Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise

Hybrid workingLatest NewsFlexible working

Hybrid working and the advent of the ‘coffee badger’

by Adam McCulloch 31 May 2024
by Adam McCulloch 31 May 2024 Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock

Yet more buzzwords are flooding into the HR realm and we feel honour-bound to report them. Meanwhile, we’ve found out where all the CEOs live …

At Personnel Today we are all ears when it comes to new trends. Not all of us are au fait with TikTok but those of us who prefer to keep our phones in our pockets and look where we’re going when we walk down the road are dimly aware that a lot of incredibly vital HR developments are taking place on the social media platform.

Luckily, others have stepped in to summarise them on good old email, leaving us free not to walk into lamposts or fellow commuters. One such communiqué arrived from Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume. He wants to explain what’s going on in HR TikTok world, even if it’s not actually what’s going on in the real world.

So we now have Career Cushioning – a “trend that has likely been going on for far longer than it’s had a name” (aren’t they all?). This just means keeping your options open, looking to see what other roles are available at other companies without handing in your notice, Duris explains.

A lighthearted take on HR

Are you embarrassed about your messy desk?

What is microfeminism?

What’s the gen on Gen Z?

Beware of Quit-Tok, the trend for filming ‘bad news’ meetings

There is, intriguingly, Quiet Firing. This occurs as a byproduct of poor management leading to an employee being unable to fulfil their role effectively and resulting in them eventually quitting. Signs of this could be a lack of, or total lack, of feedback from management, a lack of career progression opportunities or heavy criticism, for example.

Our favourite item on the trendy trend listing is Coffee Badging. This is where an employee will show up in a physical workplace long enough to establish somewhat of a working relationship with their colleagues and have a cup of coffee, but then leave to work from home. Allowing “coffee badging” in a hybrid working policy “is arguably a result of workplaces not enforcing adequate professional policies,” writes Duris.

Of course, it helps if you are a “coffee badger” to live within a lunch hour of the office. And it is to geography that we must turn for our second thought of the week. News has emerged regarding the spatial distribution of CEOs. It is not something the Personnel Today team has given much thought to, but the results merit consideration for it seems that CEO’s are very much wedded to the idea of living in … Surrey.

Surprise, surprise. By some quirk of coincidence, Surrey is also the wealthiest county in the UK with property wealth per head at £255,125.

This revelation was brought to us by TonerGiant. The firm has analysed data from the Office for National Statistics and found that almost 5% of the UK’s CEOs live in Surrey. In second place Hertfordshire housed 3% with Westminster and Kent on 2.9%.

In the north, Lancashire and North Yorkshire had the most CEOs, but they barely made the top 30 nationally. Bottom of the pile was the Vale of Glamorgan with 307 CEOs, a mere fraction of a per cent.

Stuart Deavall from TonerGiant said: “It’s striking to see the sheer difference in CEOs living in the north versus the south. Although our research doesn’t identify where CEOs were born, it signifies that the southern region’s close proximity to London has meant that it has become a flourishing economic hub, ideal for CEOs and other senior executives to situate themselves. There are still regional disparities and inequalities in the UK.”

No doubt the “southern region’s proximity to London” makes it the coffee-badging hub too.

Latest HR job opportunities on Personnel Today

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.


Browse more human resources jobs

 

Adam McCulloch

Adam McCulloch first worked for Personnel Today magazine in the early 1990s as a sub editor. He rejoined Personnel Today as a writer in 2017, covering all aspects of HR but with a special interest in diversity, social mobility and industrial relations. He has ventured beyond the HR realm to work as a freelance writer and production editor in sectors including travel (The Guardian), aviation (Flight International), agriculture (Farmers' Weekly), music (Jazzwise), theatre (The Stage) and social work (Community Care). He is also the author of KentWalksNearLondon. Adam first became interested in industrial relations after witnessing an exchange between Arthur Scargill and National Coal Board chairman Ian McGregor in 1984, while working as a temp in facilities at the NCB, carrying extra chairs into a conference room!

previous post
Sickness absence: hybrid workers take less time off
next post
Complaints about subject access requests rise 13.5%

You may also like

Return to office: the looming battle over where...

11 Aug 2025

One in 10 SMEs say staff have quit...

6 Aug 2025

Web traffic 8% lower from 3pm on summer...

1 Aug 2025

University staff to strike over hybrid working curbs

15 Jul 2025

Employees voting with feet as return-to-office pressure increases...

15 Jul 2025

TUC launches inspections of workplaces for heat safety

13 Jul 2025

How using data can transform return-to-office mandates

11 Jul 2025

Stop chasing quick fixes: return to the office...

3 Jul 2025

100% success for latest large-scale four-day week trial

3 Jul 2025

Top 10 HR questions June 2025: Redundancy consultation

2 Jul 2025

  • Elevate your L&D strategy at the World of Learning 2025 SPONSORED | This October...Read more
  • How to employ a global workforce from the UK (webinar) WEBINAR | With an unpredictable...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise