Anyone else snoop on MS Teams Last Online?

Teams opens automatically when we turn our laptops on. I don't always turn mine off after hours if I'll be WFH again the next day - I assume it shows inactive, but wouldn't show offline.

I ping messages to people on Teams, but I don't necessarily expect them to answer immediately. Even if they're showing available, they might be busy with a piece of work. If something is urgent, I'd phone.

I have two computers, plus laptop. I have also used my phone to look stuff up when they're all churning through reports.

I'm not signing into Teams on three devices so somebody can live out their fantasies of being a secret police force and demand I provide evidence of actually working stuff out with pen and paper to avoid accusations of stealing from the company.

I actually don’t understand…..won’t it only show green if I’m logged into Teams? I can go days without turning Teams on, but I’m still working. I only use Teams for meetings.

Totally agree. In a really difficult market I still had some great applicants for new roles in my team purely due to word of mouth recommendations

Thank you, that's a very kind comment.

Honestly, treating staff well is just good business sense. Most businesses are heavily reliant on the quality of their staff. If you are reasonable, fair, flexible and look after their wellbeing, you will attract and retain good people, they will be loyal and you will get the very best out of them.

It's a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. We can only ever be as good as the people we employ.

This is how I operate too. If someone's not meeting targets or skipping meetings I'll have a conversation with them but otherwise if you're doing the job you're paid to do work your hours how you need to work them as long as the core 10-3 is covered.

Whoops posted in wrong place

I will schedule time out in my calendar to complete tasks so I'll show as red. But I don't do it to skive 😂

Really hope my kids, when they finish uni and start work, find bosses like you! It’s a shame when the behaviour of a few slackers - whose output should reflect that and mean they are picked up without company wide invasive monitoring - should shape the way all employees are managed.

Totally agree. As a leader, I have told my team that I don't really care if they take longer lunchbreaks, pop offline to put their washing out or clock off a bit early when it's sunny etc.

What I care about is whether they are delivering on the work that they are employed to do, and whether they are contactable when they need to be.

I'm clear about what is expected of staff in terms of outputs, standards and objectives, and as we work hard on ensuring that these expectations are realistic, I absolutely expect people to deliver. But how and when they do the work is up to them...if they're superefficient and able to deliver the work to a high standard within fewer hours than most, then frankly, good for them.

My staff are all adults and I employ them because I trust them. I don't have the time or the inclination to micromanage anyone, but if they fail to deliver on what they're supposed to do, it will quickly become evident in any case.

Thanks @AhBiscuits no I had no idea people had to work like that.

I would go insane with that level of interruption and contact. I am sure some people enjoy it though, but definitely not for me.

Feeling very grateful!

As the director of 37 subsidiaries and an average working day of 14hours for 15 years, including board meetings, travel and logged on hours at weekends and during family holidays, yep. Without impunity.

We have some wfh skivvers. One phones me to find out if there was a system problem…three hours after the system shut down. This a system they should be spending all day in!

Another answers email and returns calls in a couple of 20 minute bursts throughout the day. Can’t get hold of her outside those windows.

I fucking love this and will be telling everyone I know about it.

@MicrosoftTeamsTwat Can you share a screenshot of where to find it?

You don't understand that other jobs use Teams in a different way?

At my place we all have Teams open all the time to keep in touch with the team. It's always pinging with someone asking a question, asking if someone can assist with a piece of work, reception asking if you're free to speak to a client etc. It replaces the conversations you'd have in person if you were in the office.

All jobs are different and all workplaces are different.

At mine - if you are at an external meeting, reading docs in hardcopy etc, it is normal practice to mark that in your calendar so your colleagues are aware. Or you might let your immediate team know.

If you don't do that and aren't contactable, that's not great as our work can be unpredictable and moves fast. It's simply part of the job to be contactable. Not in a super controlling way like you can't put some washing on, make a cuppa, or go to the loo kind of way. But it's not the sort of workplace where you can just disappear off and read things off line for hours without letting someone know.

I am quite senior and I get lots of control over my diary and time and so do my immediate team but in our line of work, it isn't just about "output", it's also important to be accessible.

So, yes, I do keep an eye on this with my team and am going through performance management with my PA at the moment - it's just one of the issues but one is that she isn't responsive when I message her during the day (I suspect mouse jiggler but it doesn't really matter why, she needs to pick things up for me quickly and she doesn't).

I didn't even know you could check last status. Have never thought to look.

Must admit we use Teams a lot

I work with a global sales team and the European finance team and service about 60 members of staff. Often you can tell someone has been waiting for you as the second you go from orange to green you get a call.

I am pretty conscious about being "on green" although no-one has ever mentioned anyone not being on green.

Why wouldn’t you just connect a big screen to your laptop or log in through your PC?

I don’t understand this. I only open TEAMS if I am attending an online meeting.

A lot of my working day is spent thinking and problem solving, talking to people on the phone or travelling to see them face to face.

Even if I had a whole day working on emails, my TEAMS wouldn’t show anything if I didn’t log into it/open it surely?

Why do people work for such toxic employers?

How long were they monitored for? If they looked at my activity for 2 months they would probably suspend me.

However, they would need to do a full investigation inducing mapping against diary and anecdotal, including with manager.

They would quickly realise I had Covid but unlike my colleagues did not take a full week off, rather I tried to honour as much critical work and some calls as needed and ended up not being online an awful lot over 2 weeks.

DD had multiple hospital appointments due to a nasty injury she suffered, she was also at home for a week due to it. I've been on two work trips, where I did not log on much once on them. I also took PTO a few days.

So all in all - my activity is shockingly low but I think my output strangely enough has just about made the cut.
Sometimes it's circumstantial.

Who monitors this? Does IT monitor it for the entire company? What are the steps? Consulting the manager, telling staff you're monitoring them? Start an investigation?

And yet he often spends hours working outside of his company devices with impunity?

Online presenteeism

It's a shame this kind of toxic and infantilising behaviour has found its way on to online working culture.

Bet these kind of companies have retention problems if the treat their employees this way.

It is frightening and bizarre as it demonstrates nothing about output. It just encourages performative working.

Despite what I posted previously, chatted to DH and he said his company have just put 2 people on suspension. Their software looks at multiple things - number of clicks, screen scrolling, speed at which emails re processed (ie are they actually read), number of emails sent, first log-on v. last logged activity, engagement with other company-provided software (MS word, exel etc) as well as Teams engagement.

I find that quite frightening, personally.