To ask, if you work remotely/from home do you worry about your Teams status going yellow/'Away'

I just play a long play video (eg meditation) on YouTube and it stays green on Teams.

@anonima customer service. Standard contact centre stuff really, have to be on the phone and not away from my desk

No it doesn’t bother me as my conscience is clear, if my teams is yellow because I’m making a drink, answering the door, using the toilet, putting a wash on etc I know these are jobs that take 5 or 10 mins and I’m productive the rest of the time. No different to being in the office and making a coffee or having a quick chat with someone.

I would feel much more sneaky using a mouse jiggler or downloading software onto my laptop to make it look like I’m working!

If your employer and output is decent it’s unlikely they’ll be monitoring you. As a manager of people I only take notice of ‘away’ status when someone is clearly not working productively or is uncontactable a lot of the time.

What kind of work do you do? Sounds like brutal/inhumane conditions

We are monitored on another system so teams for me doesn't matter
But I have to be exact with breaks and lunch and time away to get a drink/toilet is less than 10 mins per 9hrs

I don't really worry too much. I do notice that my teams status changes to away sometimes when I'm working, which puzzled me tbh! I will have a look at how to change that setting.

I do sometimes go in a meeting with myself if I don't want to be disturbed for a while. Even on DND my "priority" contacts will ring, which is not helpful.

Everything goes in my diary, even personal apps, so people can see when I am available or not. I don't take the piss though, I only do those during my lunch hour.

I think tbh output/productivity is a better indicator than teams status of whether somebody is actually working or not.

No, within our team we've explicitly agreed that it's ok to have Away status. Being at the computer for hours on end is detrimental physically and psychologically.

Aw I'm LA too and we can for those two. I don't really leave my desk outside of tea break and lunch except to maybe nip for a pee, let the cat/dog in or out or answer the door to the delivery driver so its never been an issue but when I started there 3 years ago the girls on my team told me to adjust it.

And those same IT people can, if asked by HR, review everything you've ever written, said, done on your device, including teams. There really isn't any point worrying about it, if you've not got work to do (as happens in some jobs) you can't sit babysitting a laptop out of fear of a yellow dot on the screen!

LA - public sector - we can't make changes to any settings, only an ‘administrator’ (IT team) can, with an agreed request from line management.

I don't worry about it, and I've never known anyone else in my organisation worry about it either.

I'll quite often set my own status to Away whilst I leave to do something, then hours later realise it's still yellow whilst I've been working on the laptop for hours doh!

Makes for a quiet afternoon though!

We don’t use Teams much for meetings, but we have to be contactable on Teams at all times. You’d be in trouble if you turned Teams off and missed something urgent. Our Teams status isn’t monitored as such, though, but we do have a digital log that automatically records what you are doing every minute of the day. That is definitely monitored, and you will be in trouble if there is an issue with that - took too long on a project, too much unaccounted for time, etc.

I think my advice is around diary management.

Put all work related things in your calendar including the things that mean you cannot be disturbed (presentation, etc ) but mark them clearly.

If and when you need to step away - do just that - mark it as away. Change the status back when you have returned.

Re putting washes on etc - I block my lunch hour clearly and repeatedly. That is the time I put a
wash on or start dinner prep . I don’t spend the day whole day juggling my personal life - I am paid to work. I mark 30 mins for lunch and then another 30 mins for school pick up or a walk. This is clearly marked in my calendar. I also stick to these timings.

The idea that you can just flit around attending to your personal life while being paid like you are at work all day is a joke. Employers are will, can and do monitor your productivity.

In summary I think it’s the unexplained “Away” status for hours and hours that will cause problems.

Calendar up to date
Declare time away to your manager via calendar or just mentioning that you are stepping away
Be consistent
Be professional - 30 mins break is 30 mins

best of luck

Ah you need a jiggler, my friend has one and it jiggles the mouse every now and again! Think they are about £10 off Amazon!

Or so this and then go back and change your status to green and it stays that way.

I regularly don't open teams when I am focusing on a piece of work. Not an issue at my place. My performance speaks for itself

What is the world coming to where people are buying things to move their mice while they have a poo

This is why I have stopped worrying about it. I am not using my keyboard/mouse 100% of the time while in the office as I am am sometimes looking through paperwork or in the toilet.

Mine went through a few days of always saying ‘away’ regardless, even when I was in calls! No one takes any notice!

Just put something heavy enough on the insert key, keeps mine green.

Not all jobs require constant attention or need you to stare at the screen all day.

Mine would beep when I needed to be active so I'd have a mouse mover going along with an extension cable for my headset so I could sit somewhere more comfortable and do a bit of knitting.

I used to worry about this when I WFH full time even when I was just taking a short break but I now have a different job with hybrid working and no one in the office has ever commented on the time some one is away on Teams. In fact most have their status set to away.

Never crossed my mind to worry. It sets itself to Away when I'm working on a document! Teams is a law unto itself.

No, I do a lot of work on my WFH days and my output reflects it. I use pomodoro timings (25 mins work, 5 mins break) for my workday to ensure I maintain productivity and take a shorter lunch hour. Work have never had any problem with this and it means I get stuff done rather than circling around my to do list, dithering for hours instead.

You've missed the point though. OP isn't taking the piss, she is worried about being thought of that way presumably by overbearing managers hence my suggestion of something heavy on the keyboard.

I don't do that myself because I don't work in the type of environment that requires me to worry about it.

No, doesn't bother me. I don't watch or judge other peoples team status so just assume they have better things to do than watch mine.