What are your thoughts on Amazon cracking down on"coffee badgimg" or badging in and badging right out?
Here's my thoughts based on working -3 days/week in a hybrid role without any requirement on the amount of time in office.
1. I like being able to meet with teammates and stakeholders in person.
2. But, doing creative work in the office is not ideal due to frequent interruptions.
Amazon needs their managers to be better at motivating their teams to want to work instead of demotivating them.
I don’t really see it as a motivation thing. The worker at McDonalds doesn’t wear their uniform because they’re motivated to, they wear it because their employer is requiring them to.
I’m not a fan of in office or even hybrid but if the standard is to work from the office, then work from the office or go somewhere you don’t need to do that. It’s not like they’re asking for you to do it for free. It’s just part of the job.
Big brain move is to badge in and take the emergency stairs exit out without badging.
If the goal is getting workers to produce more useful output, requiring all roles to be in the office can actually result in less productivity for some types of roles.
The thought did occur to me that one valuable outcome of Amazon's mandate may be the ability to reduce headcount without having to do layoffs.
Bingo!
I work a hybrid 44/36 schedule. I don't mind going to the office two days a week. Our division decided that Tuesdays would be mandatory, and the second day would be up to us. It is easier to meet with folks when they're in the office, and it is also great for team building. I don't need to see folks every day. Seeing them one or two days a week is enough for me.
The goal of RTO was to make people quit. Due to the trashed economy...people couldn't find alternate employment...so they stayed and started coffee badging. Now, they'll go after that. The goal is to reduce headcount.
💯
At my company, they refuse to explain how they’re really tracking in office time. We work with global, highly distributed teams. So it’s the pinnacle of driving to the office to sit on Teams meetings or sitting there doing work when you work with no one else at your location. It only offers distraction.
The one size fits all strategy to hybrid has been really demotivating
THIS! I can do TEAMS meetings at home.
My thought is that if they’re enforcing RTO then it makes sense to crack down on coffee badging. Literally showing up for 5 minutes was clearly not the point of the directive. I don’t necessarily agree with the RTO mandate for everyone, but since it is in place, “coffee badging” to beat the system shouldn’t be tolerated, for obvious reasons. It’s a policy issue and an integrity issue. You’re pretending to comply with something while not complying.
And no, I’m not saying your day shouldn’t count if you leave early for an appointment sometimes, or that someone should inspect these like time cards, but coffee badging is silly.
Yes, driving to an office so you can scan your badge and then leave is true valor. Thank you for your service.