Microsoft Teams Will Soon Tell Your Boss When You're Not in the Office

"The pandemic proved that a lot of us can do our jobs just fine out of the office. Nevertheless, companies continue to push for workers to return to their cubicles-whether in a hybrid arrangement, or five-days-a-week mandatory attendance. In both cases, many companies are looking for ways to hold employees accountable: Since many of our jobs can be done anywhere with an internet connection, if your boss doesn't have eyes on you, it's not always easy to tell where you're working from."

"Microsoft Teams will roll out an update in December that will have the option to report whether or not you're working from your company's office. The update notes are sparse on details, but include the following: "When users connect to their organization's [wifi], Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in.""

"The language suggests that Microsoft intends for this feature to be focused more on helping workers locate fellow employees in large office complexes, and less on snitching on employees working from home when they shouldn't be. That's fair enough: If I worked for a company with multiple buildings on campus, it'd be helpful to know where someone I needed to talk to happened to be working that day."

The pandemic demonstrated that many jobs can be done effectively outside the office. Many companies nevertheless are pushing for returns to in-person work through hybrid schedules or mandatory full-time attendance. Employers are deploying accountability measures such as badge-swipe quotas and required in-person meetings to verify presence. Microsoft Teams plans an optional feature to auto-update a user's work location when they connect to an organization's Wi-Fi; tenant administrators control deployment and users must opt in. The feature is presented as a way to help locate colleagues across large campuses, yet it can also be repurposed to monitor and enforce office attendance.

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