Category: work place trends

4 Workplace Trends to Embrace

The last four workplace trends from our quiz highlight positive employee behaviors. These include unbossing, job crafting, career cushioning, and acting your wage.

Each trend represents steps that employees or employers can take to foster growth, balance, and long-term satisfaction at work. As a business owner or manager, understanding these trends—and encouraging them where appropriate—can help you create a positive workplace culture and retain top talent.

Unbossing

Unbossing was popularized by the CEO of Novartis to promote servant leadership and empower employees. Today, many companies use it to replace rigid hierarchies with more flexible, collaborative structures. By removing layers of middle management, employees gain more autonomy, which often leads to higher engagement, better mental health, and increased innovation.

Key benefits of unbossing include:

  • Employees decide how and when they work, with accountability tied to outcomes and deadlines—improving work-life balance and motivation.
  • Teams self-manage workflows, goals, and performance, leading to faster decision-making and greater innovation.
  • Fewer management layers reduce payroll and overhead costs.
  • Leaders act as coaches and mentors, and employees communicate directly with leadership, reducing miscommunication.

Challenges for small businesses include:

  • Owners may struggle to let go of decision-making.
  • Without clear accountability, deadlines can be missed or productivity may drop.
  • Unclear authority may stall progress when final decisions aren’t made.
  • Small teams may lack experienced leaders who understand coaching-based leadership.

How to succeed with unbossing:
Clearly define goals, implement accountability measures, and encourage transparent communication. Tools like Teams, Trello, Slack, Zoom, or Monday.com can support collaboration and alignment.

Job Crafting

Job crafting occurs when employees reshape their roles to align with their strengths, passions, and values. This can include:

  • Task crafting – taking on projects that spark interest, using new tools to improve efficiency, or delegating less enjoyable tasks.
  • Relationship crafting – working with colleagues, mentors, or clients who inspire growth.
  • Cognitive crafting – reframing how one thinks about work to make it more meaningful.

Steps to begin job crafting:

  1. Reflect on your strengths, interests, and values.
  2. Choose one specific change to improve your role.
  3. Discuss changes with your manager if they affect tasks or clients (cognitive crafting is more personal).
  4. Test the change, measure its impact, and build from small successes.

Done well, job crafting boosts fulfillment while maintaining or even increasing productivity.

Career Cushioning

Career cushioning is the practice of preparing for your next role while still employed. Think of it as career insurance. Employees who career-cushion are proactive about growth and resilience.

Key practices include:

  • Keeping your résumé and LinkedIn profile updated.
  • Building professional relationships through networking and events.
  • Staying aware of job market trends and openings.
  • Upgrading skills and learning industry developments.
  • Developing side income streams to provide stability in case of job loss.

For employers, career cushioning shouldn’t be viewed negatively. Employees who stay sharp and connected often bring new skills and perspectives that benefit their current workplace.

Act Your Wage

“Act your wage” is a workplace trend where employees set healthy boundaries by working within the scope of their responsibilities and protecting their personal time. They push back against the expectation to constantly work overtime or take on responsibilities without fair compensation.

Why it matters:

  • For employees, it protects mental health, prevents burnout, and reinforces fair boundaries.
  • For managers, it highlights the importance of fair compensation, balanced workloads, and respect for personal time.

How employers can support this:

  • Avoid assigning tasks outside an employee’s job description.
  • Ensure workloads don’t require regular overtime, and encourage use of paid time off.
  • Provide raises or promotions when adding responsibilities.

Business benefits include:

  • Fair compensation and clear expectations.
  • Reduced burnout, turnover, and disengagement.
  • Stronger morale and job satisfaction.

Final Thoughts

In today’s competitive job market, attracting and retaining strong employees is more challenging than ever. Encouraging positive workplace behaviors—like unbossing, job crafting, career cushioning, and acting your wage—creates an environment where employees feel valued, empowered, and fulfilled. Employees who know their responsibilities, are fairly compensated, and enjoy a healthy work-life balance are far more likely to stay and thrive in your organization for years to come.

Spotting Negative Workplace Behaviors

Certain workplace behaviors signal deeper issues in the office environment. These behaviors often arise when employees feel unappreciated, overwhelmed, or pressured to keep working when they truly need a break. Business owners and managers should be aware of these behaviors so they can address root causes, create a healthier workplace, and retain valuable employees.

Presenteeism

Presenteeism occurs when employees come to work when they really shouldn’t. Most often, it happens when someone is sick, injured, mentally exhausted, or dealing with personal stress, but still shows up. It can also mean staying late until the boss leaves, even when there is no real work left to do. Employees often do this because they don’t have enough paid time off, they fear losing their job, they’re under pressure to meet deadlines, or they don’t want to miss important office conversations.

The consequences of presenteeism can be serious. An employee who is truly ill will not be able to fully concentrate, which increases the likelihood of mistakes and lowers productivity. Their lack of rest may actually prolong their illness, requiring more time away from work later. They may also spread their illness to others, which can impact the whole team. In the case of stress or burnout, presenteeism may cause poor performance, errors, or even long-term disengagement.

Employers can help reduce presenteeism by:

  • Providing sufficient paid time off so employees don’t feel forced to work while sick.
  • Establishing clear guidelines about when someone must stay home (such as with a fever or sore throat).
  • Allowing flexible work arrangements for employees who are injured but still able to work in some capacity.
  • Creating a culture of trust and support, so employees don’t fear taking needed time off.

Quiet Cracking

Quiet cracking is a subtle but harmful workplace behavior that develops when employees appear to meet expectations on the surface, but are struggling internally with stress, burnout, or discouragement. Over time, these pressures cause the employee to “crack” quietly, pulling back from engagement and beginning to detach from their role.

Quiet cracking may be triggered by an overwhelming workload, lack of training, or unclear job expectations. It can also stem from feeling unsupported, unrecognized, or uncertain about the future of the job market. The outward signs may look small at first, but they often grow into larger problems for both the employee and the business.

Warning signs of quiet cracking include:

  • Withdrawal from team interactions and social events.
  • Reluctance to volunteer for new assignments or projects.
  • Changes in mood, behavior, or productivity.
  • Missed deadlines or slow responses to communication.
  • Increased absences from work.

Employers can help prevent quiet cracking by:

  • Checking in with employees regularly and showing genuine interest in their well-being.
  • Expressing appreciation and acknowledging contributions.
  • Providing clear job descriptions and realistic expectations.
  • Offering training and career development opportunities.
  • Balancing workloads so responsibilities are spread fairly across the team.

Rage Applying

Rage applying happens when an employee, frustrated or upset with their current job, reacts by rapidly applying to multiple other positions out of anger rather than thoughtful career planning. This often follows a triggering event—such as being passed over for a raise or promotion—and is more about venting frustration than finding the right next step.

While rage applying can sometimes lead to new opportunities, it carries risks. Employees may accept a job that isn’t a good fit or feel more stressed from juggling interviews on top of an already difficult situation. They may also miss opportunities to improve their current role through open communication and problem-solving.

Employers can help reduce rage applying by:

  • Ensuring employees are paid fairly for the work they perform.
  • Offering multiple paths for career advancement within the company.
  • Providing clear expectations for promotions and the skills required to achieve them.
  • Maintaining an open-door policy for employee concerns and frustrations.
  • Avoiding excessive workloads that lead to burnout and resentment.

Proximity Bias

Proximity bias occurs when managers favor employees who are physically present in the office over those working remotely. This bias is often unintentional, as leaders naturally see and interact more with in-office employees. As a result, those working remotely may miss out on key assignments, recognition, and promotions simply because they are “out of sight, out of mind.”

If unchecked, proximity bias can damage team morale and create inequity between employees. Remote workers may feel overlooked or disconnected, while in-office workers may gain advantages that don’t necessarily reflect performance. Over time, this can erode trust and cause talented remote workers to leave.

Employers can reduce proximity bias by:

  • Including remote and hybrid workers in all staff meetings and ensuring they have equal access to tools and resources.
  • Training managers to recognize and correct unintentional bias.
  • Setting clear guidelines for remote work expectations and responsibilities.
  • Using tools like Teams or Slack to keep all employees connected and informed.
  • Evaluating performance based on outcomes, not physical presence.
  • Offering remote employees opportunities to lead projects and apply for promotions.

Final Thoughts

Workplace environments will always present challenges, but business owners can create healthier, more positive cultures by addressing these negative behaviors directly. Employees who feel valued and supported are not only more productive but also more likely to stay long-term, helping your company grow and better serve its customers.

Remote Work Trends You Should Know

The way we work has changed dramatically in recent years. Remote work, once limited to a few industries, became mainstream during the COVID-19 pandemic. What started as a necessity has now evolved into an expectation for many employees. Flexibility in work location is often used as a bargaining chip to attract and retain talent, and new workplace trends have emerged as a result.

In this blog, we’ll look at three of the most talked-about trends—coffee badging, workcations, and digital nomadism—and what they mean for small business owners and managers.

Coffee Badging

Coffee badging is when employees make a brief appearance in the office—long enough to swipe their badge, grab a coffee, and connect with colleagues—before heading home to work remotely. While not every employee literally swipes in, the term has stuck to describe this trend.

In fact, I sometimes coffee badge myself on days I work remotely. I’ll come in for a staff meeting, chat for a few minutes afterward, and then return home where I can be more productive without office distractions.

The positives of coffee badging:

  • Creates opportunities for employees to connect in person, which can spark collaboration and problem-solving.
  • Breaks the isolation of remote work.
  • Helps employees maintain visibility and presence in the workplace without being tied to the office full-time.
  • Supports work-life balance while keeping connections intact.

The drawbacks of coffee badging:

  • Brief interactions may not be enough to build strong teams.
  • Employees who live far from the office may be excluded.
  • Some workers show up only to be seen, without contributing.

How leaders can make coffee badging effective:

  • Focus in-office meetings on activities that benefit from face-to-face interaction.
  • Use these times to recognize and encourage employees.
  • Ensure fully remote employees aren’t left out of opportunities or recognition.
  • Create a welcoming environment with coffee, snacks, and comfortable spaces.

Workcations

A “workcation” happens when employees travel to a vacation spot but continue working while they’re away. The appeal is obvious—new scenery, a chance to unwind after work hours, and often a boost in creativity. But without boundaries, workcations can blur the line between work and rest.

Tips to make workcations effective:

  • Employees should communicate clearly with their manager about work hours, especially if in a different time zone.
  • Reliable internet is a must—check this before booking.
  • Take at least a few true vacation days during the trip to fully recharge.
  • Plan around mandatory meetings and let travel companions know your schedule.

Digital Nomadism

Digital nomadism goes a step further: it’s not just a week away, but a lifestyle of traveling and working from anywhere. Enabled by the internet, this trend has grown significantly in the last 15 years. Today, many digital nomads are not just freelancers but full-time employees negotiating this flexibility with their companies.

Benefits:

  • Flexibility to live and work anywhere.
  • Exposure to new cultures and lifestyles.
  • Potential for improved work-life balance.

Challenges:

  • Navigating work permits and visa requirements.
  • Understanding tax and employment laws.
  • Coordinating across time zones with colleagues.
  • Protecting sensitive company data abroad.

Final Thoughts

Remote work has created both opportunities and challenges. Coffee badging, workcations, and digital nomadism are trends that reflect employees’ desire for flexibility and balance. As a small business owner, you don’t need to embrace every trend, but it is wise to understand them.

Take time to evaluate which positions in your company can be done effectively outside the office. Develop clear guidelines for remote work, and balance flexibility with accountability. Done right, offering remote options can help you attract and retain top talent who might not otherwise consider your business.