Coffee badging, calendar blocking, polyworking, #WorkTok and work from bed are all trends we wouldn’t have predicted just five years ago. But the world of hybrid work is becoming more complex: As employees push for what they need, some employers push for them to be back in the office at 8 a.m. sharp.
The 2024 State of Hybrid Work from Owl Labs shows these trends gaining steam, as people sometimes have multiple jobs or follow alternative schedules, blurring the lines between their personal and professional lives, making traditional nine-to-five jobs much less common.
For some, hybrid work is the only way they’d be able to work. “When remote work became more accepted, I realized I didn’t have to choose between being a full-time mom and building something meaningful,” says Daphne Labropoulos, founder and CEO of Motch, a mommy-and-me clothing brand based in Goshen, N.Y. “I started [the company] from home with my toddler by my side.” Labropoulos collaborated with suppliers right at the kitchen table, tested work samples during snack time and spoke to product developers with her toddler on her lap, she recalls. “None of this would’ve been possible without the normalization of Zoom meetings, flexible hours and the broader cultural shift around blending work and life,” she says. “It gave me the confidence to build something original and to do it on our own terms.”
But the bosses have spoken. In another report, 93% of business leaders shared that employees should be in person at least part of the week, and 70% of companies have formal RTO policies requiring this. So what are workers to do after they’ve had a taste of freedom? Here’s what they shared.
More than 1 in 4 are looking for a different job
Not loving your boss’s RTO mandate? Some employees find that to be a great reason to look for more flexible work. The State of Hybrid Work report said 27% are actively looking to switch jobs, up from 23% in the 2023 report.
While some industries might be able to accommodate more flexible work, others are not—an important aspect to know before getting into any type of work or a specific company. For example, Benson Varghese, a board-certified criminal lawyer and a criminal defense attorney and founder and managing partner of Varghese Summersett, a law firm in Texas, says the “stakes are different” in the legal industry. “People’s freedom is on the line, so while flexibility matters, precision and responsiveness matter more,” he says. In regard to any workplace trend: “If it improves the work and the people doing it, we keep it. If not, we move on.”
Calendar blocking is used to protect workers’ time
In the Owl Labs report, 58% of respondents use calendar blocking, or protecting your calendar with pretend meetings. Some simply block it off without an explanation at all, rather than creating a pretend meeting. While some might be heading to yoga or the park during a blocked-off time, others are using it as a work strategy to give themselves guaranteed focus time.
“A few of our team members use calendar blocking to manage deep work and client calls without burnout,” Varghese says. “It helps people focus, and when it’s done right, it actually gives more breathing room, not less.”
Kate Davis, an executive coach in the U.K. calls it a “modern survival strategy.” But, she adds, there’s a difference between doing it to optimize work, and as a way for employees to protect themselves from an overbearing work environment. “When I see teams blocking out large portions of their day however, it often signals a deeper issue: too many meetings, too few decisions and not enough protected time for actual thinking. For leaders, the red flag isn’t that people are doing it—it’s when they’re doing it defensively,” she says. “If your team feels they need to carve out every inch of focus time to get anything done, that’s a system problem.”
Coffee badging is a silent RTO rebellion
What do you do when you’ve finally achieved work-life balance, and your boss issues an RTO mandate? The answer for some is a silent rebellion, which the 2023 Owl Labs report referred to as “coffee badging.” The concept is what it sounds like—badging in, having a coffee and showing your face, and heading back out to work where, when, and how you please.
Critics have called it a sign of lazy employees, while others think feeling the need to do it is instead a sign of a toxic workplace. In the 2024 report, 44% of respondents admitted to coffee badging, and another 11% said they want to try it.
Matt Erhard, managing partner at Summit Search Group, a recruiting firm in Vancouver, Canada, says they strategically decide when their team needs to be in-office, including for strategy sessions, training events and on-site briefings or interviews. “Outside of these constraints, however, we aim to give employees full autonomy over when and where they work. Because of this flexibility, we have not had an issue with coffee badging or other forms of ‘presenteeism.’” He says, “I’ve noticed the same thing in our work with clients: the companies thriving in hybrid models embrace flexibility and demonstrate a high level of trust in their teams. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these are also the employers who tend to attract the best talent.”
When you just don’t want to get up—the rise of “work from bed”
Sienna Hart, PR director at Chatrandom in New York, calls herself an “unapologetic work-from-bed-evangelist,” saying that “WFB thrives on intentional flexibility, not laziness. I start my day propped with pillows, laptop on a foldable bamboo tray, tackling deep-focus tasks like campaign analytics before the world wakes up. The quiet intimacy eliminates office distractions, boosting my creative output by 30%.”
Jon Kelly, a freelance digital marketer in the Greater Vancouver area, says freelance life allows for working “wherever feels right in the moment: bed, sofa, park bench or a café. These shifts help break up the isolation that can come with working from home and keep me feeling mentally refreshed.”
Obvious issues can arise for hybrid employees working from bed, from motivation to appearance and ensuring employees are “on camera” during calls—a pandemic-era dilemma some still haven’t solved.
With any hybrid work trend, there can be compliance and HR issues, but it’s also simply what works best for both bosses and employees for maximum efficiency and personal balance. “There are pros and cons to any choice about where and how we work. Make sure you understand the tradeoffs and are happy with your reasons in a way that works for you,” says Darcy Eikenberg, an executive coach in Bonita Springs, Fla. She recommends trying something with a hypothesis, giving it a certain amount of time and adjusting from there.
And remember—creative genius is creative genius—even in your pajamas.
Photo courtesy of insta_photos/Shutterstock
