Amazon is taking on employees who come in, buy coffee and leave just to comply with the return-to-office order

Amazon has begun tracking the number of hours corporate employees spend in the office in order to penalize those who come in, buy coffee and leave, a move known as “coffee badging” that aims to circumvent the e-commerce giant’s return-to-the-office policy, Business Insider reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

How was it possible for Amazon employees to earn badges for coffee?

Coffee badges were possible because Amazon previously had no minimum hours that employees had to spend at work.

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That’s why Amazon mandated that teams such as retail and cloud computing require a minimum number of hours per visit to count as in-office presence, according to the report, which added that some teams were ordered to stay in the office for at least six hours per visit.

Why do Amazon employees get coffee badges?

Amazon faced massive backlash from its employees after announcing plans to return to offices early last year, with some 30,000 employees signing an internal petition opposing the policy.

But Amazon responded by doubling down on its policy, forcing workers to move closer to their teams and withholding promotions from those who didn’t comply.

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Amazon spokeswoman Margaret Callahan wrote in an email to Business Insider that the company “will speak directly” to employees who did not spend enough time in the office.

Is Amazon the only entity that uses coffee labels?

A study conducted last year by videoconferencing company Owl Labs found that 58% of respondents working in hybrid work settings admitted to receiving badges for coffee.

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But another study from WFH Research found that managers were generally becoming more stringent when it came to enforcing return-to-office rules. Twenty-three percent of them said employees who defied return-to-office rules faced termination, up from 11 percent in 2022.