Anyone else snoop on MS Teams Last Online?

[MicrosoftTeamsTwat]

Obvs inspired by an active thread where the poor MNetters DH is being taken for gross misconduct as he’s been found to be not logged in for +2hrs a day…

I will admit to often looking on my ahem less performing team members when they go amber on WFH days and it’s always ‘LAST SEEN 2 HOURS AGO’ at like 3pm in the afternoon, and it’s always the same people consistently throughout the day, they must work (be green/red) 3 hours max a day…and I always wonder how they get away with it - although if the other threads anything to go by perhaps no one will for much longer.

Will absolutely caveat this post with the fact that I definitely sometimes take a slightly longer lunch, and also put the washing out, see you chores and generally make the most of WFH on those days but genuinely I’m never offline more than an hour a day, so I do get a bit peeved that my team mates just seem to get away with it.

Sooo..

YANBU: Everyone checks their lazy colleagues last online and wouldn’t be sad if they were pulled up on it
YABU: Be prepared to suck up others workloads as companies aren’t pulling up their employees..

My Teams seems to drop out and show me as orange most of the time, even when I’m active on the laptop.

I’ve also seen colleagues as orange online when I’ve been sat next to them working.

My work laptop has all kinds of mouse issues so I sometimes switch to a personal one for certain tasks. Doesn’t mean I’m not working…

Honestly, who gives a shit, as long as they're getting the work done on time & responding when needed it's not an issue.

Yes and the same people log off early, log on late, disappear and don't answer their phones

Mine frequently shows me as away until I click into Teams to message someone then it changes back to green/available. Then next time I'm showing as "away" again. I'm in the office, so clearly, visibly working on my PC. I have no idea why the status keeps changing.

Surely companies are better off looking at when someone physically logs into their laptop each day and their activity when logged on. That will tell them productivity, not an amber light system.
On most of these apps, Slack included you can pretend to be online.

Unless your job involves constantly talking to people, how does whether or not you are on Teams demonstrate that you are working? My Teams goes off if I haven't looked on it for a bit but it doesn't mean I'm not working. Conversely you can just look on there every now and then but be putting your feet up. I sometimes set Teams to "away" so no one bothers me too.

This is why I have a mouse jiggler!

I use it to check if people are actively around or not and whether it's worth messaging them on Teams or if it should be an email or call or WhatsApp or whatever. I do also use it to check that one of my team who has a bad habit of working silly hours and burning out isn't online. If I see she's been active at 2am, for example, I know I need to keep a close eye on her.

We have to use VPNs, which drop outs frequently, causing us to be taken off the network, meaning teams will appear that the person is offline. We won't know until we need to access the intranet for something and then have to sign in, get a code sent to mobile etc etc etc.
I also noticed teams has a bug, my manager pulled me up once saying it showed I hadn't signed in until midday. I was very confused and assured him I was working.
A couple of weeks later, in a team briefing I noticed that he also was offline, despite being sat mere inches away from me and using his laptop for a presentation. He just hadn't opened the teams app on the laptop.
The whole software is unreliable and should never be used as an indicator of someone's productivity.

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.

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

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?

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

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?

What's a mouse jiggler?

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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 😞