Coffee Badging: Do You Have a “Grab-and-Go” Office?

You get what you measure. So, when you choose to measure office attendance solely based upon badge swipes, don't be surprised at how many employees are "coffee badging" -- a phenomenon whereby people badge in for a few minutes (long enough, say, to have a cup of coffee) and then turn around and return home to work for the rest of the day. Hey, they badged in! You got what you were measuring. But is that really what you wanted? Probably not.

Company leaders that we talk to say that they want employees to utilize the office space they spend millions of dollars on to collaborate, work productively and add value to the company. That leads us to ask: How are you measuring those things? What systems are in place to help cultivate culture, teamwork and productivity? And how is your workspace helping (or hurting) those objectives?

Our surroundings have a major impact on our behavior. Just like the difference between the design of a fast-food restaurant versus that of a resort. The design of a fast-food environment encourages customers to have a short and efficient visit -- think hard chairs, cramped tables and harsh lighting. While the objective of a resort is to entice guests to stay as long as possible. Hospitality designers do this by providing a variety of seating types, incorporating indoor and outdoor options, offering excellent service and creating good vibes with lighting and music. With those examples in mind, which is your office? Is it a place where you want to linger or a place where you try to minimize your time?

For the people who are coffee badging, it’s more of a “grab-and-go” work experience rather than a place they want spend time. Fortunately, the workspace can be changed and designed with a wide variety of work settings to invite all employees to feel comfortable and work at their best for the whole day.

Not ready to renovate your space? Other ideas that encourage employees to linger but do not require changes to the physical environment include:

• Adding frictionless technology that is easy to use and which boosts collaboration and work experience. A few options include enhancing audio-visual elements throughout the office, creating an employee experience app and implementing a universal desktop set-up to better streamline the login and network connectivity process. 
• Hosting casual, fun events to celebrate recent wins, project completions or a seasonal event or watch party (think Office Olympics).
• Scheduling regularly standing in-person team-oriented days that can be used to conduct team building exercises, brainstorming sessions or other meaningful group activities. 
• Planning regularly scheduled food-focused events such as monthly breakfast gatherings, weekly whole office lunches or all-staff meetings paired with happy hours. These types of celebrations are impactful and have the potential to evolve into office-centric rituals foundational to building shared experiences, cultivating relationships and strengthening company culture. 
• Familiarizing yourself with employees' in-office schedules and proactively planning one-on-one catch ups for mentoring, coaching and more.

If you think you have a “grab-and-go" office, the first step is to dig into the badge data to find evidence of how many coffee-badgers you have in your organization. Then ask two big questions “Why aren’t they staying?” and “How can we get folks to show up more often and stay longer?”