Oct 28, 2026 · Comments ↓

Stop managing the green dot: presence isn't work

A green dot shows someone is online. It can't tell you if the work is going well, or if they're overwhelmed. What managers of remote teams should watch instead.

Microsoft Teams shows a little green dot when you’re online. It’s easy to start treating it as proof that work is happening.

It isn’t. It tells you someone’s signed in. It can’t tell you whether the work is going well, whether someone’s stuck, or whether they’re quietly overwhelmed.

And that’s the one that matters most. A manager can see a green dot all day and still miss that someone is struggling.

Fiona Yensen put it plainly in a piece for Make a Difference Media this week. She trained managers to lead remote teams in the civil service, and her point is that a green dot “suggests someone is available, not whether work is progressing, cases are being resolved well or someone is overwhelmed.”

Managers say they trust people. Then they watch the dot

In 2021, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and the Work Foundation polled 1,036 of the CMI’s members, managers in office-based organisations. 95% said they trust their teams to do their work well when they work remotely.

In the same poll, one in three thought people use remote working to put in less effort. 89% said a quick reply to messages was fairly or very important. Some managers said people must “show” that they’re working.

So it’s trust, as long as you can see them. That’s what the green dot ends up measuring.

People learn to keep the dot green

When being available is what gets noticed, being available is what people give you. Answering within minutes. Staying logged in through lunch. Logging on when they’re not well, because a yellow dot gets noticed too.

Logging on unwell is presenteeism, from the kitchen table. And all of it takes time away from the actual work.

I’ve worked from home, for myself, since 2014. Nobody watches a dot for me. What keeps me working well is having control over how my days run.

A green dot can’t tell you someone’s struggling

This is the part I know best. What I teach mental health first aiders comes down to noticing, and then asking. In an office you might notice a change: someone going quiet, or skipping lunch.

When most of your contact is on a screen, there’s less to go on. The dot is green whether someone is fine or barely holding it together. Fiona describes someone whose wellbeing concerns went unnoticed for months, through one poor one-to-one after another.

So with a remote team, the noticing has to happen in the conversation. A proper one-to-one asks whether the workload is manageable and how the person is really doing, not just what they’ve ticked off. That’s where you’d hear about what people carry into work, if they choose to tell you.

Manage the work, not the availability

Agree what good looks like. Outcomes, deadlines, quality. Then trust people to get there.
Talk about progress at set times, and leave people to get on with it in between.
Ask about workload in every one-to-one. Not only what’s been done, but whether it’s too much.
If it isn’t working for one person, sort it out with that person. Don’t take flexibility away from the whole team.
Give people a real choice. Some people work better in the office, and that’s a choice too.

None of this needs a status light. It needs a manager who knows what they’ve asked for, and talks to the people doing it.

Managers need training for this, and many haven’t had it

In that 2021 poll, two thirds of the managers hadn’t had any training in managing people who work remotely. Without it, some fall back on watching instead of leading.

Training seems to make a difference. In March, the London School of Economics published a report based on a survey of 801 UK firms. 42% of firms that provide systematic training in digital technology and hybrid working reported positive productivity effects from remote work, compared with 20% of firms that made no such investment. More than half of all the firms said remote work had boosted wellbeing.

Those are what firms reported, not proof of cause. But the report’s authors say remote work “is not inherently beneficial or detrimental” to how a firm performs, and that outcomes “depend critically on how firms organise, manage and support these arrangements”. So when remote working goes wrong, look at how it’s being managed before blaming the remote part.

Training managers properly costs something. Watching dots isn’t free either: Fiona points out that constant monitoring can add to managers’ workloads. And it tells you almost nothing.

A green dot tells you someone has logged in. If that’s all you’ve got to go on, the problem isn’t remote working. It’s that nobody’s had the conversation.

If you'd like to support this blog, you can buy me a coffee.

Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi

Comments

Loading comments…

Comments appear once I've read them. I'll put up the ones that are about the post and are useful, interesting, supportive or constructive. Anything else won't go up. Your email is never shown or shared.