Work Life : Microsoft Teams

[livinitup]

We use Teams at work and I am fine with the basics. Should I be trying harder to keep my name checked “green” during working hours? I am feeling a bit more paranoid since my boss was laid off 2 weeks ago. I was completely confident that she knew where I was and using my time well. While my job hasn’t changed and the whole company is remote about 1/2 the time, I’m wondering if I should be making a better effort to be “visible” with the online tools.

I’m actually in the office today but completely alone.

I’ve never checked other people’s status before today, but right now I can see who is “green”, who is “yellow - last seen 12 minutes ago”, and who is “red - busy - free at 3:30”.

[TR]

It really depends on the culture. I'd see if you can ask around and find out if that's monitored. At my work, it's really not. No one cares. But I've heard of people's managers watching statuses like a hawk, which sucks and is so micromanagey.

[followyourarrow]

It just depends on your work environment. I've had a couple bosses who would call you out on letting the light go yellow. That kind of micromanagement wasn't for me. My current boss/company doesn't care as long as my work gets done and I reply to customers timely.

[glw]

This has never been mentioned at all at my current workplace, personally. I have 4 screens so my Teams often turns yellow while I'm working on another screen, so it's not even accurate.

[thebreakfastclub]

2 remote people in my company were fired for being gone on Teams. One guy was golfing 3 days a week and I have no idea where the lady was. Upon a further investigation they were terminated. Nobody cares if you're yellow for 15 minutes, but 2 days at a time is a problem!

[rachers]

Ugh, I do not miss Teams. But yea it’s office specific. The last office that used it during pandemic and then during our return to office was so weird about it, even though like PP’s mentioned there are reasons it could go yellow or whatever.

[picksthemusic]

We use Teams but not for tracking work or availability. We use our Outlook calendars more than anything to schedule stuff or show what we're doing for the day. We can be sidetracked very easily or be taken away from our desks at the drop of a hat with what we do, so while calendars are helpful, they're not always correct for where someone might be at any given time. I totally agree that it's culture dependent.

But if they ARE monitoring your whereabouts/productivity on Teams (or similar), they should tell you or have a written policy about it somewhere accessible and at least show it to you once a year through training like our IT does.

[gottadobe]

Our culture is to stay green LOL
I think it's really dumb and not a reliable indicator of how much work is being done.

[bee20]

Yes, depends on the culture. The way our computers are set up I go yellow all the time because I'm working on the other screen and that's fine. I only check my reports' status when I'm trying to talk to them, and I'll send a message anyway if they're yellow and half the time they respond immediately. One of my employees gets anxious whenever he is yellow because his old boss was a micromanager and checked all the time.

To the root of your question, it probably doesn't matter. When we've done layoffs in the past it's the obvious slackers we cut first, then it's really down to job function and expertise over day to day performance. I wouldn't add to your stress.

[ssmjlm]

Our teams is so unreliable that I don’t think anyone is watching that closely.

We have people in active chats or meetings showing offline because of vpn issues. Or going yellow, but being chatting.

I think for us it’s more about being responsive in a timely manner.

[fernweh]

I agree with others that it is so office dependent. The nature of my job is that even when I am at work in person I am sometimes away from my computer all day, so yellow doesn’t mean much. I have a co-worker who basically always has is status set to out of office even when he’s not so people don’t message him.

[circa1978]

I don't watch statuses but we use Teams heavily and if I message you all day as your boss and don't get an answer...I notice. I had to have a conversation with an older employee lately where I showed her how to set it up so missed messages go to her email but even so, I am like, just glance at your teams every 30 minutes if you know that people all around our organization use that to communicate almost exclusively?

Other than that, I have one employee whose status is always on red and I felt like I was bothering her all the time. I just let that go when she said just message her whenever.

ETA: I supervise both these people and we work remotely up to three days a week. I don't care about anyone else's status or their status as long as I can reach them when they are needed and work is getting done.

[sandandsea]

We use teams a lot for instant communication, so we expect responses quickly. We view teams as an alternative to stopping by someone’s office or a quick phone call. It’s more urgent than email and means respond as soon as you’re free but definitely today. Email means within 24 hours.

If someone is yellow for several hours during the middle of the day I do wonder if they’re productive or slacking off. But I don’t check statuses unless I need them for something.

ETA. Ours is connected to outlook too so it turns red for meetings automatically.

[meanie]

No one has ever said anything about my status and it definitely goes yellow during the day. The only status I really pay attention to is DND, and I wonder how accurate the status's even are since I log on to messages from people who think I am online.

There is an option for "duration" of your status and you can set it to end whenever - or you can uncheck the settings box that says “Set my status to Away when I'm inactive”

[Patsy Baloney]

I really hate chat apps and try to stay signed out as much as I can.

I’m not yellow. I’m not even there, lol.

[SusanBAnthony]

Some companies disable this apparently but i can set my Teams to stay any color i want.

The only thing people care about at my company is that you respond to teams chats. I know you read my simple question Chad. Effing answer me!

[pinkdutchtulips]

I learned that our accounting team is VERY in tune with someone's Teams status this week. Usually I don't care what it is bc if I get a message, I'll respond. Our accounting dept won't even ping someone unless their status shows 'available' and they pinged my manager bc it showed I hadn't been on Teams since 7/3 ?!?  I've been on Teams plenty of times since July. 

I'm now in tune w what my Teams status is.

[RoxMonster]

Agree it depends on team culture. No one on my team cares or really pays attention to status colors. I really only pay attention to DND and won’t message someone when they’re on that status.

[jlt19]

I feel like even the computer set up is different from job to job. Some of you are saying you’re working on a different screen and it goes yellow, but I always have two screens and it never goes yellow unless I haven’t touched my mouse/keyboard for 5 or so minutes. When I’m in the office, I can easily be away for more than that multiple times a day.

I used to worry about it at home if I needed to change out laundry or jump in the shower, so I’d start a meeting with myself. It has never stopped anyone from messaging me and since I’m a top performer, I really don’t care anymore. I’ll get my work done, so no need to micromanage a color. Luckily my boss feels the same way.

[scm1011]

I keep mine to a signed out status, which is def against the grain for my workplace but I just don't like that kind of micromanagement. I get my work done and I'm a top performer so I don't like people tracking my status. Also I don't want to feel obligated to respond immediately if someone IMs me because they see I'm green.

[cville]

Fuck Big Brother! My status is whatever and everyone can go to hell!!!

[origami]

My work has some micromanagey nosy ppl and recently had a layoff. So I get nervous when my status is yellow. If I need to duck out of work for a bit I’ve taken to creating my own teams meeting of 1 so I can look red

[lac]

Our handbook has a line specifically about how monitoring other people’s office and online presence isn’t appropriate.

That being said, I frequently have to schedule things for other people to attend that don’t relate to me, and one coworker gets on my case for showing as “busy” when I’m not…

[laurack]

It’s funny because my company was so anti having teams as they are old school and didn’t want us getting distracted by messaging etc but now we have it we have to be green. So they’ve found it to be a good way to track us I guess especially with people wfh and all. So I do try to stay green. However being fake green and then not answering a call would be worse than being yellow, so I weigh that as well.

[cville]

Like, sometimes I'm reading things on actual paper. Or on a call on my phone. Or talking to a colleague in person. Or going to the bathroom.

The idea that green = work and yellow = slack doesn't square with reality.

[sadlebred]

You need a mouse jiggler when you step away....