What is coffee badging, and how can it be controlled?

Coffee badging—are you guilty of it?

Coffee badging is the practice of showing up at the office for the bare minimum time required (and sometimes even less than required) to satisfy attendance policies. You swipe your badge, attend a meeting or two, maybe have coffee with a colleague, then leave to work remotely for the remainder of the day. 

With many companies adopting hybrid ways of working, managers often mandate some level of in-person attendance to ensure in-person collaboration and foster camaraderie. But not all employees are keen to make use of the opportunity—so they engage in coffee badging. 

Just how popular is it? What does it mean for your organization? And what can you do about coffee badging as a manager? Let’s dive in. 

Coffee badging—not a new trend

In one sense, coffee badging has a history stretching over 100 years. People have been finding creative ways around attendance requirements since the invention of the time card—punch in for your buddy who’s running late, slip out early, or take an extended lunch. 

The more modern iteration of coffee badging arrived several years ago in tandem with post-pandemic return to office policies. After a couple of years of remote work, people just didn’t want to return to the office. Some companies decided to force workers back into the office and ended up losing talent to competitors more lenient on attendance. Eventually, there came a delicate balance in the shape of hybrid schedules—a mix of in-person and remote work. 

Enter coffee badging. Employees that were against any type of in-person attendance found a loophole in the hybrid model—technically complying with office attendance requirements while spending minimal time there.

Coffee badging by the numbers

The scale of coffee badging might surprise you. According to Owl Labs’ 2025 report, 43% of hybrid workers regularly coffee badge, with another 12% planning to try it. That means over half of hybrid employees either are or will be minimizing their office time despite attendance requirements.

Only 45% of employees actually prefer to stay in the office for a full workday when they come in. In other words, the majority of hybrid workers view office attendance as an obligation to fulfill rather than an opportunity to embrace.

What’s particularly telling is how employers react when they catch employees coffee badging. Among those who’ve been caught, 56% report their employer didn’t mind. Only 13% faced any negative consequences. Another 31% say they haven’t been caught at all.

These numbers reveal something important: there’s a massive disconnect between official policy and what actually happens (and what’s actually tolerated). Companies mandate office presence, employees minimize it, and managers often look the other way. 

The fact that most managers don’t mind when they catch employees coffee badging suggests many leaders don’t see that value either. If the policy mattered—if office presence actually drove meaningful business outcomes—managers would care more about enforcement.

Should you even try to control coffee badging?

Before figuring out how to control coffee badging, ask yourself a more basic question: should you?

If your employees coffee badge without affecting their work quality, productivity, or team collaboration, what does that tell you about your office attendance requirement? It suggests the policy might not serve a clear purpose beyond “because we said so”.

This is where most organizations get it wrong. They treat coffee badging as an enforcement problem—we need stricter badge monitoring, clearer policies, stronger consequences. But coffee badging is actually a symptom of a misguided attendance policy. 

The better approach is to step back and ask: what are we actually trying to achieve with office attendance?

If your goal is genuine collaboration, require teams to come in on the same days and schedule important collaborative work during that time. Make the office days valuable for interaction, not just presence. Structure brainstorming sessions, project planning meetings, or team-building activities on office days. 

If you’re trying to build culture and relationships, create compelling reasons to be there. This might mean catered lunches, social events, or opportunities for mentorship and learning. Make the office a place people want to be, not just have to be.

If you’re concerned about productivity and accountability, shift your focus from presence to outcomes. Use tools to understand where work actually gets done most effectively, then design your policy around that reality. Maybe some roles genuinely benefit from office time while others don’t. 

Use data to inform your approach

Rather than making decisions based on gut feeling or managerial preference, let data guide you. DeskTime—the automatic time and productivity tracker—provides insights into actual work patterns and productivity across your organization.

Track productivity by location to see where different types of work happen most effectively. Identify which teams or individuals thrive in the office versus at home. Understand peak productivity hours and where people are working during those times. Compare project outcomes based on where the work was done.

This data transforms the conversation from “employees aren’t following the rules” to “here’s where work actually happens best”. When policies are grounded in objective productivity data rather than assumptions about what should work, employees are far more likely to accept and follow them.

It’s easy to control coffee badging. But most managers choose not to

At the end of the day, it’s easy to control coffee badging—require in-person check-ins, monitor arrival and departure times, and introduce major consequences for attendance policy circumventions. 

But do keep in mind that, with this, you risk alienating your top employees without moving the needle on productivity. If that’s a risk you’re willing to take, that’s your call. But, as Owl Labs’ study suggests, most managers don’t. 

The most successful hybrid models aren’t about control—they’re about intentionality. Clear goals, meaningful office time, flexibility where it makes sense, and structure where it matters. When employees understand why they’re being asked to come in and see genuine value in being there, coffee badging stops being necessary.

Article written by

Viesturs Abelis

A fan of crunching complex topics into digestible bites, Viesturs helps tech companies – and startups in particular – convey their unique stories to broader audiences. In addition to his work on DeskTime’s blog, you’ll come across his writing in Tech.eu, The Next Web, Crunchbase, and more.