As a boss myself. We track projects and completion dates. As long as everyone is assigned work and it’s getting done in the agreed spin time, that’s all I care about! Only a control freak would use this!
It is interesting that the application tracks meetings and phone calls and considers them a level of productivity. When every working human knows that meetings and phone calls are the least productive tasks in any career.
I disagree about phone calls. Emailing everything and waiting for a response is the least productive. Calling someone and asking about a thing and getting an answer or action in less than 5 minutes is.
Meetings are almost never productive, but they should generate clarity and direction for generating future productivity. I've had a 1 hour meeting with tentative future meetings at certain times. That project didn't warrant another meeting until 6 months later for final touches and agreement. The meeting was done well to provide clarity and direction.
Typically companies use multiple products. Teams, zoom, Skype and everything else that works for their business and customers. The idea of big brother watching everyone is a loser goal. Just pay people for results and don't care how they get them.
As an ex-manager just having left my previous job, I never had the ability nor did I ever want to micro-track the employees under me. If they're getting their work done as per the deadlines and meeting performance goals, I had no concerns whatsoever.
Exactly. Almost no manager has access to this. And a sys admin isn't going to have time or any desire to care and look up this usage unless there's something shady going on with an employee. In which case they're already on their way out
As a manager I care about timelines as long as goals met, it doesn’t matter he work 1 hour or 8 hours. Some are working fast and some slow. You can’t punish high efficient workers by giving more task to then if they finish work fast.
That is one of the big problems in the whole work-from-home debate. Management does indeed punish efficient workers by giving them more tasks. They want to monitor those workers to make sure they don't have any time for non-work activities if they finish quickly.
@@sexygeek8996 So true. You become a victim of your own success, ending up doing twice as much as your coworkers but not seeing a raise. Gotta love the corporate world.
Nice try its a real shame bosses pile more work on the good workers ive just retired and seen this shit going on for 40 years no such thing as a bad job just bad bosses
If your company tracks you, in work hours, and you stay 3 hours on FB, 2 hours on youtube and 1 hour working, the boss will fire you before you get a chance to search for a new job. I had low productivity from certain team members for months, and then, I saw what they were actually doing instead of working, I fired them on the spot. Am I a bad boss that I choose to keep working team members instead of the ones that just sit and do nothing? I'm not saying I'm a good boss, but I imagine that as a colleague to one of these people, I would be furious to get the same pay for 4 times the effort...
A manager should care about the output of a person, not manage how they spend their time. Any manager that is busy with such details is not a manager, but a control freak that distrusts the team and abuses his role.
I would say a manager should know what stuff their subordinates are doing and how (or in other words, be able to perform the role themselves, even if not to the same standard of the specialist), so that they don't end up imposing unreasonable tasks. Yes, it shouldn't matter if an employee takes anywhere between 1 and 2 hours to complete a task depending on what's happened on the day, but the manager should be _aware_ that it can sometimes take twice as long and why.
@@davids3539 a specialist promoted to manager doesn't make the specialist a good manager. And vice versa should a manager really know how to: - write java, json, html, css, javascript, bash, ant, sql and be up to date with the latest frameworks? I think any specialist should know how to explain what he/she did in non technical jargon and why it took longer than expected. Teammates should be able to give feedback to a manager when someone is performing badly as the whole team is responsible for the delivered work.
@@eurocalypse Indeed, being a good specialist doesn't make a good manager, but that's why you pick one who is. Yes, if a manager is overseeing projects using various languages, they should be able to understand the code. They needn't be the most proficient in everything, but if they have no idea what's going on apart from KPIs, and rely on others to provide 'feedback' then you might as well replace the manager with a robot. How else does a manager get the best from their team if they don't know what the team are doing and their specific skills?
@@davids3539 Exactly. Having to work with some of these kind of "managers" makes me really wonder if they can simply do anything more than look at an Excel.
Where I work as a Software Architect for a full-time remote company, we focus on objectives. Tracking time doesn't work, and it demotivates employees. It's nice to be trusted to deliver in my own time, but conversely not having set working hours can make it harder to switch off from work - a different sort of problem!
What company did you work? Maybe I can switch to your company, my boss work is only tracking minutes for every employee, I have to put 3 minutes timer on my phone, Tu run 🏃♀️ to the bathroom to go for #1 plus change the time clock ⏰ from working out to go to the bathroom and before 5 minutes I have to change the clock from Bathroom to back to work to show her that I’m able to answer phone calls .
Good points how do I tell teams I spent 2 hours last night in bed thinking through a problem that I can now implement easily this morning ? Or that I went out for a walk to think about something I was stuck on, or decided to review some information somewhere else like watching it on my tv , when there are real problems to solve time spent actively using a machine is not necessarily a full indication of effort applied to a solution , if you have a job that is just answer the phone then maybe this sort of metric makes sense, if you want to make your employees lives a total misery that is 😂
If you are boss and you have to track your team at this level then YOU got an engagement issue, not your team, YOU! On the other hand, a LEADER puts their people first, they build them, the leader seldom seeks praise. Leadership is a LIFETIME quest. If you think taking a few classes makes you leader or 10 years having a team qualifies you then YOU ARE A BOSS!
Yup. Most of the useless meetings are conducted by management to justify their existence in the workplace. Those meetings can be an email most of the time.
I work with a big company and when they need to let people go, they use all this to find people lacking... Then they cry because we dont got enough people to push the work but are quick to cut you off.... crazy.. Thanks for the Vid, really helps to know how all this works.
Just assume that you are always being tracked by something. Do your job well, and if they don't like the way you do it, go somewhere else. If you have skills and are truly productive, you will always be valuable somewhere that values real results.
No. That's bad advice. That's the same type of erroneous thinking that tells women "don't wear anything even slightly 'provocative' and try not to look into the eyes of other male employees so they don't misjudge you as showing an interest in them ...and you should be fine." This is the exact same type of mentality that says "let private companies and the government track everything about me, I've got nothing to hide". Personal freedoms and privacy has been hard fought for in this country. Companies have been notorious over the past couple hundred years for abusing their employees until laws were enacted to stop them from doing it. This micro-tracking of employees every muscle-twitch will only get worse until the US and EU finally enact employee privacy laws that prevent this sort of abusive and invasive tracking and using the useless garbage metrics to judge an employees so-called "productivity." Stick your head in the sand at your own peril. When you finally pull your head out, you may realize your mistake. For the rest of us, we are right to push back on such meaningless tracking and contact legislators to do something about it before its too late. Companies like Microsoft are profiting off of this sort of stuff to sell their products and creating a police-state corporate environment in the process. Just look at what Facebook did to politics around the world. Nothing but division, hate, and endless rabbit holes of disinformation pushed to people's feed by paying bad political actors.
Yes, reaching 100% completion of a task is important, however relying on that will not show for example, 80% was done by 1 person, and 20% was done by another, where the 20% person could have been doing something else in addition. Productivity analysis can also show that a team may be too busy through factual data, which is usefull for planning resource for furture projects. For example a low 'emails sent' number can be used to say the user is to busy to reply to emails or more emails can be recieved. Its not just about 'spying or 'micromangemnet', many large organisations have self built productivity analysis already in place to ensure work can be done but also ensure an employee is not overloaded with work.
THIS ISNT THE HALF OF IT .. there are invisible applications that can be used to remote into your screen and monitor you in real time. Back Office IT can see everything you do site you visit and even track every keystroke. BEST ADVISE USE YOUR WORK LAPTOO 4 WORK.... NOT SHOPPING NADA it's their equipment not yours they are protecting themselves as well as their client so to them it's totally justified.
No real manager cares about these pointless KPIs like number of meetings or messages. They only care about your project delivery quality and time frame which are actively tracked using other tools like jira/confluence etc.
you are the one who is thinking its made to catch you. how about if i say its about developing backend and automisation processes to safe the company and managers time? yes, it also gives overview because data is important. iv never seen the leader im around with, even thinking about what you accuse and i suck at the job and only drink their coffee. im the intern developer of a company and today i had a call with my wife for 2 hours, if some manager will mention it, im gonna rage like a child and fire myself immediatly.
The more monitoring, the less effect the employee become. Now they can no longer be themselves without having a feeling of who is watching you. Human work more effectively when they are giving the freedom of flexibility.
These reports are not used by Bosses but by IT admins to check whether they are utilising all licences for users and if they need to increase or optimize capacity. It saves money
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Though these might have been created for IT to maintain and check the capacity and usage of various software applications, the flip side of it is exactly what was presented in this video, that management will be micromanaging their remote staff.
Lack of activity in Teams doesn't equal lack of work. Most of my workload is done using Visual Studio & MSSQL. I don't use "apps" or plugins in Teams and the apps I mainly use are outside of Teams scope.
can't Teams track other apps that are not related to Microsoft? I saw it tracks Office 365... but, since Teams is 100% related with Windows, can't it track the time in other apps such as IntelliJ, Visual Studio, Chrome, etc?
@@alexradu1921 no.. that would be 100% a breach of privacy and illegal. Just remember things like this are used on work computers. If you are using your personal computer at home for work they cannot track what you are doing. So no porn.exe won’t show up
@@5punkybob breach of privacy and illegal doesn’t seem to be much of a roadblock for tech companies to be honest. They are constantly paying tens to hundreds of millions in fines for illegal activity, it’s basically cost of doing business at this point
It is important to remember that anything you access owned or connected by your employer is their property and data. Therefore company email, databases, and all company connected accounts should be seen as a monitoring tool. Do nothing on them except work.
This is most effective at demoralising your team and making your best people quit and go somewhere else. As long as my people get assigned tasks done according to schedule, I see zero need to micromanage their time. I got way too much to do beside this level of silliness, which could actually be a fun real life reverse uno card you can play on any managers stupid enough to try to call people out on this - if they have time to mess about with this basic and frankly minimal value/insight added reports, they are not making good use of their own time or haven’t got enough proper work themselves. Upwards delegate them some of your work. ;)
Thank you Leila, I always love to understand what the other side looks like - in this case the admins tec view. It helps understanding what's possible and what not, how to name things and get clues on why IT is doing this or that (not). I appreciate seeing more of these perspectives!
Since this video is over 2 years old, you can be that Microsoft Team has definitely put in more 'FEATURES', so that your boss can be watching and tracking YOU!!
A good IT manager does need this, but not by itself.....the Analytics from MS provide alot of useful information about license usage, network utilization, quality and performance of the office suite. Its just another tool which can be used in the wrong way, but we are in this every day , particularly while we are still in lockdown and have more than half our workforce working from home, it can help us manage out private network and infrastructure much better
Your organization can track more than that. Using compliance center in o365, they can also track chats you sent using teams. For some organizations, they use it to prove bullying cases and trash talking in the workplace. Basically, your organization can track everything you do in teams. Some have their uses for it other than micro managing.
What about audio and video calls? Are they saved for retrieval? Somebody keeps turning our Teams chat video on remotely so now we all have black tape on the company iPhone and disable the mic in settings. Shut all the way down and leave in another room when not in use and NEVER travel away from the US with it due to GPS inside.
You are soooooo right. My last manager used it on me, she would drop hints in the meeting on what I discussed among my teammates. Plus, she was having conversations with them to let them in on things I've said and I would get hints from them as well. These systems they are implementing for remote work is dangerous (REMOTE BULLYING), especially if the manager may not like an employee and disclose personal issues to their colleague.
My last employer made it mandatory to communicate to all team members and management through Teams. Every day. All day long. For a 24 hour organization. So I logged out and told them anything that happened on Teams that was important could be emailed to me or told to me directly; otherwise I’m going to assume it isn’t urgent or important, and I’m not going to have my phone going off about work all day long when I’m at home. And I’m not going to log in so they can use everything that’s said against me. Which is what they did.
If your at home put a corner of a square ceramic coaster on the spacebar in a empty word doc while your at break or lunches. No need to login after timeouts.
What a lot of people miss is, this isn’t necessarily used for employee tracking. Data usage helps the company figure out what’s useful and what isn’t. Are team members communicating? These are data to help identify root causes. It’s not all for micromanaging.
There are plenty of other ways for doing that. Healthy orgs already have processes in place for those kind of things. If you are just starting and you want to embrace the M$ ecosystem, then okay, but if an org is already established they probably have processes already in place. If it's a healthy org. If the org is not healthy, then Teams isn't going to be the panacea to make it so.
“They” know everything!!!!! Our: -conversation! -Movement -Financial status -And so on! The more we move forward with technologies, the more we are sinking ourselves into black whole!!!
I was once asked by my boss about my whereabouts one afternoon when Teams "lost track" of me (his words). So glad I don't work at that company any more.
Had a boss who would reach out to me in Teams and at times would ask me to do things that were either unethical or borderline illegal, and I always knew when she was making a shady demand because she’d strangely not address me by my name during those conversations. Also had her conversations set to purge at an unusually quick cycle, something like 24 or 48 hours - apparently to cover her tracks. So yeah, a boss can use it to micromanage, but also utilize it in a way to minimize culpability for unethical activity.
@@cuivre2004 Oh yeah, I take screen shots with unusual stuff like this. If there were ever a lawsuit or some other repercussions, I’m not taking the fall for it.
I always delete Teams when I install the Microsoft suite. This video tells me what I am missing out on. The presentation itself is excellent! Very informative. I will continue watching Leila's videos! I will keep deleting Teams...
I’m in IT Support. I find this interesting, although I wouldn’t be needing to use really any of them, and you’d hope nobody would find it necessary to check activity, unless there’s some really big productivity issues.
I worked for a small company in IT and our office manager did just this. Tracked everyone and watched everyone at work like a hawk. The day I left was the best thing for my personal health in my life by far.
I used to work with a Boss who would manually enter everyone's arrival and leave times in a excel sheet to black mail them. This seems like a much easier way to do that xD
After watching this video, I would advise everyone to work for themselves. That way you are not being monitored on your time and how much work you have done.to the companies satisfaction.
What's not covered in the video is that it depends what kind of office 365 license has the company purchased for users. E5+Security has the most advanced functionalities per user activity and will become more and more complex with time. When you have a product that's integrating with so many applications and is accessible everywhere it is only normal to have the ability to at least track what is going on in your organisation. Microsoft knows how to hook tight their clients...
Interesting to see the monitoring aspect. My boss wouldn’t have time to monitor Teams usage. As a line manager I didn’t have access to these reports. We would leave this type of service monitoring task to IT, but we wouldn’t want to read any reports. Teams and email usage has the same value as lines of code as a productivity metric.
This makes me sad not because there are grown ups tracking other grown ups. But rather we have come to a point in this world where someone feels the need to do this. Assign a task and timeline and help people to meet it. Technology is not invented to make people digital slaves. The more I use the technology more I am convinced that it is being used to do that. Please be a manager and not the boss. Success of your team is your success as a manager. Support your direct reports to do better at work. Don’t spy or judge them. I believe that everyone wants to get their stuff done and there is life beyond work. Respect that. Treat people the way you like to be treated. Take care. And be responsible and respectful.
This is predicated on indivduals using teams and integrated apps within. There's many activities and tasks which sit outside of the teams ecosystem - including Outlook integration.
Very interesting, but definitely overkill! As as the others have already mentioned, if the work gets done on time & at a high quality who cares what applications their employees are using.
I was promoted to a manager in training at a large corporation .... Let me tell you, common sense is looked down upon. It was encouraged to use fear to try and squeeze more work out of employees.... Ever notice at a job where they micromanage and constantly jump your case, but no one is ever fired? It's because fear is used as a strategy. Even if you are a good worker who does everything right, you will still be micromanaged. Company metrics.... This is the biggest tool we used to micromanage you and make you think you were always on the edge of being fired. It was also a wonderful tool to deny you a raise. If employees started meeting the metrics, we changed them. We would also manipulate a few employees numbers and use them as a tool. We would tell others to strive to be like them. Hey, they are meeting their numbers, why aren't you??? I hated the job. It wasn't really managing anything. It was a position to instill fear into others.
@@SandsV It's not every company, but more and more companies are moving to this. My advice, if you work for a company that uses these tactics, get out of there as soon as you can. It will burn you out and affect your home life. The company I am with is starting to shift to this strategy, then they back off. It feels like they are testing the strategy.
@@michaelh5055 thanks Michael H, it has unfortunately gotten worse over the last 10 years. I am starting to shake myself and prepare for a move. I am coachable and a team player, i work hard and i just want to donit with dignity and a better home/work balance.
@@SandsV some tips.... Unless you are getting a raise every year or two, find a new job that pays more. Being the go getter in the office means nothing. Most managers have no clue who you are. You are a hero to fellow coworkers, but they can't promote you or give you a raise. Also the go getter has no more security than the person who does just enough to stay under the radar. If you want to shine in your bosses eyes, then focus on manipulating your numbers. Your bosses boss doesn't care about the quality of work. Good metrics are how each boss is judged. If you have good numbers, then he has good numbers and you are golden in his book. These silly programs companies use always has loopholes and ways you can manipulate numbers This was a problem I saw all the time. Sally in department A is pissed and super upset she isn't getting a raise. She is saying that I was a major player in saving that account for the company, I deserve a raise.... Well, your metrics were all below company standards and per policy, we can't give you anything. We actually called you in here to notify you that you are receiving a write up for poor performance. That was the stupid chit I had to do and deal with. Inside, I am thinking this is messed up, she is a solid performer who just saved a 100k account and I am writing her up 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️. After that, she really quit caring and stopped catering to that account which we eventually lost. I am getting off track. But just remember, metrics are usually far more important than your actual work. And good metrics doesn't mean good work.
It worth mentioning that teams may not show who and what there are doing. But there are plenty of companies out there that have software that does. If your company that has more than 1000 employees they absolutely know everything your doing. From screen time, to large file transfers and software installed.
These tools aren't provided for Managers to track users, they are provided to IT (Admins) to track usage and help diagnose issues. So for example Teams activity maybe low, Exchange activity high, then maybe a training or awareness program is needed for Teams. Monitoring App might be to see if that App is still being used or could be disabled. The data can also be 'anonymised' at a tenant level. The 'Productivity Score' is to show the uptake and usage of M365 components, to see how much your business is exploiting the software in their M365 licenses.
But that's how they're being used. And it's horrible. It's what's happening more and more, whether intended or not. I've worked for more than one company that does this. And it is rotten.
Don't worry y'all, not all bosses are gonna have access to O365 admin center access unless you're in a quite small company. And this is related to MS apps. But there are big companies that install desktop tracking systems.
MY creepy boss used to even read my email . I came to know this one day when he mistakenly talked about my email in the meeting and then immediately back tracked after realizing what he had done. I acted like I didnt understand and that I am confused by the question. I left the company in 2 months after and told all my colleagues about this
@@jamescaffrey7869 Got it. But shouldn’t company clients be told that emails that are written between us could be read by admin? Or are people just supposed to know this?
@@scherryvalentine9673 well most companies have IT policy and they use smart words that dont say exactly this explicitly but they dont mention it using coy words.
Teams is an indication of collaboration only. Microsoft need to also learn that Teams time does not equal work time, Microsoft, you are a tiny slice of what people use, you know that right?
In the Cdn government we knew that we were always being monitored. Though it was denied! This is before teams. If any of us searched out of bounds it would be picked up by an algorithm . There was a lot of micromanaging. If you were effective you were never promoted as it would threaten a manager’s bonus. And at the same time we were expected to train our replacement. (We refused!) So my group who had the experience and the knowledge just calculated our retirement dates and left en mass.
Glad I don't have people looking over my shoulder like that. This is one benefit of being a blue collar worker. Your boss can visually see your progress and does not have to be sneaky about it
When I worked in office was usually always focused on work because of workloads, when I went remote it was the same, until processes changed and then found there was a lot of free time between tasks, so actually did take breaks when I wasn't really supposed to, but seriously, I'd been working that job nearly 20 years, usually around that time employees do slacken since of seniority and time at the job. I know relatives who worked in gov jobs didn't handle as tough assignments as they did in the beginning after 15 years at the same job, so makes sense.
@@kirraak123 u can record it as a member. true teams it's self so i would not advise it as some one might use it to rise above you and get u fired or take your position. if you are already on the bottom sure have fun. but wen u go up it will do more harm than it wase fun.
There are more reasons to log activities like security, compliance and licensing. When a user has been attacked by phishing for instance its good te be able to track where messages did come from. An admin is not interested in working hours or document content. He want to control the environment and want to be sure information is safe.
The tools may be there but I've worked in IT for a long time and never once known bosses to view the reports to track users. Its usually IT people that have access to this
That sounds about right. After all, they are paying the person to do a job. I don't mind as long as they leave my desktop alone. I love your coffee cup. Thanks for sharing Lella.
Managers that confuse time with output should not be managers. I can do my work in 5 hours a week. You want me to take on more tasks while my colleagues take a week for a single similar task? Sure! Just increase my pay accordingly, 2x the tasks means you have to increase my pay by twice as much :)
Exactly. This isn't really "tracking" anything. It shows how and how much people are using Teams. It's not a good measure of productivity. I spend 80% of my work hours in Outlook, Excel, Word, Chrome, and IE. I also use multiple devices.
According to Microsoft themselves, managers and admins don't have the ability to read messages in private groups that they are not a part of, but I have learned from experience that is not true. I recently left a company (luckily) that did exactly that. Over the course of just the last 6 weeks I was there, more than a dozen employees were reprimanded or written up for comments they made in private groups with other employees. None of the comments were actually inappropriate, most of them were however critical of managers attitudes and actions. Ironically, those employees getting written up for that just proves the point.
I only use Teams to attend mandatory meetings that use this horrendous program (sound issues still not resolved). For everything else, I stay as far away from it as possible. I prefer actually doing something productive instead of trying to get Teams to work as intended.
@@brendanbass5495 Absolutely! I hate how people use this to just drag you into whatever meeting is currently active, without even notifying you what it's about. Whenever I see the message "XYZ would like to add you to a group call" I ignore that. More often than not you're suddenly sitting next to customers, completely unprepared, making a fool of yourself and the company. No thanks, that's not how this is supposed to work.
I was recently in a co-op where a collaborator leader of mine had trouble using Teams. Decided myself it was better for us to move to Zoom for the sake of convenience.
Leila...This is a great site and clearly explained and easy to understand...And "YES" I could clearly see our Corporate Services Director and CEO using this. IF they could read everyone's comments, they would do that as well.
i haven't even watched the video and judging by the comments it seems the main take away is the Teams "Account Status" (appearing away if you haven't touched the keyboard / mouse in a period of time) just download an app that keeps this status "Available", unfortunately i had to do this with a prior employer as some of the "Leadership" judged your engagement based on the color of your status. I did say prior employer!
I don't use Microsoft products but you get a thumbs up for a well done video, and mostly for actually putting the popup on the screen when you pointed to where it would be :)
@@ZemanTheMighty At my last IT position my manager printed out internet usage reports regarding my listening to roller coaster development commentaries while working. I had the most productivity on the team and completed the most tickets/projects. She was furious. This was not an entry level position, so to be distrusted this much and be ridiculed for listening to something while working was absurd. I put in my two weeks shortly after. Bottom line, if you run a business and people are hard working, don't track them and don't micromanage them. Most senior level employees are looking for a stable place where they feel valued, and no amount of money is worth literally being forced to twiddle your thumbs at your desk for 9 hours because you aren't allowed to do anything else with your free time when you're extremely productive. Good companies trust their employees.
It's so heartwarming and nice that companies can see what their employees are doing. Using these metrics companies can easily spot those who are doing their best to be part of the team and further company goals. It's so great to see companies can trust their employees to get work done by monitoring everything they do. YaY Teams!
Outlook Exchange can do lots of sneaky stuff too. So if you install company email on your personal phone BEWARE!! And you don’t give permissions when setting up.
good thing in our company, our bosses track the productivity or the results that we provide. this tracking function is good but this might create a feeling of uneasiness to some employees.
I work at an IT provider, managing just short of 200 companies. I have never had any company, ever request for someone to extract this data. Let alone no client would ever have access to the admin center. So I don't think we have to worry so much here.
At my company management and IT has access to all this. Not that Ive ever heard them use it. As long as the work is done, none of this matters really to management.
I've had my boss pull a report on me because I was the only person that worked on Saturday. It showed how long it took before I answered the phone. God forbid I had to go to the supply cabinet way in the back of the office. This was yrs ago. I think this reflects her insecurities about herself. I asked her if she questioned my other coworker who was famous for disappearing from the office for 20 mins at a time and reappearing later with a donut or cookies, so you know he was visiting other offices. I know she didn't so she stopped asking me, and I worked my tail off on those Saturdays, too.
The analytics seems very useful when it comes to the overall company. In a longer time period you can use it to have a sense of engagement in terms of productivity. It's when it goes to the individual analytics that I'm not too fond of.
Something I've noticed with teams is that people go out of their way to show they are being productive which actually distracts them from the work they are supposed to be doing.
@@matthewreed243 Very true. Our team is actually at a point now where being online doesn't matter anymore as long as the project are done in time, but that comes from a manager that trusts their team
This is why a computer at work is for work. If you do personal things, use personal device and resources. If you are used to work at work, you have nothing to hide.
@@FahlmanCascade Using personal computer for work risks a security breach. Any company trying to save money in asets ny doing so will deserve any security incident they might have.
Anyone with a global admin account can reset your password and login to your account to see everything as you see it. 🙈 Your video should cover the audit logs, that's a lot more data on activity
I'm curious as to how it measures engagement/activity in its apps. Is it how long the application is open? When keystrokes are made? How often work is being saved?
For one 99% of users will not have access to this, even in IT. Secondly, no it doesn't track down to that depth. However, there are programs like Terramind that do this exact thing and are terrifying.
Great video Leila - what about the part where admins can see what you wrote and your chat logs? I believe admins can see all of that. But regardless on a company laptop, the company has access to everything.
I quit a company that would agressively watch every second of time. I personally watched where others would sit there once they had completed their tasks and they would cycle back and forth click through several apps to game the system. I would get done and hit UA-cam or PluralSight to learn something new I could use and get questioned about my use of time. After we started having meetings to discuss what we were going to cover in the meeting right after this one, I started my own company and resigned immediately due to "health concerns" because they were going to make me have a stroke micro managing me like this.
Agree that Planner is more practical. I am admin 365 too and I find this monitoring report rather not so realistic. Some people might be working on Adobe Photoshop for hours and it will not be counted in 365 report.
I don't like this intrusive surveillance state culture that has come about since the spike in people working from home due to the pandemic. I've seen other examples such as keystroke software that measures how many words an employee has typed in a given timeframe. And even a chair sensor that detects how long a person has been sitting at their desk for. On one hand it can be good for employers to know the general trends, but there is a danger this data is misused. Employees shouldn't feel guilty about leaving their chairs to get a bit of exercise here and there. And some jobs require a lot of thinking, so the keystroke and clicking stats would typically be low for these kinds of people. Humans aren't robots.
Agreed. I’ve always defined jobs as a spectrum between “time based” jobs and “task based” jobs. A good example of time based would be a hotel front desk. I need someone there at specific times or people can’t check in. Task based jobs depend less on specific hours and more on the completion of discrete units of production by the individual. For these, it is less about being there every minute and more about daily or weekly deadlines. Most non-customer facing office jobs are more task based. A manager should keep this spectrum in mind when tracking productivity to insure they are incentivizing the right aspects of the job. Measuring a “time based” job on tasks completed might result in ignoring those who excel at consistently “being there” for your customers each day. Measuring “task based” jobs based on work duration, clicks, tool usage, etc., will lead to incentivizing clock watching and busy work over actual productivity.
@@obits3 Some of these features would be good if a business bills by the hour to a specific client, i.e. law firm or accounting firm. But then again, I am sure those business have billing and invoice software that already tracks that. A good manager would know which "technical" metrics within MS Teams matter. Maybe they would look at trends and compare that to non-Teams output. A bad manager who uses these metrics inappropriately, will have high turnover!
Humans became robots when the assembly line was created!! 😒 Employees with standing desks would get fired pretty quickly then!! 😆 Keystroke software would be great and useful for jobs involving data entry or dictation. Knowing general trends would be good to see IF compared to other non-Teams output.
@@obits3 Very true. I think productivity can be difficult to measure. A programmer, for instance, can spend many hours, days or weeks working on a very specific aspect of an app or software product. To the non-programming boss, it may look like they've done very little in the timeframe. All those hours debugging mixed in with frustration and perseverance will only be appreciated by the person themselves. The boss and other outsiders might deem them to be unproductive because they don't appreciate the nuances and intricacies of the process. Their focus is purely on the final product.
As an admin I can tell you no one uses this to track individuals this way. Everyone is hyper paranoid. People only use these metrics to get a broader sense of a departments workload so they can determine if you actually do need to hire more people or allocate more resources. Real managers don't have time to stalk you.
Well, my former employer said we can't do any work from home because he doesn't have any way of, basically, stalking us. Covid changed things drastically, our whole office went to working from home within 2 weeks. Local management was not happy. Magically we met our goals and got things done AND we were more efficient than at the office. Who knew. A committed team will work in just about any circumstances.
As another admin, I can echo what you just said, not once has request been raised to track productivity. Of course a lot of folks have the believe that the more meetings you hold the more “productive “ you are. *eye roll.
As an Administrator and a boss myself, this isn't for use by a "boss" but admin-only features hence being in/only accessible in the Admin center that bosses don't have access to. Perhaps more useful in investigating incidents or usage for other reasons related to the subscription, not for tracking/managing emplpyees' "usage" of any kind.
Thanks Leila ! Great information. That is one of the reasons why we in Germany (and other European countries) have so called "works agreements". If our / your customers would dig deeper into Microsoft 365 they would find even more "tracking information" with even more details (audit log protocol)..... as an example. Keep up your excellent work !
I never use Microsoft Teams. I always turn it off or close it. I also never use it for meetings. I‘ll find the link for the meeting since we now work@home and open it in Chrome or Firefox, which are more secure.
My supervisor is a control freak and a micromanager. When we started working from home she hated it. They just loaded this on our computers. Now I know why.
I have had several different managers in my working career, and l often find the women are major micro managers. Male managers leave you alone so long as you get the job done!!!
My manager dont care about their teams activities, he just want everything done in time. I watch youtube when he walk behind me and dont give a damn about it😂. Cz i already done everything before deadline 😂😂😂
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You cute
inappropriate @@RaulYatraMartinez
sooo sweeet i love You ...
Leila, do you have videos about how to use API's in Excel?
As a boss myself. We track projects and completion dates. As long as everyone is assigned work and it’s getting done in the agreed spin time, that’s all I care about! Only a control freak would use this!
Certainly,, good for You. You are a real leader
can u hire me sir.. just.. for..fun? 🙈
There's no shortage of control freaks😅
What’s the answer pls?
💯
It is interesting that the application tracks meetings and phone calls and considers them a level of productivity. When every working human knows that meetings and phone calls are the least productive tasks in any career.
That’s only because we’re doing meetings and phone calls wrong. They should be leveraging events, each and every one. But…no.
Idk, mine have all been useful.
I disagree about phone calls. Emailing everything and waiting for a response is the least productive. Calling someone and asking about a thing and getting an answer or action in less than 5 minutes is.
100% agree. On days where I have a lot of meetings I get nothing done.
Meetings are almost never productive, but they should generate clarity and direction for generating future productivity. I've had a 1 hour meeting with tentative future meetings at certain times. That project didn't warrant another meeting until 6 months later for final touches and agreement. The meeting was done well to provide clarity and direction.
Bosses track hours.
Leaders track tasks.
Yes exactly
Agreed. Don’t have the time to police grown adults!
Bosses track hours. Leaders track tasks. Smart people track results.
Business owners pay for results. You can only give people a slice from the cake they built.
Typically companies use multiple products. Teams, zoom, Skype and everything else that works for their business and customers. The idea of big brother watching everyone is a loser goal. Just pay people for results and don't care how they get them.
As an ex-manager just having left my previous job, I never had the ability nor did I ever want to micro-track the employees under me. If they're getting their work done as per the deadlines and meeting performance goals, I had no concerns whatsoever.
Good
Completely agree. I’m a dept head at a large company. I’ve never had access to (or heard of) this type of thing.
ah you see thats just because you are sane
Exactly. Almost no manager has access to this. And a sys admin isn't going to have time or any desire to care and look up this usage unless there's something shady going on with an employee. In which case they're already on their way out
spoken like a true "Boss"!
As a manager I care about timelines as long as goals met, it doesn’t matter he work 1 hour or 8 hours. Some are working fast and some slow. You can’t punish high efficient workers by giving more task to then if they finish work fast.
i agree, unless that extra tasks also comes with extra compensations
That is one of the big problems in the whole work-from-home debate. Management does indeed punish efficient workers by giving them more tasks. They want to monitor those workers to make sure they don't have any time for non-work activities if they finish quickly.
@@sexygeek8996 So true. You become a victim of your own success, ending up doing twice as much as your coworkers but not seeing a raise. Gotta love the corporate world.
Nice try its a real shame bosses pile more work on the good workers ive just retired and seen this shit going on for 40 years no such thing as a bad job just bad bosses
I want to work for you.
If you company / boss needs to track you like this you either need to find a better company or another boss...
I think you completely missed the point. The idea is you might not even know if anyone does this.
If your company tracks you, in work hours, and you stay 3 hours on FB, 2 hours on youtube and 1 hour working, the boss will fire you before you get a chance to search for a new job.
I had low productivity from certain team members for months, and then, I saw what they were actually doing instead of working, I fired them on the spot. Am I a bad boss that I choose to keep working team members instead of the ones that just sit and do nothing? I'm not saying I'm a good boss, but I imagine that as a colleague to one of these people, I would be furious to get the same pay for 4 times the effort...
Yes
So true. Lack of trust or micromanagement is the worse!
@@NotjustGrey I love your sense of reasoning.
A manager should care about the output of a person, not manage how they spend their time. Any manager that is busy with such details is not a manager, but a control freak that distrusts the team and abuses his role.
I would say a manager should know what stuff their subordinates are doing and how (or in other words, be able to perform the role themselves, even if not to the same standard of the specialist), so that they don't end up imposing unreasonable tasks.
Yes, it shouldn't matter if an employee takes anywhere between 1 and 2 hours to complete a task depending on what's happened on the day, but the manager should be _aware_ that it can sometimes take twice as long and why.
@@davids3539 a specialist promoted to manager doesn't make the specialist a good manager. And vice versa should a manager really know how to:
- write java, json, html, css, javascript, bash, ant, sql and be up to date with the latest frameworks?
I think any specialist should know how to explain what he/she did in non technical jargon and why it took longer than expected. Teammates should be able to give feedback to a manager when someone is performing badly as the whole team is responsible for the delivered work.
@@eurocalypse Indeed, being a good specialist doesn't make a good manager, but that's why you pick one who is.
Yes, if a manager is overseeing projects using various languages, they should be able to understand the code. They needn't be the most proficient in everything, but if they have no idea what's going on apart from KPIs, and rely on others to provide 'feedback' then you might as well replace the manager with a robot. How else does a manager get the best from their team if they don't know what the team are doing and their specific skills?
u r guilty of slacking ofg
@@davids3539 Exactly. Having to work with some of these kind of "managers" makes me really wonder if they can simply do anything more than look at an Excel.
As someone in charge of people, as long as the work is getting done on time and in good quality, I don’t care what people do. This seems very toxic.
Thank you 😍😍😍👍
Hi boss
As your employee, I've been tracking your youtube usage. I'm pleased to say you're working well and on track. Good job, keep it up.
@@hieroglyph321 😂😂😂
Don't you mean Employer ? 😂
🤮
Where I work as a Software Architect for a full-time remote company, we focus on objectives. Tracking time doesn't work, and it demotivates employees. It's nice to be trusted to deliver in my own time, but conversely not having set working hours can make it harder to switch off from work - a different sort of problem!
What company did you work?
Maybe I can switch to your company, my boss work is only tracking minutes for every employee, I have to put 3 minutes timer on my phone, Tu run 🏃♀️ to the bathroom to go for #1 plus change the time clock ⏰ from working out to go to the bathroom and before 5 minutes I have to change the clock from Bathroom to back to work to show her that I’m able to answer phone calls .
@@angelicamedlinkark7545 it's pathetic!
@@angelicamedlinkark7545 Wow I'm so sorry that you have to do that.
Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.
Good points how do I tell teams I spent 2 hours last night in bed thinking through a problem that I can now implement easily this morning ? Or that I went out for a walk to think about something I was stuck on, or decided to review some information somewhere else like watching it on my tv , when there are real problems to solve time spent actively using a machine is not necessarily a full indication of effort applied to a solution , if you have a job that is just answer the phone then maybe this sort of metric makes sense, if you want to make your employees lives a total misery that is 😂
If you are boss and you have to track your team at this level then YOU got an engagement issue, not your team, YOU! On the other hand, a LEADER puts their people first, they build them, the leader seldom seeks praise. Leadership is a LIFETIME quest. If you think taking a few classes makes you leader or 10 years having a team qualifies you then YOU ARE A BOSS!
"engagement issues"🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 they need a role model
Where does Joe Biden and the FBI fit into this 😄😄
Yikes ….something I’m dealing with as a supervisor
@@TheUniquename002 go away troll wtf does any of this have to do with politics???!!
Ffs, now I know why all the useless people in the office love meetings. It makes them seem to be productive instead of the dead weight they truly are.
SO TRUE!
Thats the whole goal of some people, be in as many meetings as possible.
Yup. Most of the useless meetings are conducted by management to justify their existence in the workplace. Those meetings can be an email most of the time.
Absolutely
🤣😂
"Being in a meeting/call" is not equal to being productive.
Teams meetings are usually the time I can sit back and do nothing for the next hour
Meeting to setup s hedupe for the next meeting😁. Too much meeting means no productivity.
Yeah pretty much the opposite
Well thanks boss.
😂 True
I work with a big company and when they need to let people go, they use all this to find people lacking... Then they cry because we dont got enough people to push the work but are quick to cut you off.... crazy.. Thanks for the Vid, really helps to know how all this works.
Just assume that you are always being tracked by something. Do your job well, and if they don't like the way you do it, go somewhere else. If you have skills and are truly productive, you will always be valuable somewhere that values real results.
No. That's bad advice. That's the same type of erroneous thinking that tells women "don't wear anything even slightly 'provocative' and try not to look into the eyes of other male employees so they don't misjudge you as showing an interest in them ...and you should be fine." This is the exact same type of mentality that says "let private companies and the government track everything about me, I've got nothing to hide". Personal freedoms and privacy has been hard fought for in this country. Companies have been notorious over the past couple hundred years for abusing their employees until laws were enacted to stop them from doing it. This micro-tracking of employees every muscle-twitch will only get worse until the US and EU finally enact employee privacy laws that prevent this sort of abusive and invasive tracking and using the useless garbage metrics to judge an employees so-called "productivity."
Stick your head in the sand at your own peril. When you finally pull your head out, you may realize your mistake. For the rest of us, we are right to push back on such meaningless tracking and contact legislators to do something about it before its too late. Companies like Microsoft are profiting off of this sort of stuff to sell their products and creating a police-state corporate environment in the process. Just look at what Facebook did to politics around the world. Nothing but division, hate, and endless rabbit holes of disinformation pushed to people's feed by paying bad political actors.
Yes, reaching 100% completion of a task is important, however relying on that will not show for example, 80% was done by 1 person, and 20% was done by another, where the 20% person could have been doing something else in addition. Productivity analysis can also show that a team may be too busy through factual data, which is usefull for planning resource for furture projects. For example a low 'emails sent' number can be used to say the user is to busy to reply to emails or more emails can be recieved. Its not just about 'spying or 'micromangemnet', many large organisations have self built productivity analysis already in place to ensure work can be done but also ensure an employee is not overloaded with work.
I was merely pondering retirement, but you have convinced me.
Concur. Ridiculous info for control freak bosses.
🤣😂
Yes indeed retirement is the goal!
THIS ISNT THE HALF OF IT .. there are invisible applications that can be used to remote into your screen and monitor you in real time. Back Office IT can see everything you do site you visit and even track every keystroke. BEST ADVISE USE YOUR WORK LAPTOO 4 WORK.... NOT SHOPPING NADA it's their equipment not yours they are protecting themselves as well as their client so to them it's totally justified.
In most countries, this type of tracking is not allowed by law. Anyway, someone not working won't be able to meet deadlines
if a manager has that much time to track me on team who then is the dead weight ??? 😅
I agree, good point.
Exactly, :)
No real manager cares about these pointless KPIs like number of meetings or messages. They only care about your project delivery quality and time frame which are actively tracked using other tools like jira/confluence etc.
you are the one who is thinking its made to catch you. how about if i say its about developing backend and automisation processes to safe the company and managers time? yes, it also gives overview because data is important. iv never seen the leader im around with, even thinking about what you accuse and i suck at the job and only drink their coffee. im the intern developer of a company and today i had a call with my wife for 2 hours, if some manager will mention it, im gonna rage like a child and fire myself immediatly.
Facts
The more monitoring, the less effect the employee become. Now they can no longer be themselves without having a feeling of who is watching you. Human work more effectively when they are giving the freedom of flexibility.
Thank you.. You took UA-cam to a higher level this way by dedicating your channel to important issues in our daily MS OFFICE work
These reports are not used by Bosses but by IT admins to check whether they are utilising all licences for users and if they need to increase or optimize capacity. It saves money
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Though these might have been created for IT to maintain and check the capacity and usage of various software applications, the flip side of it is exactly what was presented in this video, that management will be micromanaging their remote staff.
Lack of activity in Teams doesn't equal lack of work. Most of my workload is done using Visual Studio & MSSQL. I don't use "apps" or plugins in Teams and the apps I mainly use are outside of Teams scope.
can't Teams track other apps that are not related to Microsoft? I saw it tracks Office 365... but, since Teams is 100% related with Windows, can't it track the time in other apps such as IntelliJ, Visual Studio, Chrome, etc?
@@alexradu1921 no
@@alexradu1921 no.. that would be 100% a breach of privacy and illegal.
Just remember things like this are used on work computers. If you are using your personal computer at home for work they cannot track what you are doing.
So no porn.exe won’t show up
@@5punkybob oh thank god haha
@@5punkybob breach of privacy and illegal doesn’t seem to be much of a roadblock for tech companies to be honest. They are constantly paying tens to hundreds of millions in fines for illegal activity, it’s basically cost of doing business at this point
It is important to remember that anything you access owned or connected by your employer is their property and data. Therefore company email, databases, and all company connected accounts should be seen as a monitoring tool. Do nothing on them except work.
👍
Now I know this !!!
Still doesn't give them the right to your I.P. address.
Who doesn’t know this
Yep they can and will use it against you if they want to get rid of you.
This is most effective at demoralising your team and making your best people quit and go somewhere else. As long as my people get assigned tasks done according to schedule, I see zero need to micromanage their time. I got way too much to do beside this level of silliness, which could actually be a fun real life reverse uno card you can play on any managers stupid enough to try to call people out on this - if they have time to mess about with this basic and frankly minimal value/insight added reports, they are not making good use of their own time or haven’t got enough proper work themselves. Upwards delegate them some of your work. ;)
Thank you Leila, I always love to understand what the other side looks like - in this case the admins tec view. It helps understanding what's possible and what not, how to name things and get clues on why IT is doing this or that (not). I appreciate seeing more of these perspectives!
Since this video is over 2 years old, you can be that Microsoft Team has definitely put in more 'FEATURES', so that your boss can be watching and tracking YOU!!
A good manager doesn’t need this. You should know what your team is working on and how long it takes.
Very true!
A good IT manager does need this, but not by itself.....the Analytics from MS provide alot of useful information about license usage, network utilization, quality and performance of the office suite. Its just another tool which can be used in the wrong way, but we are in this every day , particularly while we are still in lockdown and have more than half our workforce working from home, it can help us manage out private network and infrastructure much better
Your organization can track more than that. Using compliance center in o365, they can also track chats you sent using teams. For some organizations, they use it to prove bullying cases and trash talking in the workplace. Basically, your organization can track everything you do in teams. Some have their uses for it other than micro managing.
I'd love to see those mofos in the company that i'm working in showing all the shit i chat about my department to my friend, bullcrap!
What about audio and video calls? Are they saved for retrieval? Somebody keeps turning our Teams chat video on remotely so now we all have black tape on the company iPhone and disable the mic in settings. Shut all the way down and leave in another room when not in use and NEVER travel away from the US with it due to GPS inside.
You are soooooo right. My last manager used it on me, she would drop hints in the meeting on what I discussed among my teammates. Plus, she was having conversations with them to let them in on things I've said and I would get hints from them as well. These systems they are implementing for remote work is dangerous (REMOTE BULLYING), especially if the manager may not like an employee and disclose personal issues to their colleague.
needless to say don’t organize your workplace over office/teams then!
My last employer made it mandatory to communicate to all team members and management through Teams. Every day. All day long. For a 24 hour organization. So I logged out and told them anything that happened on Teams that was important could be emailed to me or told to me directly; otherwise I’m going to assume it isn’t urgent or important, and I’m not going to have my phone going off about work all day long when I’m at home. And I’m not going to log in so they can use everything that’s said against me. Which is what they did.
Who else is here to see if your active status is tracked?
@JTTechie have you heard of Mouse Jiggler?
Word and spacebar.
If your at home put a corner of a square ceramic coaster on the spacebar in a empty word doc while your at break or lunches. No need to login after timeouts.
@@kelb678 yea but then the company can see that you are entering a constant stream of spacebar inputs...
@@traianpopescu3684 oh ya. I have a few of them posted on my channel along with a troubleshooting guide. You use them?
What a lot of people miss is, this isn’t necessarily used for employee tracking. Data usage helps the company figure out what’s useful and what isn’t. Are team members communicating? These are data to help identify root causes. It’s not all for micromanaging.
There are plenty of other ways for doing that. Healthy orgs already have processes in place for those kind of things. If you are just starting and you want to embrace the M$ ecosystem, then okay, but if an org is already established they probably have processes already in place. If it's a healthy org. If the org is not healthy, then Teams isn't going to be the panacea to make it so.
The level of detail here is fantastic-very valuable!
So when does the manager work?
Who manages the manager?
@@boomerangfish3558 Their own ego.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hhahaha
😂🤣🤣🤷🏼♀️
“They” know everything!!!!!
Our:
-conversation!
-Movement
-Financial status
-And so on!
The more we move forward with technologies, the more we are sinking ourselves into black whole!!!
I was once asked by my boss about my whereabouts one afternoon when Teams "lost track" of me (his words). So glad I don't work at that company any more.
It was classy of you to not say, “I was with your mother.”
@@JoeOvercoat he definitely should of
Had a boss who would reach out to me in Teams and at times would ask me to do things that were either unethical or borderline illegal, and I always knew when she was making a shady demand because she’d strangely not address me by my name during those conversations. Also had her conversations set to purge at an unusually quick cycle, something like 24 or 48 hours - apparently to cover her tracks. So yeah, a boss can use it to micromanage, but also utilize it in a way to minimize culpability for unethical activity.
For chats like this, I cut and pasted the conversation into a Word document.
@@cuivre2004 Oh yeah, I take screen shots with unusual stuff like this. If there were ever a lawsuit or some other repercussions, I’m not taking the fall for it.
Didn't know you could do that with chat
I always delete Teams when I install the Microsoft suite. This video tells me what I am missing out on. The presentation itself is excellent! Very informative. I will continue watching Leila's videos! I will keep deleting Teams...
All we need from microsoft now is a heart monitoring tool, loggingng our bpm data while at work. 😂😆🤫
😁
Well Apple Watch already has that. I suppose if you have your phone networked to your work, it is conceivable that could be tracked.
Rightly said. It's getting nightmare. There is no room for personal life.
Yh i actually died but they pull me back from my grave saying you've been dead too long we have a report
@@LeilaGharani 9999
I’m in IT Support. I find this interesting, although I wouldn’t be needing to use really any of them, and you’d hope nobody would find it necessary to check activity, unless there’s some really big productivity issues.
I worked for a small company in IT and our office manager did just this. Tracked everyone and watched everyone at work like a hawk. The day I left was the best thing for my personal health in my life by far.
@@devioxTV tell me about it bro they treat people like slaves... Mine previous boss used to stare at everybody's computer screen while working...
I used to work with a Boss who would manually enter everyone's arrival and leave times in a excel sheet to black mail them. This seems like a much easier way to do that xD
All Indian Managers do that 🙏
This boss is ineffective and malicious because of micromanagement
You can spend many hours doing nothing, or a few hours being very productive.
How managers can still not understand that ?
yeah wow, adding teams to malware tracker, thanks for heads up !
After watching this video, I would advise everyone to work for themselves. That way you are not being monitored on your time and how much work you have done.to the companies satisfaction.
What's not covered in the video is that it depends what kind of office 365 license has the company purchased for users. E5+Security has the most advanced functionalities per user activity and will become more and more complex with time. When you have a product that's integrating with so many applications and is accessible everywhere it is only normal to have the ability to at least track what is going on in your organisation. Microsoft knows how to hook tight their clients...
Do companies have the capability to record personal teams call without your knowledge?
Interesting to see the monitoring aspect.
My boss wouldn’t have time to monitor Teams usage. As a line manager I didn’t have access to these reports. We would leave this type of service monitoring task to IT, but we wouldn’t want to read any reports.
Teams and email usage has the same value as lines of code as a productivity metric.
This makes me sad not because there are grown ups tracking other grown ups. But rather we have come to a point in this world where someone feels the need to do this.
Assign a task and timeline and help people to meet it. Technology is not invented to make people digital slaves. The more I use the technology more I am convinced that it is being used to do that.
Please be a manager and not the boss. Success of your team is your success as a manager. Support your direct reports to do better at work. Don’t spy or judge them. I believe that everyone wants to get their stuff done and there is life beyond work. Respect that. Treat people the way you like to be treated.
Take care. And be responsible and respectful.
This is predicated on indivduals using teams and integrated apps within. There's many activities and tasks which sit outside of the teams ecosystem - including Outlook integration.
Very interesting, but definitely overkill!
As as the others have already mentioned, if the work gets done on time & at a high quality who cares what applications their employees are using.
I was promoted to a manager in training at a large corporation .... Let me tell you, common sense is looked down upon.
It was encouraged to use fear to try and squeeze more work out of employees.... Ever notice at a job where they micromanage and constantly jump your case, but no one is ever fired? It's because fear is used as a strategy. Even if you are a good worker who does everything right, you will still be micromanaged.
Company metrics.... This is the biggest tool we used to micromanage you and make you think you were always on the edge of being fired. It was also a wonderful tool to deny you a raise. If employees started meeting the metrics, we changed them. We would also manipulate a few employees numbers and use them as a tool. We would tell others to strive to be like them. Hey, they are meeting their numbers, why aren't you???
I hated the job. It wasn't really managing anything. It was a position to instill fear into others.
sadly, this sounds a lot like the place im working at rn.
Thx for the honesty. Seems like changing jobs may not be the answer then if every company is doing this. Sad
@@SandsV It's not every company, but more and more companies are moving to this.
My advice, if you work for a company that uses these tactics, get out of there as soon as you can. It will burn you out and affect your home life.
The company I am with is starting to shift to this strategy, then they back off. It feels like they are testing the strategy.
@@michaelh5055 thanks Michael H, it has unfortunately gotten worse over the last 10 years. I am starting to shake myself and prepare for a move. I am coachable and a team player, i work hard and i just want to donit with dignity and a better home/work balance.
@@SandsV some tips....
Unless you are getting a raise every year or two, find a new job that pays more.
Being the go getter in the office means nothing. Most managers have no clue who you are. You are a hero to fellow coworkers, but they can't promote you or give you a raise. Also the go getter has no more security than the person who does just enough to stay under the radar.
If you want to shine in your bosses eyes, then focus on manipulating your numbers. Your bosses boss doesn't care about the quality of work. Good metrics are how each boss is judged. If you have good numbers, then he has good numbers and you are golden in his book. These silly programs companies use always has loopholes and ways you can manipulate numbers
This was a problem I saw all the time. Sally in department A is pissed and super upset she isn't getting a raise. She is saying that I was a major player in saving that account for the company, I deserve a raise.... Well, your metrics were all below company standards and per policy, we can't give you anything. We actually called you in here to notify you that you are receiving a write up for poor performance.
That was the stupid chit I had to do and deal with. Inside, I am thinking this is messed up, she is a solid performer who just saved a 100k account and I am writing her up 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️. After that, she really quit caring and stopped catering to that account which we eventually lost.
I am getting off track. But just remember, metrics are usually far more important than your actual work. And good metrics doesn't mean good work.
One word which is made up of two words : micro management 😂
one word made up of two words is called a compound word. I’ll see myself out.
Microgement
It worth mentioning that teams may not show who and what there are doing. But there are plenty of companies out there that have software that does. If your company that has more than 1000 employees they absolutely know everything your doing. From screen time, to large file transfers and software installed.
These tools aren't provided for Managers to track users, they are provided to IT (Admins) to track usage and help diagnose issues. So for example Teams activity maybe low, Exchange activity high, then maybe a training or awareness program is needed for Teams. Monitoring App might be to see if that App is still being used or could be disabled. The data can also be 'anonymised' at a tenant level. The 'Productivity Score' is to show the uptake and usage of M365 components, to see how much your business is exploiting the software in their M365 licenses.
But that's how they're being used. And it's horrible. It's what's happening more and more, whether intended or not. I've worked for more than one company that does this. And it is rotten.
Don't worry y'all, not all bosses are gonna have access to O365 admin center access unless you're in a quite small company. And this is related to MS apps. But there are big companies that install desktop tracking systems.
MY creepy boss used to even read my email . I came to know this one day when he mistakenly talked about my email in the meeting and then immediately back tracked after realizing what he had done. I acted like I didnt understand and that I am confused by the question. I left the company in 2 months after and told all my colleagues about this
This is happening to me. It seems like this could violate privacy rights of the email receivers that you are communicating with. No?
@@scherryvalentine9673 well email is company property so they are allowed to do so in certain countries like US. In Europe this is a big NO NO
@@jamescaffrey7869 Got it. But shouldn’t company clients be told that emails that are written between us could be read by admin? Or are people just supposed to know this?
@@scherryvalentine9673 well most companies have IT policy and they use smart words that dont say exactly this explicitly but they dont mention it using coy words.
@@scherryvalentine9673 Generally IT doesnt have time to sit down reading other peoples email. I have enough trouble finding time to deal with my own.
Teams is an indication of collaboration only. Microsoft need to also learn that Teams time does not equal work time, Microsoft, you are a tiny slice of what people use, you know that right?
Your manager should know that, not teams
Actually Microsoft is by far the biggest slice of things used at work...
@@justacomment1657 try Linux sometimes you will be amazed..
@@dhirajkumargupta4151 I do run Linux servers at work. And my amazement is as contained as it is for some of the ms products..
Some people use tools not in MS that helps increase efficiency
Fascinating, thanks! Have you ever done a video on Microsoft Teams Mobile App?! I would love to see that also! 🙌🏾
In the Cdn government we knew that we were always being monitored. Though it was denied! This is before teams. If any of us searched out of bounds it would be picked up by an algorithm . There was a lot of micromanaging. If you were effective you were never promoted as it would threaten a manager’s bonus. And at the same time we were expected to train our replacement. (We refused!) So my group who had the experience and the knowledge just calculated our retirement dates and left en mass.
Thank you little Justine … our PM and his regime constantly monitor Canadians
Glad I don't have people looking over my shoulder like that. This is one benefit of being a blue collar worker. Your boss can visually see your progress and does not have to be sneaky about it
Agree
This report is not really looking over anyone's shoulder. There's not a lot of info here that could be used in a performance meeting.
When I worked in office was usually always focused on work because of workloads, when I went remote it was the same, until processes changed and then found there was a lot of free time between tasks, so actually did take breaks when I wasn't really supposed to, but seriously, I'd been working that job nearly 20 years, usually around that time employees do slacken since of seniority and time at the job. I know relatives who worked in gov jobs didn't handle as tough assignments as they did in the beginning after 15 years at the same job, so makes sense.
open your favorite movie, invite your team to a team meeting/call, share the screen.
🤣
I would do that one day!
After watching this video I wasn't sure if we can do that. Microsoft could possibly add screenshots of our screeshare, if not the video itself.
@@kirraak123 u can record it as a member. true teams it's self so i would not advise it as some one might use it to rise above you and get u fired or take your position.
if you are already on the bottom sure have fun.
but wen u go up it will do more harm than it wase fun.
There are more reasons to log activities like security, compliance and licensing. When a user has been attacked by phishing for instance its good te be able to track where messages did come from. An admin is not interested in working hours or document content. He want to control the environment and want to be sure information is safe.
Sweet! I'm back to surfing the web for 4-5 hours a day starting tomorrow!
Honestly i figured teams tracked your activity but this isnt as bad as i thought. Certainly not as bad as the other leading business utilities
Even if Boss is not aware of this feature he will now learn it from your video. 😔
😂
The tools may be there but I've worked in IT for a long time and never once known bosses to view the reports to track users. Its usually IT people that have access to this
That sounds about right. After all, they are paying the person to do a job. I don't mind as long as they leave my desktop alone. I love your coffee cup. Thanks for sharing Lella.
Managers: Not worried about tracking this
Employees : Worried about being tracked.
Managers that confuse time with output should not be managers. I can do my work in 5 hours a week. You want me to take on more tasks while my colleagues take a week for a single similar task? Sure! Just increase my pay accordingly, 2x the tasks means you have to increase my pay by twice as much :)
@Augusto Jorgensen wow...
@Augusto Jorgensen I bet you get called Dwight a lot. You seem like a real joy.
@Gus BSB this is the single most "boomer" post I have ever seen lol 😆
Sorry, but using Teams is not proof of someone working or not working.
Exactly. This isn't really "tracking" anything. It shows how and how much people are using Teams. It's not a good measure of productivity. I spend 80% of my work hours in Outlook, Excel, Word, Chrome, and IE. I also use multiple devices.
It is in the Microsoft fairy tale land.
I’m on Teams all day at work - I just minimize it when not using it. I don’t know, this isn’t too revelatory to me I guess...
I’ve got two laptops and at least 3 VMs running at any time, notwithstanding ipad and phone. Lol. Teams tells u nothing.
@@BenjoC8632 yeah, I only use it, when colleagues and I have to say something to each other regarding work
According to Microsoft themselves, managers and admins don't have the ability to read messages in private groups that they are not a part of, but I have learned from experience that is not true. I recently left a company (luckily) that did exactly that. Over the course of just the last 6 weeks I was there, more than a dozen employees were reprimanded or written up for comments they made in private groups with other employees. None of the comments were actually inappropriate, most of them were however critical of managers attitudes and actions. Ironically, those employees getting written up for that just proves the point.
What about the audio and video calls?
And this, my friends, is why you use Discord.
Do not have to worry about this anymore, Retired ❤
I only use Teams to attend mandatory meetings that use this horrendous program (sound issues still not resolved). For everything else, I stay as far away from it as possible.
I prefer actually doing something productive instead of trying to get Teams to work as intended.
Agreed, it's become a nuisance and somewhat of a chat app
@@brendanbass5495 Absolutely! I hate how people use this to just drag you into whatever meeting is currently active, without even notifying you what it's about. Whenever I see the message "XYZ would like to add you to a group call" I ignore that. More often than not you're suddenly sitting next to customers, completely unprepared, making a fool of yourself and the company. No thanks, that's not how this is supposed to work.
I was recently in a co-op where a collaborator leader of mine had trouble using Teams. Decided myself it was better for us to move to Zoom for the sake of convenience.
I keep watching Leila’s tips on my phone keep the boss in the dark. Billions thanks keeping us up to date.you are our 😇
Our pleasure :)
@@LeilaGharani I’m new to your channel. Perfect timing: I’m a Google Workspaces client who’s been considering moving to Microsoft cloud stuff.
If you are in company wifi we can most likely see how much time you are spending on UA-cam regardless of the device you use.
@@justinmanship5431 stop turning my Wi-Fi on !!
Leila...This is a great site and clearly explained and easy to understand...And "YES" I could clearly see our Corporate Services Director and CEO using this. IF they could read everyone's comments, they would do that as well.
How do you know they aren't reading comments. I have a suspicion they are reading them.
Big brother is watching !
i haven't even watched the video and judging by the comments it seems the main take away is the Teams "Account Status" (appearing away if you haven't touched the keyboard / mouse in a period of time) just download an app that keeps this status "Available", unfortunately i had to do this with a prior employer as some of the "Leadership" judged your engagement based on the color of your status. I did say prior employer!
I don't use Microsoft products but you get a thumbs up for a well done video, and mostly for actually putting the popup on the screen when you pointed to where it would be :)
Tracking hours is fine for line work like a call center, it doesn’t work for most corporate jobs with complex tasks that involve many meetings, etc
Oh ok. I thought for a second that Teams actually snooped around your workstation activity.
Teams doesn’t do that - it’s a collaboration app. The security software does that.
Same! I hate the feeling of being „tracked“. It says nothing about the quality of your work.
I know they can because they have done that to me
@@ZemanTheMighty At my last IT position my manager printed out internet usage reports regarding my listening to roller coaster development commentaries while working. I had the most productivity on the team and completed the most tickets/projects. She was furious. This was not an entry level position, so to be distrusted this much and be ridiculed for listening to something while working was absurd. I put in my two weeks shortly after. Bottom line, if you run a business and people are hard working, don't track them and don't micromanage them. Most senior level employees are looking for a stable place where they feel valued, and no amount of money is worth literally being forced to twiddle your thumbs at your desk for 9 hours because you aren't allowed to do anything else with your free time when you're extremely productive. Good companies trust their employees.
@@devioxTV that's to me downright a betrayal. Extremely infantilizing too. If you're productive why do you need to be told how to work?
It's so heartwarming and nice that companies can see what their employees are doing.
Using these metrics companies can easily spot those who are doing their best to be part of the team and further company goals.
It's so great to see companies can trust their employees to get work done by monitoring everything they do.
YaY Teams!
Outlook Exchange can do lots of sneaky stuff too. So if you install company email on your personal phone BEWARE!! And you don’t give permissions when setting up.
They should include in NDAs "you can kiss your privacy bye bye when you work for our company.
good thing in our company, our bosses track the productivity or the results that we provide. this tracking function is good but this might create a feeling of uneasiness to some employees.
I work at an IT provider, managing just short of 200 companies. I have never had any company, ever request for someone to extract this data. Let alone no client would ever have access to the admin center. So I don't think we have to worry so much here.
Agreed. I have never seen a client have access to the admin window. That is more for IT use. Management would not have access.
Thank you for putting me at ease
At my company management and IT has access to all this.
Not that Ive ever heard them use it.
As long as the work is done, none of this matters really to management.
I've had my boss pull a report on me because I was the only person that worked on Saturday. It showed how long it took before I answered the phone. God forbid I had to go to the supply cabinet way in the back of the office.
This was yrs ago. I think this reflects her insecurities about herself. I asked her if she questioned my other coworker who was famous for disappearing from the office for 20 mins at a time and reappearing later with a donut or cookies, so you know he was visiting other offices. I know she didn't so she stopped asking me, and I worked my tail off on those Saturdays, too.
The analytics seems very useful when it comes to the overall company. In a longer time period you can use it to have a sense of engagement in terms of productivity. It's when it goes to the individual analytics that I'm not too fond of.
Something I've noticed with teams is that people go out of their way to show they are being productive which actually distracts them from the work they are supposed to be doing.
@@matthewreed243 Very true. Our team is actually at a point now where being online doesn't matter anymore as long as the project are done in time, but that comes from a manager that trusts their team
I programmed a VBS script to prevent Teams from setting my status to Away. Worked like a charm.
This is why a computer at work is for work. If you do personal things, use personal device and resources. If you are used to work at work, you have nothing to hide.
Remember that many people are working from home now, and they're being told to install Microsoft Teams on their home computer.
"...you have nothing to hide..."
Famous last words.
@@FahlmanCascade Using personal computer for work risks a security breach. Any company trying to save money in asets ny doing so will deserve any security incident they might have.
Anyone with a global admin account can reset your password and login to your account to see everything as you see it. 🙈 Your video should cover the audit logs, that's a lot more data on activity
I'm curious as to how it measures engagement/activity in its apps. Is it how long the application is open? When keystrokes are made? How often work is being saved?
For one 99% of users will not have access to this, even in IT. Secondly, no it doesn't track down to that depth. However, there are programs like Terramind that do this exact thing and are terrifying.
Great video Leila - what about the part where admins can see what you wrote and your chat logs? I believe admins can see all of that. But regardless on a company laptop, the company has access to everything.
I quit a company that would agressively watch every second of time. I personally watched where others would sit there once they had completed their tasks and they would cycle back and forth click through several apps to game the system. I would get done and hit UA-cam or PluralSight to learn something new I could use and get questioned about my use of time. After we started having meetings to discuss what we were going to cover in the meeting right after this one, I started my own company and resigned immediately due to "health concerns" because they were going to make me have a stroke micro managing me like this.
Agree that Planner is more practical. I am admin 365 too and I find this monitoring report rather not so realistic. Some people might be working on Adobe Photoshop for hours and it will not be counted in 365 report.
No worries, this will be solved when MS buys Adobe :P
Monitoring someone is unrealistic... Just need to check whether the work is done or not..
Thank you for speaking the truth. I spend endless hours using adobe products for my work.
I don't like this intrusive surveillance state culture that has come about since the spike in people working from home due to the pandemic.
I've seen other examples such as keystroke software that measures how many words an employee has typed in a given timeframe. And even a chair sensor that detects how long a person has been sitting at their desk for.
On one hand it can be good for employers to know the general trends, but there is a danger this data is misused. Employees shouldn't feel guilty about leaving their chairs to get a bit of exercise here and there. And some jobs require a lot of thinking, so the keystroke and clicking stats would typically be low for these kinds of people.
Humans aren't robots.
Best comment so far, 100% agree.
Agreed. I’ve always defined jobs as a spectrum between “time based” jobs and “task based” jobs. A good example of time based would be a hotel front desk. I need someone there at specific times or people can’t check in. Task based jobs depend less on specific hours and more on the completion of discrete units of production by the individual. For these, it is less about being there every minute and more about daily or weekly deadlines. Most non-customer facing office jobs are more task based. A manager should keep this spectrum in mind when tracking productivity to insure they are incentivizing the right aspects of the job. Measuring a “time based” job on tasks completed might result in ignoring those who excel at consistently “being there” for your customers each day. Measuring “task based” jobs based on work duration, clicks, tool usage, etc., will lead to incentivizing clock watching and busy work over actual productivity.
@@obits3 Some of these features would be good if a business bills by the hour to a specific client, i.e. law firm or accounting firm. But then again, I am sure those business have billing and invoice software that already tracks that. A good manager would know which "technical" metrics within MS Teams matter. Maybe they would look at trends and compare that to non-Teams output. A bad manager who uses these metrics inappropriately, will have high turnover!
Humans became robots when the assembly line was created!! 😒
Employees with standing desks would get fired pretty quickly then!! 😆
Keystroke software would be great and useful for jobs involving data entry or dictation.
Knowing general trends would be good to see IF compared to other non-Teams output.
@@obits3 Very true. I think productivity can be difficult to measure. A programmer, for instance, can spend many hours, days or weeks working on a very specific aspect of an app or software product. To the non-programming boss, it may look like they've done very little in the timeframe. All those hours debugging mixed in with frustration and perseverance will only be appreciated by the person themselves. The boss and other outsiders might deem them to be unproductive because they don't appreciate the nuances and intricacies of the process. Their focus is purely on the final product.
As an admin I can tell you no one uses this to track individuals this way. Everyone is hyper paranoid. People only use these metrics to get a broader sense of a departments workload so they can determine if you actually do need to hire more people or allocate more resources. Real managers don't have time to stalk you.
I just posted the same thing but using other words 😆
Well, my former employer said we can't do any work from home because he doesn't have any way of, basically, stalking us. Covid changed things drastically, our whole office went to working from home within 2 weeks. Local management was not happy. Magically we met our goals and got things done AND we were more efficient than at the office. Who knew. A committed team will work in just about any circumstances.
Stinks of Bog Brother! So glad I’m a sole trader self employed 😵💫🤦🏻🥷🏻
As another admin, I can echo what you just said, not once has request been raised to track productivity. Of course a lot of folks have the believe that the more meetings you hold the more “productive “ you are. *eye roll.
You obviously don't know my previous manager. Guy was a total dick
As an Administrator and a boss myself, this isn't for use by a "boss" but admin-only features hence being in/only accessible in the Admin center that bosses don't have access to. Perhaps more useful in investigating incidents or usage for other reasons related to the subscription, not for tracking/managing emplpyees' "usage" of any kind.
Great video, thanks for sharing all this info. Also, I like the mug. :)
Thanks Leila ! Great information. That is one of the reasons why we in Germany (and other European countries) have so called "works agreements". If our / your customers would dig deeper into Microsoft 365 they would find even more "tracking information" with even more details (audit log protocol)..... as an example.
Keep up your excellent work !
Love to see a video on this
I never use Microsoft Teams. I always turn it off or close it. I also never use it for meetings. I‘ll find the link for the meeting since we now work@home and open it in Chrome or Firefox, which are more secure.
My supervisor is a control freak and a micromanager. When we started working from home she hated it. They just loaded this on our computers. Now I know why.
I have had several different managers in my working career, and l often find the women are major micro managers. Male managers leave you alone so long as you get the job done!!!
My love for you just gets stronger with every video.
Thank you Leilah, you are the Best and Deserve Hundren millions of subscribers
My manager dont care about their teams activities, he just want everything done in time. I watch youtube when he walk behind me and dont give a damn about it😂. Cz i already done everything before deadline 😂😂😂
Yeah, being an excellent performer gives you that freedom. I wish I was excellent 😩😭