In a move that is meant to "crack-down" on lackluster attendance for hybrid employees, Amazon has begun monitoring the amount of hours hybrid employees are spending in the office. Previously a minimum of two hours was considered sufficient for attendance credit, but now the employer is requiring employees to come into the office three times a week.

Upon further review of the time spent in the office, Amazon found that many employees were actually "coffee badging" - when employees swipe their badges, initiating attendance, have coffee, and leaving shortly thereafter.

Amazon has been facing resistance from employees returning to the office since pandemic restrictions eased. This has led to the company to "forcing some employees to move closer to their teams and blocking promotions of people who failed comply".

To ramp up their push to return employees to the office, Amazon officials say that they have begun to "speak directly" to those employees who are non-compliant.

The drive has not been well-received by many employees, who feel there are better metrics than office attendance with which to measure their productivity.

This has led some employees to even find ways to "hack" the attendance system. Eugene Kim www.businessinsider.com (Jul. 16, 2024).

Commentary

Managers who must insist on the employer's requirement of in-office attendance must be prepared to weather the issues related to hybrid work environments.

As the above source indicates, many employees do not feel a sense of purpose at the office. A strong leader establishes the purpose.

For most management, the purpose of a hybrid schedule is to promote collaboration and interaction between employees. Consequently, managers should schedule collaborative and interactive work when employees are in the office so long as the work is meaningful. Creating "busy work" to keep employees from coffee-badging will simply undermine productivity.

For example, if employees are working on a project, management should make certain that meetings on the project are performed when most of the employees are in the office.