It seems that everyday there is a new article detailing a corporate ‘Return to Office’ (RTO) mandate of some type:
Saleforce has demanded it’s staff come back to the office at least 4 days a week.
ASOS says staff need to be in the office five days a week, because virtual meetings are detrimental to company performance.
Barclays has told it’s global workforce they need to be in the office five days a week.
Boots has instructed 3,900 admin workers that they want them full time in the office.
Dell, Deutsche Bank, JD Group, IBM, the UK Civil Service – all threatening disciplinary action if employees don’t get back to the office.
I haven’t seen the data these companies are using to make these calls, so can’t comment if they are valid concerned and decisions.
But as always, where there are new mandates and expectations there are interesting counter measures.
(We spoke a couple of weeks ago about mouse jigglers and the ingenuity of staff at Wells Fargo.)
Well it seems employees are at it again. People are ‘coffee badging’.
Coffee badging is when employees go to the office (using a security badge to enter, hence the name) and stay long enough to make a coffee, attend a quick meeting and then head home before the rush hour traffic kicks in.
An Owl Labs survey last year discoverd that a massive 58% of hybrid employees surveyed admitted to “showing face at the office and then leaving.” 63% of millennials coffee badge, 54% of Gen X and 43% of Gen Z. Even boomers are getting in on the act with 38% report that they’ve done it.
It just goes to show, that if you can’t give your people a good reason to do something that they connect with and engages them, they the best you’ll get is mediority.
The same applies to any work that people. You can pay them to do it, but you can’t pay them to do it well. You need to tap into intrinsic motivation get engagement and excellence.
How do you get your team involved in the decisions so they buy in not just in law, but in spirit too?
