Microsoft Teams - saying good morning

[natel]

We had a new manager last year. A few months ago the manager insists on everyone using Microsoft Teams in the morning to ‘check in’ and say good morning to see everyone is ok. Some of us stopped using it as one colleague who was moonlighting never went on there as they were not working so why should we. We feel it is micromanagement to see we have logged on by 9am. The manager is saying we have to use it again.

It is clear if I am working as I have to respond to manage the team inbox so they always see my replies as I have to email to advise I will action the enquiry.

Anyone else have to do this? Other teams at work do not do this.

Are they asking you to attend a 9am meeting or just check in on a chat? It doesn't sound too time consuming or difficult to be honest.

I don't think it's an unreasonable request, it's no different to saying morning to people as you arrive in an office. If it's being used for presenteeism that's a different matter. We do it in our team, as well as having a quick daily catch up call. Some days it's very work focussed, other days it's just a general chat but it's a good way of including everyone. Our teams chat is a mixture of work questions, venting about daft customers and personal stuff, similar to the banter you'd have in an office.

Seems perfectly reasonable to be and has presumably been implemented so that non working colleagues can be monitored.

You're already working so what's the issue with that being confirmed?

That would drive me mad. It’s like a class register.

we have a daily scrum each morning with the whole team.
it's a chance to say good morning and raise issues with ongoing work.
it's really brought the team together.

I think this difference is key. You can say "hi" on a chat from your bed or dog walk if you wanted to

Also how else is manager meant to start tracking non working employee. Can't just ask her alone to confirm presence as that's a bit discriminatory. I

Our team's shows as green if we are at our desk working so you don't need to see anyone or say anything although a general good morning all sounds polite

It’s a register and very patronising! I would just say ‘here’ and ‘present’ as a joke and then refuse to do it.

This is online presenteeism plain and simple.

And no we don't do any of that nonsense in our workplace. Its very dated. And yes it is micromanaging.

As I said, we do it on the first day (or the last day before we go on leave). Sick leave varies but, at most, on first day. There aren't any consequences for not doing it.

Is it literally just that you type 'hello' into the chat? We do this in the team I manage - I don't use it to monitor people, but I would wonder what on earth was up if someone objected.

This is crazy. I manage a team of 15 and don't have thins. What kind of industry or team do you have? Anything other than call centre and I'm surprised, we would never do this in our company

indeed, IT could do that.
there should be a chapter on this in the employee handbook or contract about this.

We have a scrum at 9am everyday and I do a mental check that everyone is present - I expect apologies from those that can't make it. I will text those that are missing and not previously advised they won't be there. But then I had a colleague who had a heart attack and died on the way to the office and wasn't missed until his wife called later that afternoon (I worked part time so hadn't spotted him missing) and I still feel the guilt that no one noticed him missing.

I wouldn't like this as I think it is micromanaging but I know some people who are permanently on green but take forever to answer a message (strongly suspect they have a mouse wriggler device). It annoys me as managers should manage the person/ people they are wanting to monitor and leave everyone else to get on with their job.

We don't do it routinely - or, at least, managers don't routinely see it - but I know of performance management cases where the evidence of time not logged on/not working at home was used at my workplace, so clearly it is all recorded somewhere and can be accessed if needed.

YABU. At my son's workplace, (one of the UK's biggest insurers), every team has two compulsory teams meetings per day for everyone. One is 9.15am and the other is 3.15 pm! Not only does everyone have to login in, at the 9.15 one, everyone has to say what they're doing that day, and ask if they're either short of something to do or have too much to do, so that work can be reallocated within the group if necessary. The 3.15 one is a summary for everyone to say whether they've done their allotted tasks and gives the opportunity for others to help if someone is struggling and unlikely to finish by close of day. His line manager expects him to contact her in advance if he won't be able to log in to the teams meeting - usually just a courtesy/formality. Not only does it allow the line management to monitor workloads etc., it also keeps the team communicating well with each other at different levels. It sounds micro-managing, but really isn't as often, eg, my son will just say he's carrying on with "Project X", everyone else in the team knows "Project X" is a long term project, so they just let him get on with it. He'd only flag up a problem if the deadline for "X" was looming and he was getting behind, other than that, everyone in his team would know "X" deadline was, say, end of July, and just leave him to it!

COVID and WFH seems to have brought in some beliefs that it's actually unreasonable for a manager to check that their team are working the hours they are paid to do.

I don't really care when people work their hours, but if it's some variation on the UK norm it's good to know so I can schedule my interactions accordingly.

I think having a meeting like this once a week is fine but every morning would feel like micromanagement.

Do you mean a video call every morning ?
Or just a teams chat to say hi when you are logged in? The second is standard across my workplace and if you are at your computer then you should be logged into teams, so people can call you if needed. This is normal surely?

When I worked 100% in the office, we'd always have at least a "chat" first thing about work, progress, etc. We would almost always have line management sitting near us, either on adjacent desks, or if they had their own office, it would be either close or even a cubicle within the same large room.

Not sure why people WFH seem to think they don't need as much supervision/management? Some might not and may genuinely be fully efficient and on top of their workloads, but lots aren't and you need effective management to stop the piss takers, whether they're in an office or working from home!

Agreed.

Surely everyone can see if you’re online by the little green dot (or not!) on teams 🤷🏼‍♀️