I concur - the cost of this conformity is that creative outliers can be crushed, and their ideas (maybe important ideas that could save the organization from some dire outcome) can be lost.
I think this is an important realization - you are in a sense being paid to play a role at work, and there is a script for that role that everyone expects you to follow.
One of the benefits of having such a script is that it standardizes how to interact with people in a particular role, and reduces the friction of having to change workflow based on a specific person.
I thought the "work location" feature, where you set your work location to "office" or "remote", was pretty OK for letting people know if you are in the office. People do a similar thing with slack so you don't waste time trying to find someone in the office if they are working remotely.
(Am I the only person with wired ethernet on my desk(s)? I gave up on wi-fi during the pandemic due to terrible Zoom performance, and have kept wired ever since - lower latency, lower jitter, no interference, and faster overall.)
Maybe the new bit for Teams is aggregation and tracking. That probably isn't going to have any good effects.
Intrusive, malware-like "security" software running on user devices introduces undesirable security and privacy risks.
Moreover, universities should avoid the chilling effects of intrusive monitoring of faculty and student devices, as well as the potential legal liability.
A better solution is resource access revocation upon detection of bad behavior, with an administrative escalation path to manage false positives.
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