Is excessive employee surveillance ever good for business? Microsoft Teams’ location tracking feature is a controversial update that is on its way, and it could put a strain on employer-employee relationships. According to reports, Microsoft Teams’ newly proposed office monitoring feature will be able to identify where employees are connected to the workplace Wi-Fi. By extension, it will also allow employers to determine when they are not.
The location update will allow Teams to automatically indicate and change the work location when disconnected from the office network, making it harder for employees to work away from their desks or from the workplace as a whole. While Microsoft explained that the feature was being added to improve collaboration, there are many questions about what this could mean for employee surveillance.
Microsoft Teams’ upcoming location tracking feature will now allow employers to see when employees are connected to the office Wi-Fi. (Image: Pexels)
What Does Microsoft Teams’ Location Tracking Update Mean for Organizations?
The new Microsoft Teams surveillance tool is expected to go live in December, and it is designed to allow the Teams platform to automatically detect when an employee logs into work at the office by assessing their connection to the company’s Wi-Fi system. The tech giant did not elaborate on just how precisely employers will be able to identify an employee’s location based on their Wi-Fi use, but it does suggest that employers will be able to tell if employees are connected to Teams from a different office building.
As for the reason for introducing such a feature, Microsoft’s 365 roadmap states that this should make it “easier for users to coordinate work with their coworkers and connect in person,” essentially allowing managers to find their subordinates with greater ease.
Microsoft Teams’ new location update will be turned off by default, but organizational administrators should have the power to decide when the feature should be enabled. Will employees be alerted automatically when the feature is turned on? That remains to be seen. If employers do have the freedom to turn it on and check in when they’d like, employees could be left more disgruntled and wary of their employer than before.
The Teams Location Feature Sparks Privacy Concerns
Employee privacy isn’t typically a concern within the workplace, as employers are free to employ and utilize tools to track employee behavior on the job. Just like a badge might be used to track when employees clock in and out of work, the location feature should act as a secondary tracker to see when employees are working from the office. This new feature could be very useful for organizations trying to enforce an RTO policy and bring down the frequency of trends like coffee badging or employees making deals with managers to work from home.
It is precisely this outcome that has employees fretting over Microsoft Teams’ office monitoring services. Most employees have pushed back against efforts mandating a full-time return to work. Some have openly defied orders to come back, while others have relied on silent tactics to ensure their location isn’t discovered. The new Teams location tracking feature could make it harder to pretend to be at work while employees are away quiet vacationing, turning it into a concerning bit of technology for many.
The Teams location feature has also sparked some privacy-related concerns. The app’s capability to detect employee connection to the workplace Wi-Fi raises questions about ultimately tracking the employees’ location even outside of the office. The possibility has sparked concerns regarding the oversharing of employee data with employers, and the risks of going overboard with employee surveillance tools.
Microsoft’s Copilot AI Tool Is Also Tracking Employees
Interestingly, this location tracking service isn’t the only way Microsoft is setting up its tools to snitch on employees. The company’s Copilot AI Dashboard tool in Viva Insights will allow businesses to benchmark the adoption rates of AI among employees within the company and also compare them to competitors.
With AI-based abilities slowly turning into a way to evaluate employees and assess their right to a promotion, such a tracker could work exceptionally well at pitting employees against each other to prove their ability to use Copilot. Not only does this mean more AI users for Microsoft, but it also has hypothetical business benefits for an employer that wants to level up its workforce’s AI usage.
Excessive Employee Surveillance Can Be Bad for Business
Microsoft has enforced its own RTO policy this year, bringing workers back into the office three days a week. As a result, it is no surprise that the company believes such a feature might be useful for other employers in a similar position. While there are no apparent advantages to this feature for employees, it could be used by employers to scare workers back into their office seats with the threat of supervision. Employee surveillance at work is not a new concept, and there have been many instances of such monitoring technology in use.
Unfortunately, it is easy to become overly reliant on these tools and strain workplace relationships. It can make employers overly suspicious and lock them into the habit of frequently checking in on their workers. Overuse can also make employees feel pressured and uncomfortable, leading them to resent the employer’s lack of faith in their own commitment to their work. AT&T recently decided to dial back on its attendance tracking methods, as the systems set in place were found to be inaccurate and excessive.
Let Open Communication Lead Employee Monitoring Efforts
Building up a reliable system to ensure employees work as expected is standard practice at any organization, but it is important to stay away from overly invasive policies and systems. Microsoft Teams’ location does bring up privacy concerns, which means that if put to use, employers should do so transparently, alerting workers to such tracking.
The tools and features should also be used sparingly, with employees given a chance to explain themselves rather than being fired as the first solution. Managing employees does come with many challenges, but it is important to ensure that this management is defined by honesty and transparency.
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