Compulsory use of Teams in own time

[majorieolive]

I work in a shop that now uses Teams. I have been told that the only way to find out my hours and any other important information is via Teams.

I am happy to answer my personal phone but do not think I should be forced to access teams in my own time on my own personal phone / computer. Can I be blackmailed into this or do I have a right to access teams during my contracted hours at work? I work full time in a small shop on one floor.

[MidnightCitrus]

I have been told that the only way to find out my hours and any other important information is via Teams.

So how would you like to be made aware?

Seriously - reads like you are being awkward for the sake of it. Install the app, check your shifts and then read the rest when you go in to work

[goose1964]

Is he buggered . My tablet is a kindle fire and my mobile is a cheapie with very little memory. How do they contact people who have no mobile or internet. I know it's hard to believe but I know a few people of older but still working age people who don't see the need for the interner.

[Quickchange5]

This sounds like a huge over reaction . Surely this will just become part of you’re routine - needing to log on to check shifts - it doesn’t take long to log on surely. If you are worried about receiving other calls - just change the notifications settings .

[thesquirrelsnuts]

I worked in retail for years and unless I was a manager I'd be pretty annoyed about having to log on daily for team briefings etc. Why aren't they communicating with you or feeding down what comes from head office while you're in work / on the shop floor / team meeting? Sounds disorganised. So on that one YANBU

Logging on once a week to check your shifts for 2 minutes is not a big deal, we had to phone up to do this if we weren't in in the victorian era as the rota went up on the staff room wall.

I asked our managers if people could stop posting crap on Teams because you couldn't find important stuff for pictures of babies etc, I also told them that I wouldn't have notifications on so don't expect a quick reply unless I'm in work hours.

[Hadjab]

I've read all of your updates and I still don't understand what the issue is? I have Teams on my work laptop, my work phone, my personal phone, my computer and my iPad - if it pings anytime outside of my working hours, I ignore it, or may give it a cursory glance if I'm not otherwise engaged.

Welcome to the 21st century.

[CMAYF11]

Turn off notifications and mark yourself as away when not at work.

[SueEllenMishke]

It sounds more like your colleagues don't know to use Teams properly.
It's not unreasonable for you to check Teams to see your rota but you shouldn't be expected to do anymore than that if you're not working that day. If there is a briefing you need to read then you read it in your working days.

Just ignore the non work related stuff.

[Shinyletsbebadguys]

Has someone specifically told you that you need to look at the updates ? Rather than just quickly have a look through to check shifts ?

If they have specifically said they want you to go on to check updates when you are not working then yes that is unreasonable

However I strongly suspect that is not the case because your wording is very vague , sounds a lot like you have catastrophised and gone over the top with this.

If you are complaining about having to scroll through for a couple of minutes to see shifts amongst the rubbish then you are being precious. It's a far cry from the ridiculousness above with pp claiming you are going to be worked into the ground.

Honestly ? By all means be precious and inflexible. Dont complain afterwards when you are seen as difficult.

[majorieolive]

@unimaginativeusernamehere

You're not being very clear. Has your manager asked you to check teams outside of your working hours daily (for anything other than to see your shifts which in my opinion is a reasonable use of your personal time).

Or is the issue that you have annoying colleagues?

Sorry if this comes up twice as my reply vanished
Yes I am expected to check Teams daily for the team brief. There are also constant updates from management and colleagues through out the day and evening.

I have no problem viewing anything from management with whom I have an excellent relationship the problem I have is the fact that threads get hi jacked and turn into spam which I do not want to have to trawl through in my own time. In any other circumstances I would simply leave the group.

I sounds to me as though the suggestion to set up a private chat is the solution is it simply a matter of management pressing send?

[safariboot]

Its the fact that I am expected to constantly monitor Teams in my own time on a daily basis.

Well that's a drip feed.

Based on your additional information that you should have said from the start, YANBU. A "daily team briefing" is work and should be paid and I bet it's not. And important information in the same chat as gossip is not appropriate.

[DappledThings]

Sorry if this comes up twice as my reply vanished
Yes I am expected to check Teams daily for the team brief. There are also constant updates from management and colleagues through out the day and evening
Just because there are daily briefings and constant updates doesn't mean you are required to read them in your own time. You haven't said if Management have actually said this or whether you are just assuming that because Teams chat is running all the time that you are expected to be on top of it all the time.

I am in 14 separate Teams teams. I get updates in them and send updates out but if someone in one of those teams is on leave or it is their day off of their 9 day fortnight I don't expect them to be logging in to see it.

[DappledThings]

Damn. There was a secret carriage return in the bit I was quoting above so my bold failed.

[Eckhart]

@DappledThings

secret carriage return

What is it that stops bold working sometimes and not others? Punctuation is one thing - are there other things?

OP - sorry, I didn't mean to derail your thread. If you're being asked to keep track of every utterance in your workplace when you're on your days off, that's not on. Especially given that you're not allowed phones at work, so you can't even do it when they're paying you to!

Are they actually specifying that they want you to do this, or are you just not sure how to switch off notifications when you're not at work?

[majorieolive]

@CMAYF11

Turn off notifications and mark yourself as away when not at work.

Sounds good to me as I have no access to Teams at work.

[DappledThings]

What is it that stops bold working sometimes and not others? Punctuation is one thing - are there other things?

You have to have an asterisk at the start and end of every paragraph you want bolded. In the bit I quoted the second sentence is actually a new paragraph but I didn't realise as there was only one carriage return not two so there wasnt anobvious paragraph break. I needed an asterisk after "vanished" and before "Yes".

[DappledThings]

Sounds good to me as I have no access to Teams at work.
Ok, that changes everything! So you are being asked to use Teams ONLY in your own time? In which case that's totally unreasonable. And very different to your original post which implied you had to log in briefly just to check rota. If you don't otherwise use Teams at work then you can be asked to use it not in work.

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Set it up. Turn off notifications. Check once per week for the Rota when it is shared.

If you get a break during your shift at work, skim read the thread for any updates.

[Fluffy40]

I used to work in a place where we had to take a photo of the rota.
It was issued on Sunday, late afternoon. If you wasn’t on duty you had to remember to ring up and ask if you were in the next day. Awful place.

[DogInATent]

Set an alert to email you with the relevant Teams updates if checking Teams itself once a day is too onerous. When used correctly Teams becomes a one-stop app that replaces a large part of would otherwise be spread across email, telephone, WhatsApp, Zoom, notice boards, etc.

Or is part of the problem that Teams is being used badly by your employer?

It's a small shop, the owner gets to choose how to communicate. It needs to be reasonable, but you also need to reasonably meet them half-way.

[majorieolive]

i am amused that I appear to have catastrophized and gone over the top. Whilst my colleagues are clearly wound up by teams on a daily basis . I simply don't bother logging on and as my shift rota is still not working, management are printing my shifts.

Colleagues say they only go on so that management can see they are embracing the technology.

I only asked the original question to find out if I could be forced to use teams in my own time from a legal point of view.

Thank you all for you responses. Much appreciated

[ZiggeryZaggy]

Teams can be great.

I check mine sometimes when not working, just to have a nosey and see what is going on. There is a lot going on in my workplace though, it is pretty fast moving.

Mine is on my phone though so it is an easy way to check the rota. Our guidelines change quite quickly in response to COVID government updates also - so I prefer to keep an eye on it.

I can’t imagine why your colleagues are “constantly wound up” by it, is it because it is a new thing for them?

[TheLastStarfighter]

To answer your last question, no you most definitely can not be forced to use Teams in your own time.

[Melabela10]

As PPs said teams in no different to Whatsup / email apps. Turn off notifications and check it only when needed. Don’t be that person....

[AdoptAdaptImprove]

If you’ve been told by your management that:

1. Important and time critical information will only be made available to you via Teams
   

1. You are forbidden from accessing Teams during your usual working hours
   

1. You are paid hourly rather than salaried
   

Then you should be asking your manager how to go about billing them for the time it takes you to access and read the information in your own time. This might elicit a different response.

If you’re salaried, you should be clarifying with management exactly what they are asking you to do, and their expectations of how long and how frequently. Tell them how long it currently takes you to find important information. Ask them if they consider what they are asking to be reasonable. They might not realise what an imposition this is on your time. The solution is probably better management, one way or another.

[roarfeckingroarr]

Awkward for the sake of awkward OP