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Have you been avoiding your company's return-to-office edict? If you use Microsoft Teams, you may not be able to hide much longer, as a new feature will allow managers to see if their employees are in the office or not.
The feature is currently under development and was spotted by TechRadar in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from," Microsoft says. In other words, if they're not in the office, their managers could easily find out.
The feature should roll out in December on Windows and macOS. It will be disabled by default, but admins "will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in," Microsoft says.
The report arrives as more companies are requiring employees to return to the office, either permanently or as part of a hybrid model (home/office). Microsoft itself has requested employees return to the office three days a week, if they live within 50 miles of a company office.
In July, Teams got Slack-like threaded replies, which reduce clutter and let users keep all messages on one topic in a single thread. Last month, it also added Link Protection and File Protection features to warn users about potential malicious links and files appearing in chats.