The Ethics of Remote and Hybrid Work

Elizabeth Pittelkow Kittner CFO and Managing Director, Leelyn Smith LLC
Exploring Ethics in Business & Finance Today

Managing remote and hybrid work environments provides opportunities and challenges when it comes to company culture and individual behaviors. While it is an ethical practice to have written policies to align corporate culture and individual behaviors, it is more important how leadership enforces policies and how people are encouraged to apply them to their own work.

A May 2024 Harris Poll, which surveyed 1,170 employed adults, offers some insights about out-of-office culture. One of the main findings indicates that employees are generally fine with an organization’s paid time-off (PTO) policies and care more about how the organization’s culture feels when taking the time off. For example, of the workers polled:

• 47% said they feel guilty when taking time off.
• 60% said they struggled to fully disconnect during their time off.
• 86% said they would check an email from their boss while on PTO.
• 66% said they dread the backlog of work upon returning to work.

COFFEE BADGING AND QUIET VACATIONING

When employees feel an organization’s culture does not align with their work preferences or ability to spend time away from work, some behaviors may emerge that are unique to remote and hybrid environments. Most recently, two behaviors have gained momentum: coffee badging and quiet vacationing.

Coffee badging relates to people checking into (or badging into) an office to indicate they are at the building and not meaningfully engaging in work while there. This behavior arises because people who coffee badge are often in the office for a short time and then go back to working remotely for the rest of the day. While this behavior may satisfy the requirement of being in the office, the intention of working from the office is not achieved. Importantly, coffee badging has surfaced because many people do not feel as effective in the office or do not agree with the intent of required time in the office.

With this in mind, organizations should examine the reasons they are asking people to be in the office and ensure the time is meaningful. For example, asking people to attend a meeting in the office when contributors are in person may be better than asking people to attend a meeting in person when most of the other participants are attending remotely.

Quiet vacationing means taking time off without informing colleagues or supervisors, usually with the intent of staying active enough in communication, like emails or team chats, to give the impression they are working as expected when they are not. One of the reasons quiet vacationing has emerged in the workplace is due to some employees worrying about being viewed negatively for requesting their PTO. Another reason is some employees have a hard time fully disconnecting from their work. While employees practicing this quiet vacationing may be looking for reduced stress and burnout, it may not achieve that goal because they still need to be connected, and it may violate company time-off policies when not reported. Organizations can counter these behaviors and perceptions by talking with their employees about the importance of using their PTO effectively, encouraging them to use it, and finding reliable backups for people to be able to take disconnected time off.

WORK CULTURE CONSIDERATIONS

Overall, organizations should assess if their policies and work culture are promoting ethical workplace behaviors and determine how they can make changes to improve people’s experience in the workplace. Here are a few ideas:

• Consider the time needed for people to get their work completed. Time spent in an office or on particular tasks may not be as important as meeting deadlines and delivering reliable results. Notably, several organizations have adopted the idea of asynchronous work times, meaning people are allowed to alternate personal and professional time during the day if the work gets done (e.g., some people work their best in the early morning while others prefer to work at night). Aside from projects and meetings that require collaboration, offering freedom for when people work can help bolster employee job satisfaction, improve individual performance, and retain high performers.
• Review workloads. Some people may not be working much or may be spending copious amounts of time away from work. On the other side of the pendulum, others may be working a significant amount and not spending much time away from work. Both extremes may be damaging to both individuals and employers. When some employees do less work, it often leads to other employees taking on more work. When other employees are doing work to pick up the slack, those employees may experience burnout, suffer from lower morale, and harbor feelings of resentment. Additionally, it may lead to concerns on fairness, accountability, trust, and ethics across the organization. The employees who are not working as much are also threatening their own professional reputations and career advancement opportunities if their perception is one of low work ethic.
• Hold people accountable for the work they were hired to do. If an employee’s performance is lacking, management should address the behavior to bring change. Management should also address those who are “workaholics” to help them understand why they are working so much. For example, are they overachievers, do they need permission to delegate to others, or can the organization help them make processes more efficient?
• Offer company-wide holidays, like mental health days, in addition to traditional holidays. People may feel more empowered to disconnect when the organization is collectively taking time off together instead of requesting individual PTO. Offering these days after periods of higher stress, like quarter-end reporting deadlines, tax deadlines, closing the books, etc., can give employees a collective breath to recharge. Organizations may also consider offering time off for service days, which can be taken as a department holiday to participate. These types of time-off offerings show that the organization promotes time away from work and helping others.

Continually striving for a better workplace environment with positive individual behaviors should be part of everyone’s contributions to an organization, especially those with more influence to make changes. When we prioritize the right outcomes, workplace behaviors and cultures become healthier and tend to lead to more engaged people and successful organizations.

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• The Ethics of DEI: Cultivating a Positive Workplace: Committing to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives is more than an ethical consideration—it leads to stronger organizations and workplace cultures.