How reliable is Teams for tracking work?

[Anonymous]

If someone’s Teams shows them as yellow and says they haven’t been seen in 20 hours, then is it safe to assume they haven’t been online/haven’t logged in/used their work laptop?

A thumbs up response to an email can be sent from a phone, and the concern is that someone who hasn’t been sufficiently responsive/productive is offline, simply tracking email and Teams by phone, and the yellow Teams status coupled with the “hasn’t been seen in 20 hours” seems to confirm suspicions, right?

[Anonymous]

Is their work getting done? Do they respond when you need them? Then I don't care what color their icon is.

[Anonymous]

We don't have phones, so I think that fixes the issue of responding to Teams messages outside of work.

I would say they're not working if they're yellow for 20 hours. I often turn yellow for 2-4 hours (in person meetings or working hard on a project), but not 20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone’s Teams shows them as yellow and says they haven’t been seen in 20 hours, then is it safe to assume they haven’t been online/haven’t logged in/used their work laptop?

A thumbs up response to an email can be sent from a phone, and the concern is that someone who hasn’t been sufficiently responsive/productive is offline, simply tracking email and Teams by phone, and the yellow Teams status coupled with the “hasn’t been seen in 20 hours” seems to confirm suspicions, right?

Your issue is that they aren't responsive/productive. I recommend you address this by citing specific issues and expectations vs worrying about the color of their Teams bubble.

[Anonymous]

Yeah you're going to get a mixed bag of responses here, but the real answer is the results.

I work with people that I don't even know their statuses but they are responding to things during their off times even though they don't have to. I'm not going to disrupt that proactivity and willingness to help by tracking their teams.

We've seen this backfire so much on here, especially with Feds. Once you start making people "butts in seats / 8 hours" they will rigidly stick to that (and rightly so) and things just stall and aren't as productive (and rightly so).

[Anonymous]

As a person who would receive the weekly activity reports, they're not accurate. I don't know about someone appearing as away for 20 hours, but I once got a report on myself showing I was online 28 hours in a 24 hour period. I've also had Teams reflect that I was on calls when I was not.

[Anonymous]

^^if I'm getting what I need then I don't check Teams for productivity purposes, but it seems like you are NOT which is a problem.

If tasks aren't being completed, or you are finding lots of errors in their work, or files have been untouched for DAYS that they should have been working on, and deadlines are missed then you need to start documenting!

[Anonymous]

Agree with forget teams but responsiveness/things getting done. (There are people who are always green that have few results and are only slightly reactive.)

[Anonymous]

I never remember to monitor my availability on Teams and Slack. I'm too busy actually working and my results show it.

[Anonymous]

I can tell you this, I had an employee with a second monitor and they somehow always showed as yellow/away even when I was actively chatting and emailing with them.

AFAIK Teams will stay yellow if you haven't touched Teams, but you could be working on other things (in Outlook, Word, on the internet, etc). That's in contrast to Skype, which was always green if I was working at the computer even if I wasn't actively in Skype.

I would see the yellow as a "yellow flag" (pun intended) but in itself is not proof. It's just one data point that could be explained if the person is otherwise productive which apparently they aren't.

It seems like the easiest thing to do would be call them cold or schedule an impromptu video meeting. Also send them tasks that will require a more involved response that isn't easy to do on a phone and ask for it by COB.

[Anonymous]

I sometimes "set" mine to away or offline intentionally if i'm going to be away or offline (or heads down) and then forget to set it back which makes me look MIA. Fortunately, my boss/colleagues aren't monitoring work/performance in this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes "set" mine to away or offline intentionally if i'm going to be away or offline (or heads down) and then forget to set it back which makes me look MIA. Fortunately, my boss/colleagues aren't monitoring work/performance in this way.

+1

I have a few teammates who don't understand the meaning of "do not disturb" so I set it to appear offline when I really need to concentrate, or if I'm working on a weekend but don't want to talk to anyone. Then I forget about it so I'm showing as offline for the rest of the day or longer until I notice again.

[Anonymous]

Apparently if someone’s Teams indicates they haven’t been seen in 20 hours it does in fact mean they haven’t touched Teams in 20 hours.

Generally speaking, if your workplace is one where Teams is routinely used throughout the day, and the person in question tends to default to Teams (heavily uses it), then it would seem to indicate they haven’t been online or working (particularly since their work relies upon tasks from others).

This obviously isn’t an issue if nobody is questioning the person’s responsiveness or productivity.

[Anonymous]

I really question the value of people that sit around and monitor how much people are online. I know every organization has someone that's monitoring how often people are on teams or how often the login in/badge in.

I think that is a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently if someone’s Teams indicates they haven’t been seen in 20 hours it does in fact mean they haven’t touched Teams in 20 hours.

Not according to several posts above yours.