What is coffee badging in the workplace?

Do you really know?
11 nov 2025 5 min
What is coffee badging in the workplace?
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About this episode

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the relationship many white-collar employees have with work. And that’s particularly true when it comes to remote work; which some of them now see as a non-negotiable. And a lot of other employees have made it clear they don’t want to return to full-time office life. Nevertheless, many CEOs were keen to get their staff back into the office once the pandemic started to ease. Some companies ended up coming to hybrid arrangements as a kind of compromise. That’s still not enough for some though and it has led to signs of retaliation, in the form of trends like quiet quitting or “act your wage” which we’ve talked about in past episodes of Do You Really Know?. Today, we’re talking about coffee badging specifically, which is a kind of hack employees are using to fulfil office day mandates without actually spending too much time in the office. What does the “badge” part mean? And is it a positive thing? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: ⁠How much do surrogate mothers get paid?⁠ ⁠What is the Barnum effect?⁠ ⁠How to spot, prevent and treat heatstroke ?⁠ A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance. First broadcast: 11/11/2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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