The Red-Carpet employee
Definition: The red-carpet employee is a worker who largely works remotely but then turns up at the workplace occasionally or sporadically and proceeds to treat it as a special occasion, hogging the limelight, much to the annoyance of their bosses and work colleagues.
The “red-carpet employee” is the new workplace buzz-term of 2026. The term was coined by leading HR & workplace expert, Damien McCarthy, who is the founder and Managing Director of leading HR Consultancy firm, HR Buddy.
McCarthy describes “the red-carpet employee” as someone who has all the perks & advantages of the remote, hybrid & flexible way of working. However, there may be proximity bias at play, so every now and then, and usually only when it suits them, they show up in the workplace and expect that everyone is very excited to see them. It’s almost like, you have to rollout the red carpet, because someone decided to come to work.
Their approach tends to annoy and frustrate their bosses and co-workers, sometimes to the point where they wish the “red caret employee” just stayed at home permanently!
These types of employees can really upset the flow in a workspace as they are blinded to the everyday onsite culture and are probably a lot more destructive and dangerous compared to the likes of the “coffee badger”. Whilst the badger comes in and takes some coffee and bluffs around a little, the red-carpet employee is putting on a big show or even worse, expecting that a big show is going to be put on for them.
There are further behaviour traits that highlight the red-carpet employees, for all the wrong reasons.
- They can tend to visit on-site when they are looking for something, which means as soon as they are seen onsite, management know what they are up to, a pay-rise, extra resources, additional time-off etc.
- They can communicate in an annoying way which irritates work colleagues. Saying things like “I haven’t seen you in ages” or “when did that happen, no one told me”
- They can be very unproductive in the onsite workspace and disrupt others productivity as with it being such a special occasion, there is a lot of catching up to do with fellow colleagues.
All of the above lead to the “red-carpet employee” highlighting themselves for all the wrong reasons and whilst their original intention was to shine the spotlight on themselves for good reasons, it backfires, whereby they appear to only annoy and frustrate their co-workers, but perhaps more importantly, annoy and frustrate their bosses.