Coffee Badging, Polywork, and the Green Status Effect: The New Language of Return to Office
It’s been about a year since I wrote about the fascinating, evolving struggle between employers and employees over where and how and how much employees should work. In a series of articles, I described the disagreement in the US post-COVID as “the shootout at the virtual office corral,” or a horse race, and compared the global debate to a hockey “faceoff.”
All those images were on the more violent end of the spectrum.
Over the past year the question of working remotely vs. in the office has settled in to something that more closely resembles a chess match. Employers have been moving pieces aggressively, then retreating, with both transparent and hidden strategies. Emboldened employees are making defensive countermoves —and sometimes playing 2-3 games at once.
The fight over return to office may look like a game of chess, but the consequences are real (image from chesspower.co.nz)
Along the way, commentators have been scrambling to develop a vocabulary that describes the new game as it is developing. More on that in a bit. But first, a high-level summary of where things stand with back-to-work in the US.
The latest numbers show 13.8% of us are working fully remotely, although the percentages vary greatly depending on where we live. In Boulder Colorado, Austin Texas and Raleigh NC – all places with high percentages of tech workers -- 1 in every 4 people work exclusively from home. In oil-dominated Beaumont Texas, 1 in every 25 people work from home.
Most Americans have some sort of flex arrangement: 82% of Fortune 500 companies still allow employees to split their work time between the office and home. If you average it out, American workers are now spending an average of 27.5% of their time doing remote work.
None of this is dramatically different from a year ago. But the lack of a big shift in the overall numbers masks what’s going on behind the scenes. Here’s a quick guide to the new vocabulary of the chess match:
Employer side: Will Knight Take Pawn?
“Back channel layoffs”: A slightly looser labor market has given high-profile companies like Amazon, UPS, Boeing, JP Morgan Chase and others the confidence to ratchet up “return to office” policies. Beginning in January, Amazon workers will be expected to move from a required 3 days per week in the office to 5.
Publicly, CEO’s say more work hours in the office will increase productivity and improve office culture. But a recent (anonymous) survey found that a quarter of C-suite executives surveyed also admitted they hoped that the requirements would get people to quit – resignations are cheaper for a company than layoffs. If that is the goal, so far it appears to be working: 8 out of 10 employers implementing stricter return to work policies report losing workers in the process.
So companies get to reduce headcount without having to announce layoffs -- what some people are calling “back channel layoffs.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, who is co-leading (with Elon Musk) President-elect Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort, is much more explicit about the motives behind his proposal to require federal employees to “come back five days a week from 8am to 6 pm.” He believes the requirement will “result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome,” and estimates that the policy alone could produce a “25% thinning out of the federal bureaucracy.” If overall headcount reduction is the goal, he may get his wish; if the goal is to get rid of unproductive employees and hold on to good ones, it’s unlikely to work.
Questions: Is employer pressure to return to work rooted in a deep belief that in-office work results in better work? Or is it really a Trojan Horse approach to achieve low-cost layoffs?
Employee side: Will Pawn Take Bishop?
People really like being able to work remotely. Some 90% say they like the flexibility and improved work-life balance; 74% like the reduced commute time; 51% like the help it gives them to deal with family matters.
And despite what employers believe, it’s not a slam dunk that they are less productive working from home.
While some particular sectors have metrics showing in-office is more productive, a lot of the pressure to return is based on employer hunches – they think employees will be more productive in the office. And there are some surveys suggesting the added productivity juice isn’t worth the squeeze. A survey by BambooHR finds that both in-office and remote workers report report spending 76% of their shifts actually working. Remote workers also save on commute time, report spending an average of an hour less time socializing during the work day than their in-office colleagues, and are half as likely to squeeze in a workout during the workday.
So, as employers have adjusted their policies over the past year (25% have gotten stricter about attendance), employees are adjusting their own behavior in response. Even if these are not formal policies, they are happening often enough to create a new vocabulary.
“Hey here I am, at the office, drinking my coffee. Good to see you guys. I’m just going to step out for a minute. You can reach my on Teams…”
“Coffee badging”: The absolute “return to office” requirements of companies like Amazon are emboldening other companies to ask employees to come to the office more – maybe moving from two days a week to three, or from three to four.
That’s led workers at all levels to look for ways to make brief appearances in the office, essentially stopping in to drink a cup of coffee in the break room (and getting an informal attendance “badge”).
Or they will walk around for a while. Or have a single visible meeting with a colleague before heading back home for the rest of the day. According to OWL Labs latest “State of Hybrid Work” report, 44% of all employees (and 47% of managers) say they have “coffee badged”; another 11% haven’t but “would love to try it.” Other than the ethical considerations, there’s not much downside: among those who practice coffee-badging, 30% say they haven’t been caught, and 59% say once they were caught, but there were no consequences.
Questions: If employers don’t care enough to enforce actual office attendance for those who don’t like it, does that mean they don’t really believe in the policy? Or have they just not figured out how to enforce it?
“Workcations” and “Work from Bed”: The ability to work from anywhere has made it possible for more folks to perform work in places where historically they wouldn’t. Whether this is a good thing or not is a separate question. This year’s OWL survey showed that nearly 3 out of 4 remote or hybrid workers – 72% -- don’t take official sick days when they are sick, preferring to try to work when they are ill. Another 58% report working while they were on vacation.
Questions: Does that mean workers aren’t asking for official sick days or vacation days but taking them, with a little work thrown in on the side? Or does it mean our work is so busy we don’t feel like we can afford to take time off even when we should? Either scenario is troubling.
“Polywork” Remote work definitely makes it easier to have a side hustle. The OWL report finds 42% of remote or hybrid workers either have an additional job or plan to get one in the next year; an additional 28% “don’t polywork but would like to.” That’s a huge change from our past history. As recently as a decade ago, only 5% of us held two jobs.
Questions: Does that mean most of us can’t afford to live on one income, that more of us are working part-time “gig” jobs than we used to, or that remote work makes it easier to play the system and be “working” for two employers at the same time?
“The Green Status Effect” and “Calendar Blocking”: While employers try to determine if remote workers are actually being productive while out of the office, one clue for managers is to check in on their “green status” – is the employee active on the company’s internal messaging apps? Employees recognize this and, according to Bamboo HR, 64% admit to keeping their messaging apps “always open” to suggest they are always working. Others, according to the OWL survey, are putting blocks on large chunks of time to prevent scheduling of meetings: 58% of workers practice “calendar blocking.”
Questions: Is ”green status” just the remote equivalent of “coffee badging” – a way of reminding colleagues you are hard at work? Does calendar blocking enable remote or hybrid workers to have dedicated time to focus on projects requiring deep concentration? Or do both of these make it easier to do polywork without questions or do athletic workouts while officially on the clock?
Are We Headed for Stalemate?
There are boatloads of chess books written on the opening few moves of the game. There’s another pile written about the endgame. We’re in the murky middlegame with return to work. Each side is continuing to try out new strategies. And there’s no checkmate in sight.
-Leslie
Notes:
Current data on remote vs. in-office: https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/amazon-return-to-office-remote-work
Hidden agenda behind return to office mandates: https://www.forbes.com/sites/karadennison/2024/07/10/how-return-to-office-policies-are-impacting-employees-in-2024/
DOGE strategy for layoffs: https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2024/11/21/federal-workers-return-office-doge-elon-musk
The fascinating OWL Labs State of Hybrid Work 2024 report: https://owllabs.com/state-of-hybrid-work/2024
Trends in dual employment: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/multiple-jobholding-over-the-past-two-decades.htm
Middlegame defined: https://www.chess.com/terms/chess-middlegame