Are you a “coffee badger”? You know the type, the colleague who shows up at the office just long enough to be seen—typically to swipe their badge, greet colleagues, grab a coffee … and then sneak out at some point to keep working remotely, the way millions have for years now.
This new buzzword is stirring anxiety in boardrooms, as “coffee badging” shows that what started as a cheeky work-around to return-to-office mandates post-COVID has become a significant challenge for companies grappling with the changing rules of workplace engagement.
The scope of the problem
Recent surveys show that coffee badging is not a fringe behavior: It is now practiced by a staggering portion of the workforce. According to data from multiple sources, 44% of hybrid workers in the U.S. acknowledge coffee badging, and more than 58% of respondents in a survey of 2,000 American workers admit to having done it at least once. But the issue isn’t confined to a small segment of multinationals or tech workers. In fact, three out of every four companies—75%—report struggling with employees coffee badging, making it a widespread concern across industries and company sizes.
Business Insider recently delivered a scoop that coffee badging has gotten so bad at Samsung’s U.S. semiconductor division that it explicitly scolded workers about it and rolled out an RTO (return-to-office) monitoring tool. While celebrating that “more smiling faces can be seen in the hallways,” Samsung announced its new “compliance tool for People Managers” will “ensure that team members are fulfilling their expectation regarding in-office work—however that is defined with their business leader—as well as guarding against instances of lunch/coffee badging.”
Samsung’s move followed a coffee-badging crackdown at Amazon. It has gotten so bad there that managers are having one-on-one conversations with employees about how many hours they are literally returning to the office. “Now that it’s been more than a year, we’re starting to speak directly with employees who haven’t regularly been spending meaningful amounts of time in the office to ensure they understand the importance of spending quality time with their colleagues,” Amazon previously said in a statement to Fortune.
Why are so many companies struggling?
Return-to-office mandates were supposed to restore normalcy and boost productivity. Instead, they’ve triggered a silent revolt.
Employees—especially millennials—are leveraging hybrid policies in their favor, finding the least disruptive way to comply, while minimizing commute and office time.
One study found that even 47% of managers admitted to coffee badging themselves, underscoring how deeply this behavior is ingrained across hierarchies. That’s actually higher than the number of individual contributors (34%) who are java swiping.
How companies respond
Faced with a widespread and hard-to-measure trend, companies are experimenting with everything from stricter tracking to radically new incentives. First is, simply, tracking badge swipes: Gartner reported that 60% of companies were tracking employees as of 2022, more than doubling since the beginning of the pandemic and only greater in magnitude since. Others, like Amazon, now require a minimum number of work hours in-office, not just a badge swipe.
A minority are shifting from hours-based to results-based evaluations, hoping to boost authentic office engagement. Others court employees with improved amenities and greater schedule autonomy, aiming to make office time more appealing than mandatory. Still, leaders worry that coffee badging signals deeper disengagement—and that one-size-fits-all RTO strategies are backfiring.
Looking ahead
Coffee badging is not just about workers skirting policies; it’s a symptom of a deeper disconnect between traditional workplace expectations and the realities of white-collar work in 2025. As long as employees can be productive remotely—and view in-person time as a performative hoop—companies will need to rethink the value proposition of the office, not just the enforcement.
With the majority of companies reporting struggles and nearly half of hybrid workers engaging in the practice, coffee badging isn’t going away soon. Rather than fighting it with stricter rules, organizations may need to listen to what it reveals about employee motivation, engagement, and the future of work culture itself.
Are you a coffee badger? Do you have them on your team, or know of others who swipe in and out after a brief appearance? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at nick.lichtenberg@consultant.fortune.com.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
