knowedge work

“Coffee badging” symptom of need to redefine knowledge work

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As some employees are being called back to the office, many are subtly protesting by returning to the office for as little time as possible, Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs in Boston, told FOX Business. “Coffee badging is when employees show up to the office for enough time to have a cup of coffee, show their face and get a ‘badge swipe’ — then go home to do the rest of their work,” said Weishaupt. His firm, Owl Labs, which makes 360° video conferencing devices, did a deep dive into the trend’s data. The new trend of “coffee badging” at work is apparently in response to companies’ requirements that more employees return to the office. “Our 2023 State of Hybrid Work report found that only about 1 in 5 workers (22%) want to be in the office full time, with 37% wanting hybrid work options and 41% preferring to be fully remote,” said Weishaupt. 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/coffee-badging-job-trend-business-leaders-high-alert

This phenom is a symptom of the struggle to redefine knowledge work that has been decentralized out of commute-in offices thanks to information and communications technologies that emerged more than four decades ago with the innovation of microcomputers, personal communication devices and the mass market Internet. The momentum and urgency of which increased considerably with the public health measures to slow the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some organizations have resisted the decentralizing trend, insisting their staffs must commute to centralized offices to collaborate in person. But “coffee badging” shows not everyone is on board with the idea – or that any meaningful collaboration is taking place. Particularly if they are showing up to work in a cubicle when they could just as easily get their work done in a home office and avoid wasting an hour or more a day commuting.

The redefinition of knowledge work will require deeper thought in the ICT and post COVID-19 era that has fundamentally altered it. It is no longer about showing up at a set location at a predefined time schedule — two of Dave Rolston’s “dead kings” of work. The new definition will must center on outcomes and goals and how information is developed and communicated to further a knowledge organization’s mission.

“Seismic shift” in knowledge work

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According to a new MIT report, 34 percent of Americans who previously commuted to work report that they were working from home by the first week of April due to the coronavirus. That’s the same percentage of people who can work from home, according to a recent University of Chicago publication.

These new numbers represent a seismic shift in work culture. Prior to the pandemic, the number of people regularly working from home remained in the single digits, with only about 4 percent of the US workforce working from home at least half the time. However, the trend of working from home had been gaining momentum incrementally for years, as technology and company cultures increasingly accommodated it. So it’s also likely that many Americans who are now working from home for the first time will continue to do so after the pandemic.

Source: How coronavirus could change your office space and remote work from home – Vox

California’s high speed rail would facilitate redistribution of knowledge work out of state’s costly metro centers

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Without state and local intervention, San Joaquin Valley cities with high-speed rail stations will become sleeper communities, farming out tech workers on express trains to the Bay Area and Los Angeles, a report released Wednesday by nonprofit think-tank SPUR argues.

While the Central Valley could serve to supply the cheap housing the Bay Area has so far failed to provide its own workers, report author Egon Terplan says that outcome would fail to capitalize on perhaps the single greatest infrastructure investment this state will make in the entire century. Rather than being the tide that lifts all boats, high-speed rail could exacerbate already-stark income disparities between the two regions, he said.

If it’s done right, Terplan said those Central Valley cities can reverse years of high unemployment and disinvestment and become incubators for fledgling companies seeking cheaper rents outside the urban poles while still staying only a one- to two-hours’ commute away from either end, he said.

Source: Report: Vision needed to target high-speed rail investments

California’s metro area knowledge organizations operate largely on an outdated Industrial Age, commuting-based model. That has concentrated demand for housing and residential development in metro areas. That demand in turn has boosted housing prices to unaffordable levels in the Golden State, sending workers to more distant locales where housing is cheaper like the state’s Central Valley region.

This report suggests the state’s high speed rail system could begin a redistribution of knowledge work outside of the high cost metros of Los Angeles, San Jose and San Francisco by shrinking the distance and time between them and Central Valley locations. However as noted above, “only” a one or two hour commute isn’t a trivial matter if done on a daily basis. It adds up to the equivalent of one or two additional workdays each week.

High speed rail should instead support a once — or at most twice — weekly trip to a metro center office or other meeting location. How? By complementing it with another and arguably more vital 21st century infrastructure: fiber optic to the premise telecommunications connections. High speed rail can move bodies faster than automobiles. But fiber can move knowledge work far faster in mere seconds, virtually eliminating the distance between a knowledge worker in the Central Valley and Los Angeles and the Bay Area.