Pulled up on my teams light

[outlanderish]

I work from home full time with occasional travel. My employer allows either a half hour or one hour lunch break, based on personal choice. I typically don’t take a formal break instead, I take brief pauses throughout the day (e.g. five minutes here and there to make a coffee, play with my dog, or put a load of laundry on), while otherwise remaining at my desk and working.

Recently, my manager called me to ask why I appear “orange” (away) a lot during the day. I explained that I take small, informal breaks rather than a long formal one. She told me this was unacceptable, even though my approach has not negatively impacted my productivity. In fact, I’m often more efficient this way. I also need to get up regularly as it hurts my back sitting for a long period of time

Other colleagues especially smokers also step away from their desks regularly, but it seems to be accepted for them.

Oh I agree re not always head down in the office. If someone stops by my desk for a chat in the office I wouldn't worry about being seen as offline, because that is part of office life and one of the arguments employers put forward for wanting people back in full time.

But part of the privilege of wfh is being trusted to actually work, and with none of the office distractions like Bill from accounts telling you about his weekend (or maybe actually asking a work question!) but going offline/away regularly to the point others notice is taking the piss.

I changed my Teams status to "offline" about two years ago. I'm a lecturer and do one day a week WFH. A student mentioned to me that she could see my status was orange and would my manager be angry - at the time I was in a classroom sitting with her at her laptop, helping her with something she was writing, very much "away" from my own laptop. It made me think the whole thing was bonkers.

Fortunately my manager looks at things like KPIs for completing modules and student satisfaction, so trusts that I am doing a good job, even if I do stop to put a wash on.

The company provided proper office chairs for working from home when they shut the office after covid so ex had to work from home.

You could counter that you are following HSE advice (pp above quoted) to prevent health issues.

its funny I was just experiencing that on my teams this morning, me and my manager were trying to catch each other for a phone call, and neither my status nor his was working properly - he was green for at least five minutes before going orange, so he had obviously popped away doing something else, and I had to restart to get my teams status working properly - its a glitch - so it never works 100% anyway.

Some of the responses here are wild. As if the manager is sat watching a teams light ☠️

As long as your work is good and you're doing enough, who cares. You're not a nurse on shift needing to be on the ward at set times. It's a desk job, and most people are capable of managing their own time, FFS.

The 20 minute break thing presumably arose out of the need for a decent break when people worked a lot of manual labour jobs. Shorter breaks are better for computers 🤷

We definitely have more issues with people in the office wasting time - we are considering removing some of the sofa corners as it is all cosy chats and coffees.

I have asked my team to remove their DNDs or OOOs on occasion - some would have it on all day to "focus" and to be fair to them they are genuinely focussing. However what I also need is for every last query that is for my team not to come to me as team head - we are there to support the wider business and appearing unavailable is not supportive or good for the profile of those that want to be promoted to senior positions. So yes, sometimes teams lights do matter.

Employees aren't entitled to smoking breaks!

I think they used to be in the dim and distant past but now it'd have to be written into someone's contract that they can take smoke breaks if the employer agreed.

Devil’s advocate: as a fellow home-worker who doesn’t take a lunch break, I noticed that we can under-estimate the time spent on ‘5min breaks’.

For example: even if you don’t take a 30min break, surly you still spend some time preparing your food, cleaning the worktop and taking it to your desk. Then loading the dishwasher + tidying a few items that you notice in the kitchen, or take the bin out as it is now full, etc.

How long before your Teams switches to ‘away’, usually you have a good 5-10min beforehand (assuming you can’t change the setting), so could it be that when it is ‘away’ for 5min it actually means you were away for 15min?

Have not yet RTFT but my teams dot goes to away when I am in a Google meet for example, even if I am typing in a word doc etc. it's not always accurate. Your manager is a micromanager by the sounds of it, but if your outputs are acceptable she should let you work in the best way for you.

Also check your company's DSE guidance, mine (local gov) advised a 5 min Break from the screen in every hour.

As long as your work is good and you're doing enough, who cares.

Well, whatever the opinions here, the managers that the employer employs to care about these things, care about these things. And it is amazing that it is always the people who aren't working as they should who are "more productive" - in their opinion. The OP has three options:
(a) do as they are told
(b) make a formal request for a flexible working pattern that reflects what she says she needs.
(c) find another job

She also could get a mouse jiggler or some other contraption so that she isn't working when she claims to be... see option (c) above, but under duress and probably with less than splendid reference.

As for being productive - the OP who works full time was posting on a Monday at 9.34 and 9.41am. Presumably during one of their seven five minutes breaks. Like others, I do wonder how many of those five minute breaks are five minutes - they must be very unfortunate if they take such short breaks that their manager always seems to notice.

Surely from the manager's point of view, productivity is the best way of telling if someone is taking advantage? And the OP says it hasn't negatively impacted her productivity.

OP, I'd look at your company's DSE policy and/or ask for an assessment, citing that your back hurts if you sit for a long period of time.

I know of someone who goes to health spa at lunch and then works there for the afternoon really this is less of a piss take. I can see why it's a little frustrating for your boss if seemingly you are always away (even if you are just one pet pandering away). Why dont you just formalise your lunchtime and actually take some proper time away from your desk.

so its like if they cannot see that you only stick to the eg 30 mins etc but you could appear to take more than that if its little breaks ?

Not really.

I work from home, my Teams goes orange, so what but then my manager doesn't have a problem with my work. I'm not chained to my desk either but I do my work. I get up walk about, go and get some fresh air in the garden, go for a 15 minute walk when I hit a plateau and need to clear my head.

I have a feeling the OP's work isn't up to her manager's liking, or they've had a complaint which is why its been brought up.

Anyone who has ever worked in a large organisation can tell you it is highly likely that a great several managers would have nothing better to be doing!

I agree, I’ve a small team, 12 people and they earn c£60k so professionals and I trust them . I’ve never performance managed anyone for not being present on teams, I’d never think to look but the two go hand in hand quite a lot of the time. And then you get the opposite, just can’t do the job and are never offline but aren’t productive. It’s always part of a bigger picture.

Yeah cause people in the office don’t take toilet breaks or go make a cup of tea or run into Dave at the printer and have a chat. One can easily waste more time in the office than when wfh, but no one thinks anything of it.

Just log out of Teams, then you just always show as logged out. Log in for meetings, then log out again.

its a health and safety/legal thing - you are supposed to take a proper break.

I leave my status on away the whole time (I have told my boss that it helps people manage their expectation of my availability) - they are free to check my calendar any time or drop me a message etc. I don't miss anything at all.

Also, leaving a heavy item on your space bar does the same as a mouse jiggle ;-)

Join a dummy teams call, with just you, and have something on full screen ie youtube and you'll stay as red/busy ;)

I have a feeling the OP's work isn't up to her manager's liking, or they've had a complaint which is why its been brought up.
So why hasn't her manager actually talked to her about that rather than just talking about the Teams thing?

We are only getting her side, the manager may well have spoken to her about it.

But there is YouTube ... and netflix ... and sporting events ...
Or you can sit in an irrelevant Teams meeting to make yourself look important
Or if all those fail, you can send messages saying you can't respond now because you are too busy

Actually watching someone's Teams status almost sounds like doing something ...

So she's deliberately omitting information? Okay then.

If it goes orange isn’t that idle for 5 minutes or more ? If yes, you probabky taking more time out than you realise over the day - especially if it’s been noticeable