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Key takeaways

• Microsoft Teams may soon be able to reveal your work location.
• The app will display your building when you connect to Wi-Fi.
• The feature will be off by default, but can be enabled by admins.

With remote and hybrid work options available to many companies, determining an employee's location and whether they're working can be challenging. Now, Microsoft is adding a feature to Teams that can pinpoint someone's whereabouts based on their network connection.

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Updated on Tuesday, a Microsoft 365 Roadmap highlights a new feature for Teams designed to display your work location via Wi-Fi. When you connect to your employer's Wi-Fi network, Teams will update your location to display the building where you're working. Aimed at both Windows and Mac computers, this feature is scheduled to start rolling out in February 2026.

Who can see your location?

Microsoft didn't reveal who would be able to see your location. Presumably, anyone who uses Teams at your company may know where you are and whether or not you're currently at work or connected to Wi-Fi. Neither did the roadmap explain how this might play out for someone who connects to the company network while working from home or another remote location.

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Whatever the specifics, keeping track of an employee's location can certainly be helpful. You may want to drop by to discuss something or schedule an impromptu meeting, so you want to ensure they're in the office. However, in the wrong hands, this could also become an employee surveillance system, where managers monitor when their staff members start and leave work. This is especially true if your employer requires employees to be in the office a certain number of days or hours per week.

Before managers start applauding and employees start worrying, know that this type of location tracking isn't necessarily a done deal. The feature will be turned off by default, according to Microsoft. Administrators at a given organization will have to decide whether to turn it on and whether they will require users to opt in.

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You can already set your work location in Teams, but at this point, you have control over the feature. To do this in Teams, select your profile icon in the upper right. Next to your status, select the drop-down menu for Location and then choose your current work location from the listed buildings. You can also add an established building if it doesn't already appear. If you switch to a different location, you would then have to manually change it in Teams.

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