Anyone else snoop on MS Teams Last Online?

Would never occur to me to check generally but yes if I think they are taking the piss and underperforming I will. Problem being you can set it to show available or use a mouse jiggler.

Are you aware teams changes to amber when you're actively working? You'll have a field day with me I've turned my status to offline.

I check to see if someone is online when I am sending them a message, because I may not bother if they’ve already logged out for the day. I look to see if my friends are online in the morning so I can chat to them etc. It’s not really checking up on people it’s using the technology that’s available. We can also change our status to busy etc. if in a meeting. I’m quite conscientious so not worried about anyone looking at my whereabouts, they can have at it.

Why? When the rest of your team equally rely on Teams and don’t show as away for hours of the day, then why?

Why should that employee be treated as productive as those who are turning up? Where’s the respect for the rest of the workforce actually doing their damn jobs?

Surely you don't base your opinion on how productive someone is on their teams status? Why don't you base it on their actual output?

Why? When the rest of your team equally rely on Teams and don’t show as away for hours of the day, then why?

Why should that employee be treated as productive as those who are turning up? Where’s the respect for the rest of the workforce actually doing their damn jobs?

An employer that relies on amber lights to decide on any damn thing apart from when to let go the handbrake at junctions is an employer that has seriously lost touch with staff productivity and performance and should be ashamed of itself.

Yes, Teams shows us as away when we’re using non-Microsoft applications. In some weeks I spend a lot of time working on web content in a non-MS system accessed with a non MS browser and Teams shows me as amber.

Genuinely this is not an issue with anyone else within our company. Just this one individual, so in my case it is true. My partner works in the same business and has little use for Teams, still shows as active, despite him not using it for hours at a time. Could it be a general company setting?

It‘s not always very accurate. DP and I work for the same employer, and on occasion we’ve noticed that one of us is showing as away when we are both sitting there working, in the same room. I’ve also had a WhatsApp from my boss asking if I was OK because I was showing as offline all morning (she was actually checking from a safeguarding point of view, rather than to accuse me of skiving) when I’d been logged in and working all morning! It was some weird network sync issue.

using a mouse jiggler can be a sackable offence - a case was reported only this week on this.

And teams can be a red herring; the larger organisations will potentially be checking your keystrokes, and gaps in typing will stimulate a camera check to see what you are doing / if you are there. The next step will be GenAI-led where patterns in behaviour/typing will be used to identify processes that can be replaced by automation.

2025 will be more like 1984 than you will ever imagine.

I hate teams.
I'll often open a notepad (real, live, physical) on my desk and write out problems, answers and sometimes mock up visuals.
My choice is either look idle or break my concentration every two minutes to move a mouse 😞

Not true. If I am working on another app on the device and it will show me as away.

I don’t get where people get it from that you need to be interacting on Teams to not be shown as Away. It’s just active in the device and you’re fine. I do check one particular staff member who ‘starts early’ and then goes away within 10 minutes, 15 minutes later green, 10 minutes later showing as Away (he clearly thinks it puts you as Away after 15 minutes not 10.)

Given the frequent occurrences throughout the day, we have now managed to work out that he is working 3.5-4 hours per day. On top of that, he’s been asking for overtime to work past four with a colleagues on a project, despite his 8am start being utter nonsense.

This is the only person I check in on though and that’s to document the frequency, triggered by high pay claims and low output. The rest of my team could show as Away for an entire day and I would trust that there was an unforeseen emergency.

I remotely access shared computers from my laptop teams is on for the bulk of my work. If I'm using the remote computers my teams can time out to away without me noticing because I'm busy on the other machines that aren't logged on with my individual account if that makes sense.

Two people in my office were competing with each other to police other people's Teams use and report them to the boss if they deemed them to have been offline for too long. This was in no way part of their job. All it signifies is a toxic, low trust work environment. It's not the way to improve performance. I can't wait to leave.

I can see what my colleagues are doing from a wall board in the office, no snooping needed!

Unless their work involves answering emails or having Teams meetings as primary tasks, they'd be a darned sight more likely to be productive through the day if they weren't expected to be constantly pinged by email and calls and messaging. They'd also probably get their work done in fewer hours without constant interruption. This is why so many people's concentration is completely shot and why they are burnt out every day by 3pm!

Some people work better by really going at it for part of the day, and shouldn't be penalised for this difference against their peers who stay online all the time but take things at a more regular pace throughout the day.

Or, some people are just being lazy. But not all of them. Your job as a manager is to work out which.

I open teams to log into a meeting, then shut it. So no. It’s not a accurate reflection of what people are doing

There’s such a thing as excessive monitoring. Just deal with productivity in 1 to 1s. If I was your manager I’d be wondering if you have enough to do.

What's a mouse jiggler?

Who seriously has the time to think about, let alone check, the last seen status?

OP - if you think the team members aren't pulling their weight you could speak to your manager?

Agreed. My teams is all over the place. it shows me as away whilst I am typing and having a conversation with a colleague. I’ve been showing to a colleague as offline while messaging her. She took a screenshot to show me. It also switches me to away when I’m in emails, word docs or pdfs - basically any time I’m actually DOING work rather than just talking about doing work on teams meetings 😂

It certainly shouldn’t be used as a tool for managers checking up on staff

Seems like Microsoft have done pretty well persuading people that we are only truly working when using one of their products. A way to encourage people to use Teams more so as to be perceived as working harder, perhaps?

Don't even have to schedule the meeting, just go to the calendar and click 'meet now' and you're in a call with yourself

We have to move away from presenteeism and focus on getting tasks done instead. If people can get their job done in less than 40hrs which most office jobs can, more power to them.