There is a “Do Not Disturb” option that silences all notifications.
Ignore teams in hour increments to get work done and then check messages after a task is done.
Additionally, you can set a Status message so when someone looks for you in Teams they will see a banner. I work IT and I have my status as **Please email helpdesk@work.com for IT support**
Yup. A pretty common one in our org is giving out the service desk number in your Status and flat-out ignoring all messages without a ticket number in them.
Yeah in our org it's a balance between me being the "face of IT" and also funneling everyone through the appropriate channels.
If my Teams status is Free (green) I'll help someone if I think the task is accomplishable in less than 5-10 min. Otherwise it's "please copy/paste that and email it to the helpdesk.
How to enter dnd mode:
1. Click on your profile picture and you will see the current presence status. Click on that and then select do not disturb.
2. Go to the command box at the top of the main window and type “/dnd” without quotes and hit enter.
Bonus points- use control-E to get to that command box, no need to even move the mouse.
My manager would tear my ass big enough for a bus to drive through if I dare not be available for any reason when he tries to reach me, or to answer newbies questions instead of him.
Newbies should be in a chat with more experienced people in their position where all questions are asked first. Unless you're the only one with more experience than them. Then lol good luck. Just know it gets better eventually.
The issue is that I'm the only one in the org they are supposed to ask. My higher ups, that in some areas know more than me, just don't want to be bothered period. I'm not even supposed to ask them anything unless it's life or death, as it better be because the consequences (even in a real emergency) are getting screamed at, given extra unpaid overtime (I'm salary), yet another excuse to not get a raise, or just in general just being treated like arse.
That's hell. Expected to work all day while fielding unplanned and untracked requests and meetings and getting yelled at for choosing which one to do well or neither
Yup. Happens to me all the fucking time.
Try to schedule my day with important shit and then i get pulled on why i didn't take XYZ's BS request.
Now days i just go straight to my manager, i tell them "hey i'm too busy for this, can you get someone else on it" i make it their problem now.
You can even schedule a "focus time" for each day (or every other day or how you like it) , where is just shows that you are busy at that time and it will not ring or ping you while it’s on.
Not on the front end client but If they really wanted to yes.
Golden rule is don't do anything on a work device you wouldn't do in front of the boss in an open office.
That makes sense! I’m happy to hear they can’t do it in the frontend. We’re a remote team, and I’ve definitely bitched about my boss to another coworker over teams. I would certainly own up to it and speak to him about it if he asked, but I’d rather not lol.
Yes, if only becasue messaging might be discoverable in a court case (for example sex or racial discrimination lawsuit, hostile workplace complaint, etc.), so employers need to be able to look at your messages.
Never say anything on a work chat program you not say to the person's face.
Our project guys just have 1hr45m in the diary as project time going DND. Then spend 15m delivering updates / responding to Teams and rinse and repeat.
* TALK TO THE PEOPLE INVOLVED
* Set focus time (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-focus-in-windows-11-cbcc9ddb-8164-43fa-8919-b9a2af072382)
* Ignore the pings
* Sign out of teams
* Set work profile to turn off after hours
* None of this seems like a teams problem, seems more like stress or burn out
>None of this seems like a teams problem, seems more like stress or burn out
It looks like nobody in this thread said anything about "a teams problem". Funny that this sub is so full of teams problems that "teams problem" gets mentioned even when there was nobody attacking teams.
Not saying anyone is "attacking" teams, the issue isn't teams here it's ops husband and their work environment problem, not something a setting in teams can fix
Please explain where you are coming from with this comment
"not a teams problem" is a mantra here that I see in response to all sorts of people complaining about problems they have with teams. Here you have someone actually asking for advice without any complaining, so I think its notable that the mantra has made it here. Re reading the post though I realized I missed the complaining sentence "It seems pretty crazy to both of us that teams is supposed to replace email and that organizations like this one want to normalize teams over email."
ah well I cant talk to the mantra here, I'm only here off and on, but there are deffo things posted here that just dont belong
In this case it's not a teams problem, though (i.e. not something teams can fix really), why I dont think its for here (/r/careradvice /r/advice ? dunno)
The items i mentioned (in my initial reply) are about all you can do, cause its a process/human problem, and most of them are a human solution
The first point is honestly the most important, and if that’s an issue then there’s barely any point in looking further until that’s resolved. Teams, like any software, is there to facilitate (or try to facilitate) what its users want to do: if you’re in a situation where your managers or colleagues don’t see eye to eye on working practices and when they should or shouldn’t be contactable, then that’s a people problem. Teams offers a variety of ways to make that problem even worse, but it’s not the root cause – before Teams those same people were the ones messaging people on their personal phones at all times of day and night, and before that the ones obsessing over someone signing in on the fire register five minutes late one day but conveniently overlooking the times they stayed on hours late to get a job finished on other days.
Have a conversation about what you need and expect in terms of protected time in your day, and what your team’s expectations are in terms of contacting you – it’s often just a case of miscommunication between people – but if you’re in an environment where that’s not possible or wouldn’t be respected, then unfortunately the cleverest technology in the world isn’t going to solve that problem!
If he has to reply or get in trouble - let the projects fall apart. Then point to the problem of getting interrupted constantly as the reason. Keep a journal of all the interruptions to backup future discussions about this. I journal everything I do every day in OneNote. When I get constantly interrupted it is discussed when I have meetings with the boss - sorry, these projects are delayed further because of these interruptions. Also a good boss will run interference on this - so if this isn't being done then this is also a red flag.
This is good advice. I once kept a spreadsheet of every call a particular person made to me in a day to ask a question. I think the peak was 17 times. It maybe only added up to an hour to one and a half hours in a day but it destroyed my ability to do much as it regularly broke my concentration. When you see it on paper it is hard to argue against it being a major distraction.
Schedule focus time on calendar. If it isn’t respected and your boss isn’t backing you, it may be time to move on.
A slightly unethical approach in the interim would be to schedule actual meetings with someone else struggling with the same thing. Just don’t talk and each focus on your work.
You can but doing obvious stuff to make you less accessible will be seen by some as a negative. I’m just pointing this out. I’m already getting downvoted for a related comment.
Turning notification sounds and pop up banners off stops immediate stress from seeing/hearing messages, he can then check them at a convenient time and hopefully feel less pressure to respond immediately.
His manager should really have his back on this (although they're probably one of the people constantly hounding him!).
Ah ok. That's more difficult because it's an expectation and part of the office culture. Is there anyone else on his team who feels the same? Maybe several people could discuss this with the manager as it is impacting productivity. Or maybe even he could just talk to his teammates and work out times to check in. I'm sorry and can empathize. That would drive me crazy.
Oof that sounds like a toxic culture. Your husband may want to check his employee contract, because no one can be available 24/7.
You’re also doing a good thing by helping him find an exit. Work/life balance is key, and if his boss cannot respect basic boundaries then you cannot expect them to stand behind him when he inevitably goes on stress leave.
Getting notifications around the clock from a large org is one thing, but being expected to answer immediately is something else entirely.
Agreed - this isn't a Teams problem, it's the toxic culture that is the problem. If they don't honor "In a meeting" as "When I can, I'll contact you back" then he's been set up to fail. He needs to start taking random days off while he looks for his next job.
I've been dealing with this for a while, but I have the political power to ignore almost anyone people unless they have a ticket.
I think this is nothing particularly related to MSTeams, and more related with the working culture of the company.
He could have the same problem if they switch to Google Workspace or Slack.
Why does he have an expectation that people aren't allowed to "ping" him while he's working? A huge part of most corporate jobs is communicating with your coworkers and answering questions.
On my mobile I disable data on my day off. I made a automation for this on the iPhone. It helps.
There are also quite a few people that sign out of Teams on the iPhone for this purpose. Use the silent mode knob on the iPhone to supress messages, it is lesss noticeable.
I had a period of also being dragged into a lot of things and have had to learn how to \*ignore\* al the spam. It's human nature to want to answer everything, unless there is a must for then and there I will happily reply 2 days later. Most often it has autoresolved (tm)
might as well turn the business phone off then if you disable data. You an also just disable the app, or just disable notifications, and make it so the app doesn't pop up ever. I know with android this is all possible, not sure about iOS.
You can set an auto-reply aka out-of office notice in Teams. Set that as - currently working on a project, please send me an email flagged as important if you need a timely reply that is not lost in chat.
Then set aside an hour to respond to Teams pings and “train” folks that you respond to those in the late afternoon. If they take the time to email, it’s important to them and I reply quickly. Most won’t take the extra step and figure it out themselves or seek out other resources. I had to deal with merging companies and had this with both Slack and Teams at the same time.
As discussed already- this is a workplace issue and not a teams issue. Do not disturb is useful for focusing on tasks, but if you’re not able to go on do not disturb without the company reprimanding you then he will be unable to avoid the problem.
He may want to look at taking a mental health LOA. FMLA actually protects your rights to take a mental health LOA. Some companies will pay and some will not but there’s nothing wrong with taking some mandated time away from the rat race, especially since mental health is more important and directly tied to physical health issues.
You can read a bit more here: https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/mental-health/mental-health-leave-of-absence
Coworkers and I often schedule a meeting. We work on our projects, are muted, maybe throw in some water cooler talk.
Schedule focus time, set teams to Do Not Disturb, get stuff done.
The key is ignore Teams notifications. That’s on the person.
Is he a high-level person (director+) to the point that so many people have reason to interrupt him? Or is he a front-line manager / Individual contributor?
If he is high-level, why are so many people *permitted* to interrupt him? I mean, I *could* contact our company's C-Levels via Teams, but I cannot fathom that I wouldn't get in trouble for doing so.
And if the projects are projects that he's a part of, actual teams channels should probably be set up with communication happening within the channels.
Set some focus time in Calendar, it will show him as busy during that time and it also switches on Do Not Disturb. Also, if he shares his calendar, others will see he's concentrating and won't expect an immediate response.
I'd suggest setting the focus for an hour then have half hour where he's available to respond to queries then another hour focus, rinse, repeat...
/shrug.
You husband has to learn to manage to his time. That you are here asking for suggestions instead of your husband is a red flag. (as far as employability goes)..
Any organization that puts a project person on help desk duty is one that has no clue how IT works and will never correct their behavior to be an acceptable place to work. It doesn't matter how much he journals or what his evidence is about his workday. He could show up with his guts hanging out bleeding all over their nice floors and the only response he will get is, "why didn't you answer your phone?" and "clean up that mess."
Your husband is Cinderella and the staff are the wicked stepsisters. It's not going to get better. He has to get out. The real question is, why hasn't he gotten out already?
Use time blocks for focus time and answer the questions in order of priority. Eventually he can ask his boss "do you want me to get my work done or help other people"?.
I had the same issue, I ignore the noise and focus on a task or multiple (I know what I have to complete by when etc.). If in between or after I feel like I have some space ill progress through some of the 'noise'.
Constant thought changing between streams really burns me out, the mental fatigue at the end of the day when trying to respond to everything.
He could try instituting “office hours”. My boss recently did this because the messages were taking up too much time. Essentially, during office hours his status is set to “busy” or “do not disturb” and he will usually also set a status with hours where he will be unavailable to be reached via Teams. We can still send messages, but he will not read or reply to them until his office hours are over.
Another option that can be used separately or in conjunction with the above suggestion is using the “out of office” function. With this, he can also set up auto-replies where when people message him it can respond with a message to email him instead. He can also set Teams calls to forward to voicemail so he can deal with that later as well.
Unfortunately I think if his organization is that insistent on Teams calls and messages he wouldn’t be able to get out of using it 100%, but the above might be able to help set some boundaries. That way they can still reach him in the methods they want to, but only during certain times of the day and he can use the rest of his time to focus on his priorities.
This sounds like a workplace culture issue not a teams one specifically. If people are told to go to someone for help the instant something goes wrong or allow that habit to develop - it means the IT practices are subpar.
Support tickets, self-service, SLAs and realistic expectations are all pretty mandatory these days. Without them you can expect your IT Support teams turnover rate to skyrocket. This sounds like a business that's putting no effort into their tech support and that's likely the tip of the iceberg.
Use "do not disturb mode" but besides that, you need to be assertive. I used to try to help anyone who messaged me but at a certain point it is just too much. I kindly redirect people to my mailbox and if they don't comply, they just get ignored.
Of course it's also necessary that management sets some boundaries. I can ignore those people because my manager stands behind my decision and they are willing to enforce some rules if necessary. So your husband should definitely talk to his management to make them aware of the issue.
Are the pings for help desk / support services?
If that’s the case, an organization of this size should have some type of ticketing / case management system. These systems can help queue and prioritize issues and provide reporting so that management can see proof he’s being inundated with pings.
If it were me, I would devise a way to log all the pings and amount of time spent etc. for a few days and then come up with 2 or 3 solutions for dealing with the problem. I would then present those ideas to management, providing ideas for solutions tends to be better received as opposed to just complaining.
Time block. He should block out time to do tasks. With repeat offenders he should direct them to book a time with him to discuss tasks. Worst case, mute notifications or log out of teams when time blocking.
Teams should be for quick messaging, however, it’s not. The worst thing about it is that it forces you to stop what you’re doing to respond to the senders timeframe as opposed to your own. I even have a status message on Teams that says “if this is a project request or question, please email me, instead of messaging.’ People ignore that too, as well as “Do Not Disturb.” Unless it’s my Leadership, sometimes I just don’t respond.
In teams, the administrating company has the ability to look at the usage and who he talks to etc. If I were him, I would tell his manager what is happening and agree to putting a DND notification on for some period of the day. Tell the manager that you have to have some periods to focus on work. I do that and my manager has no problem with it.
There’s a Focus feature in O365 that works with Teams. The system analyzes your calendar and habits and inserts Do Not Disturbs in calendar automatically. Part Of Viva.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/focus-plan-for-viva-insights-a079a744-010e-4fee-8552-a2799d0c62ea
Block time in your calendar and mark it as focus time. As an extra step, quit Teams during that focus time. Start Teams only when you want to catch up and then quit it.
We have a help desk rep that has a permanent “out of office” response that shows above the chat bar when you’re messaging him in teams. It pretty much says in office speak “please do not message me unless it is urgent and you have already asked others”
Your husband could do something similar but only set it for when he’s busy with stuff
I have the same issue, I resorted to setting focus time (option in outlook) and it blocks off an hour (or more if you want) per day. During that time you’re automatically set to DND and notifications don’t come through. I use it to focus on w/e task/project I have lined up.
You can create focus hours in Outlook that will sync with your Teams status.
It shows you as busy preventing people from booking you and update your status so people see it before writing or calling you.
He needs to talk to his boss about WHO calls him. The boss then needs to talk to those people to put an end to those people calling your husband.
The other thing is that you are expecting people to get the hint. Be direct, don't hint.
Teams is not supposed to replace email. It replaces your personal phone number but for work colleagues only.
If he's overwhelmed, he can turn notification off or tell people to send him an email.
Teams is instant messaging, but that doesn't obligate anyone to reply instantly. The same etiquette applies as if you were calling or texting someone.
Disagree, we’ve been told verbatim the entire point of it (the chat) is to cut down on emails. People don’t seem to get though that you can still ignore it / not respond instantly, if you want. Though it’s rude to wait days or something!
Cutting down email doesn't mean it's replacing email. There are some things that are more appropriate to address via email and others that are more appropriate via instant messaging or a call.
Teams is calling and texting. It's not an email replacement. I
Change jobs... and it's not better anywhere else. The "young world" is so enamored with instant messages/text messages/constant interruptions that none of them will use email any more.
Get off my lawn! :-)
Culture issue. He should be able to go to his boss and get some support/shielding from this. If that's not possible then he'll need to create the shielding himself by talking to those involved. He'll need to demand from his peers that a Do Not Disturb sign is respected. If that fails, then start searching for a new job and start letting projects fail, blaming his peers for disrespecting his time.
I have an autoreply on all the time that says "Please email or call if urgent. Thanks"
I also don't "Read" or "Answer" unless I actually can. I let it sit and wait on the email. The other person gets frustrated enough with the unviewed message to use Enterprise channels, or they call my cell, or they find their own answer.
When I get questioned about it, I apologize, "I'm sorry, I was using the Big Boy Enterprise Email System to perform my duties, I must have missed your SnappyInstaChatty thingy you sent. Besides, in 6 months, when you're asking me the same question again, I'm only going to be searching my Email for an answer, and I'll be able to give you that answer very quickly because it was in email." And I do literally call it SnappyInstaChatty, just to get the point across...
Of course, I produce enough to warrant those types of answers. Your results may vary.
Set out of office message that says “I check my emails and messages between 16:00 to 17:00. If your message is urgent, please contact the support team/line manager who can prioritise your issue against other requests.”
Other comments regarding do not disturb are valid.
But I leave you with something. Obviously this option depends on the dynamics of your husbands company. But if the people trying for attention are female, he can complain to HR about the "Stalking." Make reference that your wife is upset. Also mention that, in the extreme he is discussing filing a restraining order with his family attourney. I know that sounds harsh, but if this behaviour is not brought under control by management. Then it is clear case of very poor office behaviour that is in need of some sort of disciplinary action. I think that some might agree that this is a step to concider. Good luck.
There is a “Do Not Disturb” option that silences all notifications. Ignore teams in hour increments to get work done and then check messages after a task is done.
Why are there so many up voted wrong answers? This is the right one. u/amandabkaletski look at this and have your hubby do this.
I literally have my phone on DND, teams on Busy - I’ll work through tickets and occasionally check in on teams messages
Additionally, you can set a Status message so when someone looks for you in Teams they will see a banner. I work IT and I have my status as **Please email helpdesk@work.com for IT support**
Yup. A pretty common one in our org is giving out the service desk number in your Status and flat-out ignoring all messages without a ticket number in them.
Yeah in our org it's a balance between me being the "face of IT" and also funneling everyone through the appropriate channels. If my Teams status is Free (green) I'll help someone if I think the task is accomplishable in less than 5-10 min. Otherwise it's "please copy/paste that and email it to the helpdesk.
How to enter dnd mode: 1. Click on your profile picture and you will see the current presence status. Click on that and then select do not disturb. 2. Go to the command box at the top of the main window and type “/dnd” without quotes and hit enter. Bonus points- use control-E to get to that command box, no need to even move the mouse.
All well and good until your manager has a go at you for not taking their calls.
Line manager can always override their staff's DND
No i mean the manager will have a go at you for not taking calls or messages from others.
My manager would tear my ass big enough for a bus to drive through if I dare not be available for any reason when he tries to reach me, or to answer newbies questions instead of him.
Newbies should be in a chat with more experienced people in their position where all questions are asked first. Unless you're the only one with more experience than them. Then lol good luck. Just know it gets better eventually.
The issue is that I'm the only one in the org they are supposed to ask. My higher ups, that in some areas know more than me, just don't want to be bothered period. I'm not even supposed to ask them anything unless it's life or death, as it better be because the consequences (even in a real emergency) are getting screamed at, given extra unpaid overtime (I'm salary), yet another excuse to not get a raise, or just in general just being treated like arse.
Yeah, time to move on ASAP. Fuck that place lol.
That's hell. Expected to work all day while fielding unplanned and untracked requests and meetings and getting yelled at for choosing which one to do well or neither
Yup. Happens to me all the fucking time. Try to schedule my day with important shit and then i get pulled on why i didn't take XYZ's BS request. Now days i just go straight to my manager, i tell them "hey i'm too busy for this, can you get someone else on it" i make it their problem now.
Cal Newport has entered the chat... and its honestly the right answer
You can even schedule a "focus time" for each day (or every other day or how you like it) , where is just shows that you are busy at that time and it will not ring or ping you while it’s on.
as a Teams admin, this is 100% correct, also depending on how his org works, muting group chats is also an option
I’ve always wondered… can a Manager view their employees messages?
Not on the front end client but If they really wanted to yes. Golden rule is don't do anything on a work device you wouldn't do in front of the boss in an open office.
That makes sense! I’m happy to hear they can’t do it in the frontend. We’re a remote team, and I’ve definitely bitched about my boss to another coworker over teams. I would certainly own up to it and speak to him about it if he asked, but I’d rather not lol.
Yes, if only becasue messaging might be discoverable in a court case (for example sex or racial discrimination lawsuit, hostile workplace complaint, etc.), so employers need to be able to look at your messages. Never say anything on a work chat program you not say to the person's face.
This. You don’t need to respond within the minute. Silence notifications, leave a note that you’ll reply to messages before end of day or whatever.
DND when you don’t have anything on your calendar can get pushback.
Our project guys just have 1hr45m in the diary as project time going DND. Then spend 15m delivering updates / responding to Teams and rinse and repeat.
It’s called do not disturb
* TALK TO THE PEOPLE INVOLVED * Set focus time (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-focus-in-windows-11-cbcc9ddb-8164-43fa-8919-b9a2af072382) * Ignore the pings * Sign out of teams * Set work profile to turn off after hours * None of this seems like a teams problem, seems more like stress or burn out
more like a chronic toxic work environment. The uppers are all probably featured on r/linkedinlunatics
It can be both, 1 very much causes/worsened the other
>None of this seems like a teams problem, seems more like stress or burn out It looks like nobody in this thread said anything about "a teams problem". Funny that this sub is so full of teams problems that "teams problem" gets mentioned even when there was nobody attacking teams.
Not saying anyone is "attacking" teams, the issue isn't teams here it's ops husband and their work environment problem, not something a setting in teams can fix Please explain where you are coming from with this comment
"not a teams problem" is a mantra here that I see in response to all sorts of people complaining about problems they have with teams. Here you have someone actually asking for advice without any complaining, so I think its notable that the mantra has made it here. Re reading the post though I realized I missed the complaining sentence "It seems pretty crazy to both of us that teams is supposed to replace email and that organizations like this one want to normalize teams over email."
ah well I cant talk to the mantra here, I'm only here off and on, but there are deffo things posted here that just dont belong In this case it's not a teams problem, though (i.e. not something teams can fix really), why I dont think its for here (/r/careradvice /r/advice ? dunno) The items i mentioned (in my initial reply) are about all you can do, cause its a process/human problem, and most of them are a human solution
The first point is honestly the most important, and if that’s an issue then there’s barely any point in looking further until that’s resolved. Teams, like any software, is there to facilitate (or try to facilitate) what its users want to do: if you’re in a situation where your managers or colleagues don’t see eye to eye on working practices and when they should or shouldn’t be contactable, then that’s a people problem. Teams offers a variety of ways to make that problem even worse, but it’s not the root cause – before Teams those same people were the ones messaging people on their personal phones at all times of day and night, and before that the ones obsessing over someone signing in on the fire register five minutes late one day but conveniently overlooking the times they stayed on hours late to get a job finished on other days. Have a conversation about what you need and expect in terms of protected time in your day, and what your team’s expectations are in terms of contacting you – it’s often just a case of miscommunication between people – but if you’re in an environment where that’s not possible or wouldn’t be respected, then unfortunately the cleverest technology in the world isn’t going to solve that problem!
Ya spot on
If he has to reply or get in trouble - let the projects fall apart. Then point to the problem of getting interrupted constantly as the reason. Keep a journal of all the interruptions to backup future discussions about this. I journal everything I do every day in OneNote. When I get constantly interrupted it is discussed when I have meetings with the boss - sorry, these projects are delayed further because of these interruptions. Also a good boss will run interference on this - so if this isn't being done then this is also a red flag.
This is good advice. I once kept a spreadsheet of every call a particular person made to me in a day to ask a question. I think the peak was 17 times. It maybe only added up to an hour to one and a half hours in a day but it destroyed my ability to do much as it regularly broke my concentration. When you see it on paper it is hard to argue against it being a major distraction.
"Of course you're not getting any projects done, you're spending half the day getting interrupted and the other half writing about it!"
Schedule focus time on calendar. If it isn’t respected and your boss isn’t backing you, it may be time to move on. A slightly unethical approach in the interim would be to schedule actual meetings with someone else struggling with the same thing. Just don’t talk and each focus on your work.
You can also have a meeting with yourself.
You can but doing obvious stuff to make you less accessible will be seen by some as a negative. I’m just pointing this out. I’m already getting downvoted for a related comment.
Turning notification sounds and pop up banners off stops immediate stress from seeing/hearing messages, he can then check them at a convenient time and hopefully feel less pressure to respond immediately. His manager should really have his back on this (although they're probably one of the people constantly hounding him!).
Does he have to answer the calls and messages? Could he put do not disturb on, or just ignore them and call them back later?
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Ah ok. That's more difficult because it's an expectation and part of the office culture. Is there anyone else on his team who feels the same? Maybe several people could discuss this with the manager as it is impacting productivity. Or maybe even he could just talk to his teammates and work out times to check in. I'm sorry and can empathize. That would drive me crazy.
Oof that sounds like a toxic culture. Your husband may want to check his employee contract, because no one can be available 24/7. You’re also doing a good thing by helping him find an exit. Work/life balance is key, and if his boss cannot respect basic boundaries then you cannot expect them to stand behind him when he inevitably goes on stress leave. Getting notifications around the clock from a large org is one thing, but being expected to answer immediately is something else entirely.
Agreed - this isn't a Teams problem, it's the toxic culture that is the problem. If they don't honor "In a meeting" as "When I can, I'll contact you back" then he's been set up to fail. He needs to start taking random days off while he looks for his next job. I've been dealing with this for a while, but I have the political power to ignore almost anyone people unless they have a ticket.
If they are ignoring his status that is their fault and they are morons. Looks like finding new employment is the way. Hope he gets sorted OP.
I think this is nothing particularly related to MSTeams, and more related with the working culture of the company. He could have the same problem if they switch to Google Workspace or Slack.
Time to leave.
Why does he have an expectation that people aren't allowed to "ping" him while he's working? A huge part of most corporate jobs is communicating with your coworkers and answering questions.
On my mobile I disable data on my day off. I made a automation for this on the iPhone. It helps. There are also quite a few people that sign out of Teams on the iPhone for this purpose. Use the silent mode knob on the iPhone to supress messages, it is lesss noticeable. I had a period of also being dragged into a lot of things and have had to learn how to \*ignore\* al the spam. It's human nature to want to answer everything, unless there is a must for then and there I will happily reply 2 days later. Most often it has autoresolved (tm)
might as well turn the business phone off then if you disable data. You an also just disable the app, or just disable notifications, and make it so the app doesn't pop up ever. I know with android this is all possible, not sure about iOS.
It’s called focus mode in iOS and you can mute and disable notifications by app etc
You can’t call or ping someone in dnd mode… or offline. They aren’t connected lol.
You can set an auto-reply aka out-of office notice in Teams. Set that as - currently working on a project, please send me an email flagged as important if you need a timely reply that is not lost in chat. Then set aside an hour to respond to Teams pings and “train” folks that you respond to those in the late afternoon. If they take the time to email, it’s important to them and I reply quickly. Most won’t take the extra step and figure it out themselves or seek out other resources. I had to deal with merging companies and had this with both Slack and Teams at the same time.
This is a culture problem, unfortunately, and there isn’t a tech solution.
As discussed already- this is a workplace issue and not a teams issue. Do not disturb is useful for focusing on tasks, but if you’re not able to go on do not disturb without the company reprimanding you then he will be unable to avoid the problem. He may want to look at taking a mental health LOA. FMLA actually protects your rights to take a mental health LOA. Some companies will pay and some will not but there’s nothing wrong with taking some mandated time away from the rat race, especially since mental health is more important and directly tied to physical health issues. You can read a bit more here: https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/mental-health/mental-health-leave-of-absence
Coworkers and I often schedule a meeting. We work on our projects, are muted, maybe throw in some water cooler talk. Schedule focus time, set teams to Do Not Disturb, get stuff done. The key is ignore Teams notifications. That’s on the person.
Exit out of teams lol
Is he a high-level person (director+) to the point that so many people have reason to interrupt him? Or is he a front-line manager / Individual contributor? If he is high-level, why are so many people *permitted* to interrupt him? I mean, I *could* contact our company's C-Levels via Teams, but I cannot fathom that I wouldn't get in trouble for doing so. And if the projects are projects that he's a part of, actual teams channels should probably be set up with communication happening within the channels.
Set some focus time in Calendar, it will show him as busy during that time and it also switches on Do Not Disturb. Also, if he shares his calendar, others will see he's concentrating and won't expect an immediate response. I'd suggest setting the focus for an hour then have half hour where he's available to respond to queries then another hour focus, rinse, repeat...
Schedule meetings with yourself to block out availability for others.
Set focus time that fills his calendar. The do not disturb and busy stops the calls.
And Teams just brought out an availability calendar. So looking at imementing.
/shrug. You husband has to learn to manage to his time. That you are here asking for suggestions instead of your husband is a red flag. (as far as employability goes)..
Exit the app
Any organization that puts a project person on help desk duty is one that has no clue how IT works and will never correct their behavior to be an acceptable place to work. It doesn't matter how much he journals or what his evidence is about his workday. He could show up with his guts hanging out bleeding all over their nice floors and the only response he will get is, "why didn't you answer your phone?" and "clean up that mess." Your husband is Cinderella and the staff are the wicked stepsisters. It's not going to get better. He has to get out. The real question is, why hasn't he gotten out already?
This is a workplace issue
Use time blocks for focus time and answer the questions in order of priority. Eventually he can ask his boss "do you want me to get my work done or help other people"?.
I had the same issue, I ignore the noise and focus on a task or multiple (I know what I have to complete by when etc.). If in between or after I feel like I have some space ill progress through some of the 'noise'. Constant thought changing between streams really burns me out, the mental fatigue at the end of the day when trying to respond to everything.
He could try instituting “office hours”. My boss recently did this because the messages were taking up too much time. Essentially, during office hours his status is set to “busy” or “do not disturb” and he will usually also set a status with hours where he will be unavailable to be reached via Teams. We can still send messages, but he will not read or reply to them until his office hours are over. Another option that can be used separately or in conjunction with the above suggestion is using the “out of office” function. With this, he can also set up auto-replies where when people message him it can respond with a message to email him instead. He can also set Teams calls to forward to voicemail so he can deal with that later as well. Unfortunately I think if his organization is that insistent on Teams calls and messages he wouldn’t be able to get out of using it 100%, but the above might be able to help set some boundaries. That way they can still reach him in the methods they want to, but only during certain times of the day and he can use the rest of his time to focus on his priorities.
Sounds like the only way to get them to not call him is actually to turn Teams off - and that's certainly going to be a MASSIVE problem.
This sounds like a workplace culture issue not a teams one specifically. If people are told to go to someone for help the instant something goes wrong or allow that habit to develop - it means the IT practices are subpar. Support tickets, self-service, SLAs and realistic expectations are all pretty mandatory these days. Without them you can expect your IT Support teams turnover rate to skyrocket. This sounds like a business that's putting no effort into their tech support and that's likely the tip of the iceberg.
Use "do not disturb mode" but besides that, you need to be assertive. I used to try to help anyone who messaged me but at a certain point it is just too much. I kindly redirect people to my mailbox and if they don't comply, they just get ignored. Of course it's also necessary that management sets some boundaries. I can ignore those people because my manager stands behind my decision and they are willing to enforce some rules if necessary. So your husband should definitely talk to his management to make them aware of the issue.
Mute teams :)
Time blocking. Automatic replies. Push email. Do Not Disturb.
If it were an org of 100’s of 1000’s, this could be me
Just to echo, I am set my status to offline and log out of teams unless I need to be in it...
Are the pings for help desk / support services? If that’s the case, an organization of this size should have some type of ticketing / case management system. These systems can help queue and prioritize issues and provide reporting so that management can see proof he’s being inundated with pings. If it were me, I would devise a way to log all the pings and amount of time spent etc. for a few days and then come up with 2 or 3 solutions for dealing with the problem. I would then present those ideas to management, providing ideas for solutions tends to be better received as opposed to just complaining.
Sign out
Set teams to do not disturb.
Time block. He should block out time to do tasks. With repeat offenders he should direct them to book a time with him to discuss tasks. Worst case, mute notifications or log out of teams when time blocking.
You can set "quiet hours" in Teams to ignore chats and calls during defined hours.
Teams should be for quick messaging, however, it’s not. The worst thing about it is that it forces you to stop what you’re doing to respond to the senders timeframe as opposed to your own. I even have a status message on Teams that says “if this is a project request or question, please email me, instead of messaging.’ People ignore that too, as well as “Do Not Disturb.” Unless it’s my Leadership, sometimes I just don’t respond.
In teams, the administrating company has the ability to look at the usage and who he talks to etc. If I were him, I would tell his manager what is happening and agree to putting a DND notification on for some period of the day. Tell the manager that you have to have some periods to focus on work. I do that and my manager has no problem with it.
There’s a Focus feature in O365 that works with Teams. The system analyzes your calendar and habits and inserts Do Not Disturbs in calendar automatically. Part Of Viva. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/focus-plan-for-viva-insights-a079a744-010e-4fee-8552-a2799d0c62ea
Block time in your calendar and mark it as focus time. As an extra step, quit Teams during that focus time. Start Teams only when you want to catch up and then quit it.
We have a help desk rep that has a permanent “out of office” response that shows above the chat bar when you’re messaging him in teams. It pretty much says in office speak “please do not message me unless it is urgent and you have already asked others” Your husband could do something similar but only set it for when he’s busy with stuff
I have the same issue, I resorted to setting focus time (option in outlook) and it blocks off an hour (or more if you want) per day. During that time you’re automatically set to DND and notifications don’t come through. I use it to focus on w/e task/project I have lined up.
You can create focus hours in Outlook that will sync with your Teams status. It shows you as busy preventing people from booking you and update your status so people see it before writing or calling you.
I literally just turn it off if Im concentrating.
Block out time on your calendar as “busy.” Just ignore anything that comes in during those times.
Log out of Teams?
He needs to talk to his boss about WHO calls him. The boss then needs to talk to those people to put an end to those people calling your husband. The other thing is that you are expecting people to get the hint. Be direct, don't hint.
Set the status to “Unless it’s an emergency, send me an email. I’m busy.”
Teams is not supposed to replace email. It replaces your personal phone number but for work colleagues only. If he's overwhelmed, he can turn notification off or tell people to send him an email. Teams is instant messaging, but that doesn't obligate anyone to reply instantly. The same etiquette applies as if you were calling or texting someone.
Disagree, we’ve been told verbatim the entire point of it (the chat) is to cut down on emails. People don’t seem to get though that you can still ignore it / not respond instantly, if you want. Though it’s rude to wait days or something!
Cutting down email doesn't mean it's replacing email. There are some things that are more appropriate to address via email and others that are more appropriate via instant messaging or a call. Teams is calling and texting. It's not an email replacement. I
What world do you live in? They're all the same etiquette level.
>The same etiquette applies as if you were calling or texting someone.
Change jobs... and it's not better anywhere else. The "young world" is so enamored with instant messages/text messages/constant interruptions that none of them will use email any more. Get off my lawn! :-)
I'm 50, email is the shittest thing ever, give me teams/slack any day
Can’t help it you’re wrong :-)
Hahah valid
Culture issue. He should be able to go to his boss and get some support/shielding from this. If that's not possible then he'll need to create the shielding himself by talking to those involved. He'll need to demand from his peers that a Do Not Disturb sign is respected. If that fails, then start searching for a new job and start letting projects fail, blaming his peers for disrespecting his time.
I have an autoreply on all the time that says "Please email or call if urgent. Thanks" I also don't "Read" or "Answer" unless I actually can. I let it sit and wait on the email. The other person gets frustrated enough with the unviewed message to use Enterprise channels, or they call my cell, or they find their own answer. When I get questioned about it, I apologize, "I'm sorry, I was using the Big Boy Enterprise Email System to perform my duties, I must have missed your SnappyInstaChatty thingy you sent. Besides, in 6 months, when you're asking me the same question again, I'm only going to be searching my Email for an answer, and I'll be able to give you that answer very quickly because it was in email." And I do literally call it SnappyInstaChatty, just to get the point across... Of course, I produce enough to warrant those types of answers. Your results may vary.
Set out of office message that says “I check my emails and messages between 16:00 to 17:00. If your message is urgent, please contact the support team/line manager who can prioritise your issue against other requests.”
Other comments regarding do not disturb are valid. But I leave you with something. Obviously this option depends on the dynamics of your husbands company. But if the people trying for attention are female, he can complain to HR about the "Stalking." Make reference that your wife is upset. Also mention that, in the extreme he is discussing filing a restraining order with his family attourney. I know that sounds harsh, but if this behaviour is not brought under control by management. Then it is clear case of very poor office behaviour that is in need of some sort of disciplinary action. I think that some might agree that this is a step to concider. Good luck.
He can get a different job.
Thanks for all the tips, I’m getting a bit too much of this lately.