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I am seeing most of the desks are occupied these days. Good to see 80%+ occupancy on most of the floors in charlotte.
I have seen most people leaving the office after 4 hours but that's not coffee badging and used to be same pre-pandemic.
WPE team goal seems to be achieved and their positions are at risk of being eliminated ;)
Heard several people were impacted with the latest wave of ‘Coffee Badging’, anyone know what metric and timeframe this is for? I heard they were going to pull reports from January-May for those under 7 hours a day, can any manager here confirm?
Rumors are rampant on why the changes to number/hours in office have not been communicated. I’ve heard they want to wait until after the survey, or I’ve heard it’s because there’s some employment/legal issues that need to be addressed first. I’ve also heard it’s on pause until they have more data and what / who needs to be addressed (like coffee badgers) But does anyone have reliable information?
Just a heads up to any coffee badgers - MS Teams is reporting your location activity and it is being actively monitored by HR. If you are coffee badging, you will be caught and once enough data is available for a "for cause termination", you will be fired without warning/notice.
I got fired for coffee badging. And I know I'm not alone. Cheaper to fire us than lay us off. Not even any sort of reprimand or PIP. They just went straight to "You're fired!"
They ain’t tracking sh*t keep doing it…
Every time I see stories about “coffee badging,” it’s hard not to feel frustrated. Some people are effectively gaming the system and collecting paychecks, while others are putting in real effort and trying to make a meaningful contribution.
FIRE THEM ALL!
Got flagged for occasional coffee badging. They must be monitoring the cameras. Any others?
After seeing so may posts on here about for people getting fired for coffee badging now I’m confused. I understand people who would only swipe their badge and turnaround immediately, but si don’t get why people who stay here for 6 hours would be considered coffee badging. I try to stay at least 6 hours at the office when I go in, but sometimes I like to spend only the mornings there and come back during lunch. If I do this wouldn’t get fired?
A couple months ago I reported an egregious coffee badging colleague at the Charlotte office. He habitually swipes his badge, plugs his laptop in, grabs a hot drink, then unplugs his laptop and disappears for the entire day. I then see him pop up online about 30 minutes later but I don’t see him in person again for the rest of the day. I don’t know what HR did about it after my report since they can’t tell me, but it seems like it’s NOTHING because just this morning, it happened again. I guess I’ll keep submitting reports until something changes or HR tells me they at least reached out to him. I’ll report every last person that I see abusing the system. We need to get rid of these leeches.
Friday tomorrow. You know what that means. I’ll be in the office at 5AM sharp to drop off my laptop. I’ll connect to the LAN and clear my inbox, then head home around 7 to eat breakfast abs watch the masters. I’ll sit on the couch all day and drink beer as I watch every angle of every shot. Around 1 when I’m on the way out to the bar with the fellas, I’ll stop by the office to pick up my laptop after a solid 8 hours are logged. Nobody I work with is in the same office as me anyway so nobody can even question it. As long as your report shows 8 hours, nothing else matters anymore. I’ll check in again Monday morning. RTO has changed my life and now life is good. All you gotta do is “show up”.
I’ve heard the 4/1 change is on hold, but they are monitoring/reporting and will come out with changes to address ‘bad’ behavior like coffee badging. What is everyone else hearing? I find it so strange we were communicated a change and then nothing else.
ALL they care about are badge swipes. That's it. Swipe your badge and you get a gold star for "going to the office."
But does anyone ACTUALLY stay for a full workday? I mean, I drive an hour to the office and stay for 1.5-2 hours and then go home because why stay? Cafeteria food prices are way more expensive than ever and none of the food is not worth the price. One person on my actual team goes to my office and we both leave at the same time. Which is typically 11:30-12pm.
Here’s what’s going on:
If you are hybrid, you need to be showing up in office for full days (6+ hours) 3+ days a week.
This is now in Workday as a goal.
3+ days, nothing new.
Why 6+, because that’s classified as a full day. This is due to people scanning then leaving. This is also due to people who should be in a hub but when their leader sits elsewhere, the employees end up working elsewhere. Like, while taking an undisclosed vacation somewhere.
I have personally witnessed the coffee badgers in office. Show up about noon, gone about 2:30.
That’s why they are implementing the full accountability. So yes, it’s true. Can we stop with all the rumor posts now?
I know 3 coworkers fired today for coffee badging... all of them would come in at 7 and leave by 12... terminated for violating policy. I know several people who coffee badge for for far less hours, management is cracking down on this quietly... you have been warned
Supposedly they're cracking down on coffee badgers... anyone here this?
Does Wells have the ability to track hours at the office?
i was born yesterday but could someone explain.
I know of 3 people who got warnings today, and one of them was fired. Supposedly the one that was fired was averaging 4 hours per day and would leave after lunch. Seems like half of TIAA will be let go
As the title shows what are we as employees and contractors going to ask for? the sky should be the limit given the last one many thumbed up the nasty coffee in the west,
Saw a post on LinkedIn and found it interesting; Coffee Badging: When nearly half of a workforce develops a workaround to formally comply with a rule while simultaneously circumventing it, the workforce isn't the problem. The rule is the problem. Coffee badging is the silent proof that mandatory office attendance produces presence – but not value creation.
At the same time, 49% of managers themselves admit that their teams work more productively in hybrid or remote setups. Another 31% say location makes no difference. (Source: Owl Labs, 2024) That means: 80% of decision-makers know that mandatory office attendance doesn't deliver results. And enforce it anyway. Why? Because leading through results is harder than leading through visibility. Anyone who doesn't define clear goals, doesn't have processes that make performance measurable, and lacks trust in their own organization – needs attendance as a substitute metric. Mandatory office presence is not a productivity tool. It's a leadership deficit disguised as policy.
A study by the University of Pittsburgh analyzed the reintroduction of mandatory office attendance across 137 S&P 500 companies. Result: No measurable performance improvement. But declining employee satisfaction. Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom shows in his long-term study that hybrid models reduce resignation rates by a third – without any loss in productivity. The companies tightening the rules now – Amazon with 5 days, SAP with 3 mandatory days, Deutsche Bank banning home office on Fridays – aren't solving a performance problem. They're solving a trust problem. With the wrong tool.
Spotify does it differently. "Work is something you do, not a place you go." Lower turnover than its competitors with mandatory office attendance. Coffee badging doesn't disappear through stricter rules. It disappears through better leadership: clear goals, measurable results, genuine trust. Everything else is waste – of time, commutes, and motivation.
Sources: Owl Labs – State of Hybrid Work Report 2024 University of Pittsburgh – Ding/Ma, RTO Study S&P 500 Stanford – Nicholas Bloom, Hybrid Work Study
Guys
any idea how are they tracking RTO? I hate 4-1
is coffee badging still doable?
Just got word from my sources that corp risk 4 day RTO will start in April 1 and not Jan 1.
Congrats fellow coffee badgers
I live close to the office, no-one in my team is at the office and I find the noise of other people on calls distracting. I've been coffee badging for a few years now, it's worked out great, not showing up on reports.
The new 8 hours in the office mandate has me wondering if I can swipe and connect to the network twice on "in office" days, 8 hours apart and stay off the reporting? Has anyone done this successfully?
I know the policy, not looking for people to remind me of what I'm supposed to do...
Are there any consequences if you coffee badge or don’t hit your numbers? Are they giving exemptions due to bad weather?
As far as I am concerned, their behavior constituted belligerent fraud.
The below is said in jest, and is probably not something anyone should or would actually do. Also, it would only truly work if someone lived VERY close to the office.
Go to office @ 7:00 am. Leave office at 7:05…..
Go home.
Come back at 2:55, badge in.
Leave at 3:00
First badge in 7:00 am
Last badge out 3:00 pm
Calculated time in office: 8 hours
Actual time in office: 10 minutes
For the coffee badgers since RTO, seems we have been busted big time.
Anyone has any idea how to game the system with this 8 hour rule.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I have been coffee badging ever since RTO started and I have never heard anything from my manager about time spent in the office. I am the sole person on my team at my location so I never see anyone I know when I go in. So I typically take a few calls at the office in the morning then head home to finish up.
Reading all the posts here about managers cracking down about number of hours in office makes me curious if I’m the only one who hasn’t had any related time tracking guidance yet? I don’t see myself changing up my in-office routine unless I hear something from my manager directly.
Look what’s happening in tech - irrelevant stats being used to stack rank people because the people in charge don’t have actual strategic ideas. Measuring keystrokes and then showing “improvement “. Lol. Butts in seats. If you don’t trust your managers to manage and your strategy to measure what matters you have more problems than coffee badging. All the mistakes people made at their old banks are coming here.
Email received today:
Need to Know:
Anyone has news if HR is running report to check if employee is working in the office? Or it's off the radar?
are they tracking vpn 8hrs in office? Do they have that much ability to track? It was mentioned they will caught the coffee badging people on weekly basis.
Anyone else wonder if productivity has diminished with the 4 day a week requirement? Everyone was already burnt out from the ever growing workload. Add the commute and I continue to see people’s ability to care fading away.
this whole bs thing started in what, early March or so? I went in MAYBE 3 days/week but averaged out more like 1-2/week lol. I was told by my manager that I should probably start going in more to stay off a "list," so i did. I'd go swipe my badge and drive the hour commute back home.
Then the whole manager reorg happened and my new "manager" is pi---d about the RTO as well. He basically told me - without saying it - that if i want to just badge in and go straight back home, then i can.
I live an hour from the office and got tired of the drive. I put in for a medical exception for something and was granted 6 months. So, I haven't been to the office since I think early April now?
Are they still monitoring this cr-p? Because in my last 1x1 he didn't say a thing about it.
Curious how coffee badging is kept track of when there is no exit badging. Is there additional monitoring going on? Does anyone know how this is kept track of?