‘Coffee badgers’ thwarting RTO plans? Here are some tips

Remote work saved the day during the COVID-19 pandemic, but now many employers—even those that initially embraced fully remote or hybrid work—are calling their people back to the office, triggering a cleverly named fad: “coffee badging.”

What is coffee badging?

Some high-profile employers are getting pushback from employees who are unhappy with return-to-office (RTO) policies that signal the return of long, stressful commutes and inflexible schedules. For example, media reports from last fall indicated a majority of corporate Amazon workers were unhappy with a new company mandate to work in the office five days a week. Many were considering looking for new jobs themselves or knew someone who was.

But employers dissatisfied with so many far-flung employees are now requiring workers to spend at least some days in the office. Enter the coffee badgers—employees who come to the office the requisite number of days but don’t stay much longer than it takes to grab a cup of coffee.

A 2023 report from video conferencing company Owl Labs found that 58% of hybrid employees participating in a survey had engaged in coffee badging, and another 8% said they would like to try the practice.

The Owl Labs study found that more men than women coffee badge, and the practice is more prevalent among younger workers. The research found that among the hybrid workers in the survey, 63% of millennials had coffee badged, compared to 54% of Gen X, 43% of Gen Z, and 38% of Boomers.

Why trouble is brewing