The move to remote work made teams more siloed. • Anonymized collaboration trends between billions of Outlook emails and Microsoft Teams meetings reveal a clear trend. • As we shifted into lockdown, bonds with our immediate teams strengthened and we let our broader networks fall to the wayside. • We saw a similar trend in Microsoft Teams chats; conversations moved from team channels to more siloed 1:1 or small - group chats. But hybrid work may revive our networks. • Looking at countries like New Zealand, team isolation — measured by lack of communication with our distant networks — spikes when lockdowns are issued. • When lockdowns are eased, team isolation improves. Shrinking networks are endangering innovation 5 “When you lose connections, you stop innovating. It’s harder for new ideas to get in and groupthink becomes a serious possibility.” – Dr. Nancy Baym , Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft 87% Increase in people sending small group or 1:1 chats compared to a 5% decrease in people sending Teams channel chats where the whole team is included.