Amazon is encouraging employees to return to the office, but they are resisting with tactics like “coffee badges.”
What is a Coffee Badge?
Coffee badges mean that on mandatory days, you swipe your card to enter the office, have a coffee, have a quick chat with a colleague, and then leave after spending only a small portion of your working time in the office.
This is a workaround that allows employees to say they were actually in the office on the days they were scheduled to work, even if they didn’t spend any “meaningful” time there.
Many employees are doing this after being forced to return to the office, despite having voiced a desire to continue with the work-from-home model that many companies successfully implemented during the pandemic. Business Insider reported.
In a survey by video conferencing company Owl Labs, 58% of respondents said they also wear coffee badges.
This is not the first time that a wave of discontent has erupted among workers, with some becoming disillusioned with job security amid mass layoffs and others quietly quitting.
Amazon is changing the rules
But retail giant Amazon, the second-largest employer in the U.S., isn’t buying it, said Deepali Vyas (@elite.recruiter), an executive recruiter with 25 years of experience, in a viral video that has been viewed more than 1 million times.
Now, Amazon employees can no longer count a day simply by swiping a card. Business Insider reportedSeveral teams, including those in retail and cloud computing, were told they had to stay in the office for at least two to six hours per visit to count as attendance — a bit like a school roll call.
“At least 2 hours?! That should be fine…” one person commented.
“This is a completely insane approach and focuses on the wrong metrics,” another person disagreed.
Employees remain unhappy with the policy, seeing it as regressive, and upset at the company’s lack of transparency about “why” this is so important. Many believe performance should be based on performance metrics, not on whether or not they show up to the office.
“There’s a lot to address and the coffee badge is just the beginning,” Vyas says in the video.
Backlash against Amazon returning to the office
Amazon said last year that employees would need to return to the office but didn’t specify a minimum number of hours they needed to be there. More than 28,000 people joined a Slack group called “Remote Advocacy,” and thousands signed petitions and staged walkouts in several cities, including the company’s Seattle headquarters.
Managers were told they could fire anyone who didn’t follow the policy. Forbes reportSome employees were moved closer to their teams, while others were blocked from promotions for not complying, and they have since begun having one-on-one conversations with employees who don’t come into the office.
“With the vast majority of our employees in the office more often, we’re hearing from our employees and the businesses surrounding us that they feel more energized, connected, and collaborative,” Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan told Business Insider.
Amazon isn’t the only big company forcing employees back to the office: Disney, Google, and Apple have also introduced their own policies.
The comments section was filled with a variety of observations and opinions.
“I’d like to see the badge history of senior executives,” read the top comment.
“I can’t be productive in the office. I’m too chatty and can’t concentrate. But at home I can work all day alone. Sorry,” one person said.
“The commute is the hardest so I wear the badge to work because I want to be able to concentrate and the office is not a place where I can concentrate,” added another.
The Daily Dot reached out to Vyas and Amazon for comment in emails.
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