We’re deep into winter, so you might be feeling the ancient, cozy pull toward hibernation. But you also need to show your face at the office from time to time, so what to do?

The apparent solution is a sneaky new trend called coffee badging.

Coffee badgers slide into the office just long enough to grab a coffee and say a few hellos, technically fulfilling their RTO obligation — or merit badge, as it were — and then slide back out. If you’re thinking “it me,” you’re not alone: 58% of hybrid workers admit to coffee badging sometimes.

That doesn’t make it right. While hawkish timekeeping destroys employee motivation, badging is an obvious move to game the system — and unfair to colleagues who dutifully spend the full day behind their desks. We all want to be back in our warm beds, but RTO can’t be served in a to-go cup.

Master of Change: Brad Stulberg preaches “rugged flexibility”

New hires: How to fast-track their productivity

The average person experiences a “disorder event” every 18 months. These include starting (or losing) a job, entering (or ending) a relationship, moving to a new city, having a child, and other life inflection points.

So, how do we foster a sense of resilience in the face of inevitable professional and personal disruption? Brad Stulberg, author of the recent bestseller Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing — Including You, spoke with b. about his concept of “rugged flexibility.”

b. Aren’t “rugged” and “flexible” basically opposites? 

Stulberg: So most people … think that these are diametrically opposed opposites. To be rugged is to be tough, durable, determined; to be flexible is to be soft, supple, bend easily without breaking.

And what I found … is that individuals and organizations that sustain excellence over the long haul — and navigate periods of change and chaos and disorder, and even just the inevitable ups and downs — they’re not rugged or flexible. They’re rugged and flexible. They take these two competing ideas and they’re able to practice them and hold them at the same time.

Ruggedness generally comes from a sense of one’s core values or key strengths — what really makes them who they are. This could be as an individual, but it could also be as an organization. And then the flexibility component is, over time, how do you take those strengths and apply them in new and creative ways when the circumstances change?

And it’s really the fundamental principle of evolution, of growing through change. It is figuring out what makes you who you are and then being able to adapt on everything else.

b.: What can companies do to empower their employees to practice this kind of mentality?

Stulberg: Have a good sense of what their core values are — what they really stand for — but then separate those core values from actual behaviors and practices.

So if a company’s mission is to deliver lifesaving treatments to individuals with a certain disease, that’s the core value. But how they do it and how they practice that ought to change as technology changes. If a company’s core value is to be a really entertaining media company … Well, is that through television? Is that through podcasting? Is that through YouTube? Is that through TikTok? 

Empower the organization and employees to be really creative in how they accomplish that value and to adapt the practices and behaviors over time. … Help employees gain a sense of their own personal ruggedness. So what are the traits that really make them who they are? What are their strengths that they might want to double down on?

And then help them understand that — when they’re faced with ambiguity or change or uncertainty — they can go back to the strengths and they can ask themselves, “Well, how might I apply authenticity?” or “How might I apply kindness?” or “What would the creative thing to do be?”

“I used to have more [morning rituals] and then I had kids. So my morning routine now is just make a pot of coffee, and it’s really — that’s it.

“We get the kids out the door to school, so on and so forth. But if, before I check my phone, I can just make a pot of coffee and smell the coffee and just go through that, that is good.

“But I also have gotten really good at writing while walking the dog. Meaning I have six ideas for subheadings and I just make a voice note in my phone [or] capture it in a notebook. So, in a way, I’m always writing. And then it’s really just about finding the time to sit down and put it together.”

(Source: Shutterstock)

Dr. Ben Baran is an Associate Professor at Cleveland State University and co-founder of Elevating What Works.

No matter how great your new hires are, it takes time to get them up to speed. But every moment they’re on your payroll and not fully adding value, you’re losing money.

One way to shorten this “time to productivity” gap is to have an excellent onboarding process. Don’t confuse this with orientation, which typically centers around the immediate paperwork and other routine matters.

Onboarding is a longer-term process that helps new employees become part of the team and fully transition from outsiders to insiders. It involves ensuring they learn how to be successful and add value to the organization. This could take up to a full year to complete, but doing it right will get them up to speed quickly, increasing their satisfaction and reducing the probability they’ll quit.

Most organizations struggle to do this well. But that presents an opportunity for you — here are steps to build or improve your onboarding process:

• Ask your current employees what they wish they would have done or learned during their first few weeks or months on the job. You could do this through a survey, or you could ask people individually or in groups.
• Look for themes in what people said and use them to prioritize next steps.
• Include managers. Direct supervisors should be closely involved in the onboarding of their new hires. In addition to making new hires feel welcomed, they should work with them to develop a specific plan for success. Consider starting with a 90-day plan.
• Schedule and conduct regular check-ins between direct supervisors and new hires. These will likely be very frequent to start, but then can taper off to a less-frequent schedule as the new hire makes progress.

Investing this time early on pays off. It can reduce mistakes, accelerate the path to peak performance, and help new hires feel like a valued part of the team.

Written by Carolyn Neuhausen and Dan Ketchum.