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

[88tthh]

I've recently started a work from home job and I get quite anxious about my Teams status going to the yellow 'Away' status, as I worry I'll get picked up on it or people will think I'm taking excessive breaks from my laptop.

For example, yesterday my status went to Away a couple of times when I went to the loo, and when I went and made a coffee. I get stressed and try and rush back to my laptop, as 5 minutes goes by so quickly. I know if I was in the office I definitely wouldn't be panicking about the amount or duration of toilet breaks, for example, yet at home I do. I also time my lunch hour down to the minute to make sure I'm back at my desk after exactly an hour (or sometimes less).

I follow some influencers online who have similar work from home jobs and I see them pottering around putting washes on and even taking quick showers during the work day, yet also spending their lunch hour at 1-hour exercise classes (so they're not doing these things during their lunch breaks). I guess the normal is probably somewhere between their approach and my approach.

I can't believe the amount of people conning their employers here by pretending to work and even going as far as buying equipment to make the mouse move

It's not conning employers, it's not wanting to look like you're not working just because you're not wiggling your mouse all the time. As a pp said, you can be reading long documents or doing other work away from the screen. I had a previous job where the laptop locked after ten minutes (whether in the office or at home) so I used to jiggle it every time I walked past eg if I was on lunch.

My workplace is similar.

My line manager encourages us to set Teams to Away / Offline & switch Outlook off for a couple of hours if we need to concentrate on something, as long as we let her know that’s what we’re doing. She trusts us & it works.

Nope. Mine is basically always yellow, because for me it's literally for meetings and calls, and accessing a few documents. The core of my work is done in Illustrator, Excel and other applications, so it looks like I'm basically idle for long. periods of the day. That said, members of my team know that they just need to call or message and I usually respond there and then.

It's not conning employers, it's not wanting to look like you're not working just because you're not wiggling your mouse all the time. As a pp said, you can be reading long documents or doing other work away from the screen. I had a previous job where the laptop locked after ten minutes (whether in the office or at home) so I used to jiggle it every time I walked past eg if I was on lunch.
This.
I couldn't work somewhere that tracked my Teams status though. The people I work with tend to value everyone's contributions and roles.

Someone I know is forever moaning about their colleagues and it sounds like many of them are piss takers. As an example it's very convenient how some are apparently online but never contactable from around 3pm-3.45 and don't seem to get much done between 3pm and the end of the working day.

In my place it really depends on management. Some managers will question people if their status goes to yellow, senior management encourage this. I’m a line manager, I don’t care if I see someone on yellow if they’re generally a good worker. I encourage my team to manage their own time in the day. For example if they’ve had a busy morning and are over productive, then it does not bother me if they want to take an extra 10 minute break at some point. Plus I know I have breaks away from my laptop when working from home to put a wash on or run the hoover around, I’m not gonna come down on someone in my team for doing that. Generally if people are happier, and there is trust, they work better.

Yes I worry about this too! So I have it open on my phone if I'm leaving my desk to keep it green

I’d only worry if I was away for hours doing something. Putting on a wash or making a coffee is only 10 minutes- I don’t think anyone would be looking at it so closely. It’s all about outputs when you are working from home.

You shouldn't worry about it. If you have an employer that monitors every keystroke then change jobs.

I left a business like this because they told me that peeing was in my own time.

So if I took 6mins in which I left my desk (0.1hr), pee and walk back, that was time I owed out of my breaks or I had to work on.

Absolutely unbearable employer tactics.

Teams statuses are a total mystery to me. Sometimes I'm green and sometimes and I'm yellow and I'm doing the exact same thing. Nobody cares at all.

I have a ridiculous micro manager and monitors us all. I have to read a lot and it's easier to print and read so it slips to away quite a lot. I'll get a message asking if I'm there. Not just me, the whole team.

How she has time I don't know.

I am looking to move jobs.

No, I don’t worry about this at all.

But if you are worried, download the Teams mobile app and you can make yourself green / ‘available’ on the go.

I don't think it's reliable enough for anyone to judge - mine sometimes goes on 'do not disturb' for no reason at all, which is a pain if someone's trying to phone me.

You can set the timer so that if goes to “away” after a specified period of inactivity. I did this in my old job as sometimes I’m working but writing things by hand to understand things (mathsy job!) However when I changed jobs my new company I think have set Teams so you can’t do this! Or I just can’t remember how to do it but I think it’s set at 15 minutes now.

When I first started wfh I cared about it but now I don’t really care. Sometimes I set my status to”Away” so people don’t bother me anyway.

It just depends on the culture of the office.

In my old job someone commented about me being ‘away’ and people pissing about at home. This same person that would spend an hour every Monday talking about football but they were in the office so obviously working.

My work now wouldn’t care. Plus there are a few times when my status changes to away but I’m still at my desk working, I’m just not moving my mouse such as watching webinars, trying to figure out how to word something or reading something but making notes in my notebook rather than typing. My teams also shows us offline quite a bit but people respond to messages.

I wonder how that ten minute rule would stand up in a discrimination case? Micturition and gynae/period issues requiring more frequent or longer loo trips disproportionately affect women.

Call centres often monitor operative call stats fiercely - they should be able to monitor call performance quite enough without limiting staff access to the loo!

I manage a large team. We are in the office two days and WFH three. I only look at status to check someone is free if I need to call them!

everyone pees, has lunch, grabs a coffee. And shock horror reads something on actual paper, takes a work call on a mobile phone, or jots down thoughts or plans using paper and pen!

dont stress. Only bad managers obsess about green lights

I never worry about it. Having said that I work very long hours anyway

Thank you all. I work using timesheets anyway so my time has to be recorded down to every 6 minutes in order to charge clients so it's not like I can sneak away and get away with missing lots of work.

I do have Teams on my phone and in my previous job I would open it up so my status would stay green, but for some reason at my new company it still shows me as away even with Teams open on my phone.

I don't want to use a mouse jiggler or install any kind of software as I think employers can track things like repetitive mouse movements and software installations. I think I'll just proceed and presume that my manager won't pull me up on the occasional yellow status

The cleverest thing I can remember during mass WFH in lock down was someone who attached their mouse to a fan .. one of those that swivels.. and spent the day sunbathing..:

Needless to say her productivity plummeted... and was called back to the office .. !

I am like you OP .. I work FAR harder from home, no office chitchat .. fast toilet breaks and feel bad if my light goes yellow.. then again I have not been recalled to the office and have worked from home since Feb 2020.. saved me £500+ in commuting costs and my employer gets more out of me .. so they are happy for it to continue.

I turn mine off and only check it for messages a couple of times a days.

It is mainly used by people for endless chats about non-work related rubbish so it was too distracting to keep on...

I do a lot of techie stuff and copywriting so I need to be able to concentrate without constant trivial interruption.

Bookmark.

That sounds depressing.

My role is a lot of problem solving and thinking about things. I am just looking to propose "Lego time" or similar as it's been proven to help with problem solving as doing such things helps your mind wander and come up with creative solutions to problems.

The science behind creativity (apa.org)

Let your mind wander....

But I am not sure how that would go down. Just doing something not too intense for the brain, but away from the task and your mind wanders and comes up with fresh ideas.

Beats having to be constantly at a screen wriggling a mouse.