Shrinking networks are endangering innovation

Bumping into people in the office and grabbing lunch together may seem unrelated to the success of the organization, but they’re actually important moments where people get to know one another, build trust, discover common interests, spark ideas and conversations.

Anonymized collaboration trends between billions of Outlook emails and Microsoft Teams meetings reveal a clear trend: the shift to remote shrunk our networks. At the onset of the pandemic, the analysis shows interactions with our close networks at work increased while interactions with our distant network diminished. This suggests that as we shifted into lockdown, we clung to our immediate teams for support and let our broader network fall to the wayside. Simply put, companies became more siloed than they were pre-pandemic. And while our close networks are still stronger than they were before the pandemic, the trend shows even those close team interactions have started to diminish over time. What’s more, Teams chats reveal a similar trend. Between April 2020 and February 2021, the number of people sending chats posted in a Teams channel — designed to include the whole team — have decreased by five percent. In contrast, the number of people sending small group or one-on-one chats have increased by 87 percent. Strong workplace networks are more than just a “nice to have.” They impact two things important to the bottom line: productivity and innovation. Specifically, people who said they felt the most productive in a survey also reported strong workplace relationships and feelings of inclusion at work. And, on the contrary, respondents who reported weaker workplace relationships were less likely to report thriving at activities that lead to innovation, like thinking strategically (–9 percentage points), collaborating or brainstorming with others (–10 percentage points), and proposing new ideas (–9 percentage points).