HR insists remote employees be "visibly active" all day, employee maliciously complies

These HR employees are taking all the fun out of working remotely. 

Remote work is the absolute best, and if you've ever done it, you also know that to be true. When you work remotely, you will get extra sleep, since you can spring out of bed 5 minutes before starting your work day. The extra several hours of sleep you get instead of commuting literally gives you an espresso-shot-type energy boost. Throughout the day, you can eat the food you already have at home, laze bed while you type emails, or listen to music out loud. 

It's heavenly… but due to the popularization of that WFH lifestyle, bosses are highly attuned to any employee who might be slacking off. 

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  • 01
    Employee works remotely on laptop while boss folds arms.
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    Employee works remotely on laptop while boss folds arms.

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • It's a bit paradoxical the way that many workplaces view their employees' productivity. If an employee works for 8 hours, monitored every minute, they might be productive, but they also might get burnt out from that. If you let them work remote and they only work for like, 5 of those hours, while doing other stuff around their house the rest of the time, they might actually get more solid work done! But the thought of this work style is maddening to bosses, and in this person's case, is displeasing to the HR team. They don't consider that you need to air out your thoughts a little bit; you need to give your brain room to think if you want to deliver positive contributions. 

    This person is frustrated by their company's new mandate, and they're far from the only person who's noticed that Teams marks you as not being visibly active if you go more than 15 minutes without typing or clicking. Their company has decided that if they catch you being inactive, you'll have to have a check-in call. 

    There's plenty of room for malicious compliance beyond what this person did, which, as commenters noted, is ill-advised…

  • 02

    HR said all remote employees must be "visibly active" on Teams during core hours. So I was.

    This happened at my last job about eighteen months ago. The company had gone hybrid after the pan mic and most of us who had been fully remote were told we could stay that way as long as we kept up with output and communication.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 03

    This is the kind of thing that new leadership can't resist

    That worked fine for about two years. Then a new HR director came in and within about six weeks sent out a policy memo saying all remote workers were required to show as "active" on Microsoft Teams between 9am and 4pm with no gaps longer than fifteen minutes or we would be flagged for a check-in call.
    via CamdenRutherford

    They truly love to make changes where none are needed, as if they've never heard the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Surely there are other areas of the company that actually need to be worked on, right? Why go about irritating the hard workers who are simply doing their duties from home? 

    This is why leadership is so important, too. Even one bad leader can quickly turn a working environment toxic, and that can lead to the best and brightest employees leaving, and so on… 

  • 04
    The memo used the phrase "visibly active" twice. No definition of what that meant beyond the Teams status indicator.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 05
    Now the thing about Teams is that your status goes idle if you haven't touched your mouse or keyboard in a few minutes.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 06
    The intended reading of the policy was obviously that we should be at our computers and working.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 07
    But that's not what it said. It said visibly active. So I downloaded a tiny free app that moves your mouse in a small circle every four minutes.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 08
    Set it running. Then I went and did my actual job, which often involved stepping away from my desk to take calls on my phone, think through problems, review printed documents, and occasionally just go make a cup of tea and let an idea develop.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 09
    I was producing the same output as always, hitting every deadline, responding to messages promptly. My Teams dot was green from 9 to 4 without a single gap.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 10
    Three months later my manager pulled me aside to say HR had flagged me as one of the most consistenly active remote employees on the team and asked if I would be willing to share what my work from home setup looked like.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 11
    I told him I follwed the policy exactly as written. He nodded slowly and I could tell he understood completley.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 12
    The mouse mover is still on my current laptop just in case.
    via CamdenRutherford
  • 13

    An iconic episode!

    Mathblasta Look folks, Homer Simpson taught us how to do this decades ago. Get a drinking bird.
    via Mathblasta
  • 14

    People had some rather urgent advice for this person

    Background-Solid8481 You should get rid of any software- based solutions. IT departments can see those and then your gig's up. Buy a physical one that is powered by a phone charger that plugs into a wall receptacle, not a USB port.
    via Background-Solid8481
  • 15

    Tell it like it is!

    bolshoich I will always find it odd that weak managers will always demand the appearance of activity, instead of relying on a metric like productivity.
    via bolshoich
  • 16
    HomeworkVisual128 This is part of why I hate how many statistics we collect these days. If you carry a relatively new smartphone and a smartwatch, you're generating 300 data points per second. From browsing style, location, health and wellness, etc. Not all those stats are USEFUL, but sure as sh, someone is gonna try to track em and gamify em. HR announced that rule to try and show a growth in productivity without understanding what actually drives productivity. Added data can be helpful, but ab
    via HomeworkVisual128
  • 17

    Whoa... this person gave a good heads up about the real-life consequences at stake

    sventful My friend lost his 6 digit income remote job because IT discovered he had one of those installed on his work computer. Instant termination.
    via sventful

    This probably falls under some kind of clause about lying to your employer, right? Or being deceptive about your working habits? Risky…

  • 18

    This might be a better option...

    nerdyplayer well done, had a friend who opened up notepad and left a flashlight onto the spacebar.
    via nerdyplayer

    I wonder if IT can tell if you're just pushing one button over and over, or if they can track your keystrokes and know if you're typing like, actual words. Someone more techy than me will have to weigh in here. 

  • 19
    Employee works remotely in front of sunny window.
    via Rodeo Project Management Software for Unsplash+

    Employee works remotely in front of sunny window.

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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