibility is important to their team members, and the impact that this has on employee loyalty. Employees who have a manager who extends trust in the employee to deliver their work, no matter where they do it, reduces the likelihood the employee will look for a job elsewhere. Today we see less of a focus on the physical presence of employees and "I don't see you, therefor you must not be working".
Personally, I do some of my best work in bed. I get the most creative and solution driven ideas when I am crisscross applesauce in my bed with my laptop. Don’t get me wrong, I love people and engaging with people, but artificially creating interactions between employees and leadership will only cause more resistance. This resistance can create cracks in an organization’s culture due to tension and distrust versus organic collaboration and creativity. More than half (58%) of hybrid employees “coffee badge” and 94% of workers say they could be convinced to come to the office. [3] The reality is that gone are the traditional 8-hour office days. For many employees work schedules extend into late evenings and weekends. We trust employees to be productive when the “office hours” are closed and they work remote to finish a project or a last-minute request, so why not allow some flexibility during the workday?
Return To Office (RTO) and the Proposed ROI
The Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh published a working paper that found “no significant changes in financial performance or firm values after RTO mandates.” [4] Remote work and flexibility to get work done is a leading quality that employees want in their workplace. 62% would take a pay cut of 10% or more, and 4% would quit their job if they were no longer able to work remotely or hybrid. [5]
Employees want more control over their work life balance. In fact, we are even seeing employees whose work requires them to physically be at a job site - like healthcare and manufacturing - asking for more flexibility for more flexibility in their schedules. From mobile apps, to select nursing shifts to create your own schedules to the 4-day workweek in manufacturing - employees have reprioritized want they want out of an employment relationship. Of course, the pandemic greatly influenced the reprioritization and focus on the quality of life, but so has technology and employees are feeling the power pendulum swing their way in a competitive labor market. A recent Morning Consult study found, “The ‘Great Resignation’ is actually a ‘Great Reprioritization’. [6]
What Are Employees Signaling?
98% of workers want to work remote, or at least have the flexibility of a hybrid model. On the flip side, employers see value in having employees in-person to collaborate and connect to the culture of the organization. Some organizations are taking very creative approaches to making the commute to the office attractive to employees: creative stipends to ease commutes, pets in the workplace, providing funds to employees to connect over food and drink in a way they choose. [7] Employers who engage with their employees on flexible work schedules are signaling to their employees that they trust them to balance the work that needs to be produced within a schedule that also fits their needs. McKinsey ran a study in 2022 that indicated flexibility was a top motivator and reason for staying with an employer.[8] Establishing that groundwork on “how” communication will occur in the leader/employee relationship is critical in developing the success of the work schedule. Collaborating with employees on how they can structure their day to be the most productive, it allows them to feel leadership has confidence in them and increases the trust meter. As Franklin Covey points out, speed and cost are lost in an environment lacking trust and loyalty. If employees feel they are not in a trusting relationship with their employer, they will start to look elsewhere for a job and the organization is now losing speed. But speed is not the only thing the organization misses out on - they are also losing momentum of potential work production that could have come from a fully trusting, loyal and engaged workforce. [9]
Don’t underestimate the value your employees place on the flexibility to deliver their work. Whether it is producing sales stats while waiting at a kid’s swim meet or working at home late at night, employees inherently want to be trusted to do a good job. They don’t want to feel they are assessed on whether they punched the clock at a particular location. Focus on what is being produced, and address subpar performance in the work product and not because it was created outside of M-F, 9-5. Remember that highly engaged employees result in a 23% increase in profitability, not a warm body sitting in a desk chair.
[1] Forbes: Shadow Policies: The Controversial 2024 Hybrid Work Trend, February 8, 2024.
[2] Forbes: Shadow Policies: The Controversial 2024 Hybrid Work Trend, February 8, 2024.
[3] Owl Labs 2023 Current State of Work Survey
[4] Inc. The Future of Work, Do RTO mandates Boost company Performance, January 24, 2024
[5] Owl Labs 2023 Current State of Work Survey
[6] Forbes Employees Want Purpose at Work: How to Deliver on this priority June 2022
[7] Worklife, These fresh RTO tactics are helping bring people back to the office January 29, 2024
[8] Franklin Covey The Power of Trust in Improving Loyalty
[9} Franklin Covey The Power of Trust in Improving Loyalty