Teamwork statistics: 22 research findings, with sources
Every number comes from the original study or report, with its year and a link. No stat roundups, no unsourced claims.
These teamwork statistics come straight from the people who measured them: Google, Gallup, Microsoft, Pew Research Center and peer-reviewed journals. Below are 22 findings on what makes teams work, whether team building helps, how much time collaboration takes, and what remote work changed. Each line names its source, and the full list sits at the end.
Teamwork statistics: what makes a team effective
Two well-known studies on why some teams outperform others.
180 teams at Google (115 engineering teams and 65 sales pods) were studied to find what makes a team effective.
Google re:Work, Understand team effectiveness (Project Aristotle) (2015)#1 of 5: psychological safety ranked first among the team dynamics Google found, ahead of dependability, structure and clarity, meaning and impact.
Google re:Work, Understand team effectiveness (Project Aristotle) (2015)699 people in groups of two to five showed that a group's collective intelligence is not strongly tied to its members' average or top individual intelligence.
Science, Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups, Woolley et al. (2010)Even turns: groups scored higher when members were more socially sensitive and shared speaking time more evenly.
Science, Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups, Woolley et al. (2010)
For the habits behind these findings, see our guide to high-performing teams.
Team building statistics: does it work?
Three meta-analyses, each pooling results from many studies.
60 correlations pooled in a meta-analysis found team building had a positive, moderate effect on every type of team outcome studied.
Small Group Research, Does team building work?, Klein et al. (2009)Strongest effect: on how members feel about the team and how they work together (affective and process outcomes), in the same analysis.
Small Group Research, Does team building work?, Klein et al. (2009)2,650 teams across 93 effect sizes: team training showed moderate, positive links with every outcome type measured.
Human Factors, Does team training improve team performance? A meta-analysis, Salas et al. (2008)8,439 participants in 51 studies with control groups: teamwork interventions had medium-sized positive effects on both teamwork and team performance.
PLOS ONE, The effectiveness of teamwork training on teamwork behaviors and team performance, McEwan et al. (2017)Lectures alone: didactic training did not significantly improve teamwork, while workshops, simulations and team reviews did.
PLOS ONE, The effectiveness of teamwork training on teamwork behaviors and team performance, McEwan et al. (2017)
Workplace collaboration statistics
How much of the workday collaboration now takes, from survey and telemetry data.
50% or more: the growth in time managers and employees spent on collaborative work over two decades, by the authors' count.
Harvard Business Review, Collaborative Overload, Cross, Rebele and Grant (2016)Every 2 minutes: how often the most-pinged 20% of Microsoft 365 users are interrupted by a meeting, email or notification, on average.
Microsoft Work Trend Index, Breaking down the infinite workday (2025)153 Teams messages reach the average worker each weekday.
Microsoft Work Trend Index, Breaking down the infinite workday (2025)48% of employees, and 52% of leaders, say their work feels chaotic and fragmented.
Microsoft Work Trend Index, Breaking down the infinite workday (2025)50% of meetings fall between 9 and 11 a.m. or 1 and 3 p.m., when many people hit a natural productivity peak.
Microsoft Work Trend Index, Breaking down the infinite workday (2025)30% of meetings now span more than one time zone.
Microsoft Work Trend Index, Breaking down the infinite workday (2025)
Remote and hybrid collaboration statistics
What changed when teams stopped sharing a room.
About 25%: the drop in the share of collaboration time Microsoft employees spent with other groups after the firm-wide shift to remote work in 2020.
Nature Human Behaviour, The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers, Yang et al. (2021)49% of U.S. workers who work from home at least sometimes say their arrangement makes feeling connected with co-workers harder.
Pew Research Center, 5 Years Later: America Looks Back at the Impact of COVID-19 (2025)34% of the same workers say their arrangement has hurt their chances for mentorship; 13% say it has helped.
Pew Research Center, 5 Years Later: America Looks Back at the Impact of COVID-19 (2025)60% say their work-from-home arrangement has helped them get work done and meet deadlines; 7% say it has hurt.
Pew Research Center, 5 Years Later: America Looks Back at the Impact of COVID-19 (2025)
Connection and loneliness at work
Friendship and loneliness, from Gallup's workplace surveys.
2 in 10 U.S. employees report having a best friend at work.
Gallup, The Increasing Importance of a Best Friend at Work (2022)22% of employees worldwide felt lonely a lot of the previous day in 2025.
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report (2026)24% of fully remote and of hybrid employees felt that daily loneliness, against 18% of on-site staff whose jobs could be done remotely.
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report (2026)
Engagement levels, the manager effect and business outcomes are on our employee engagement statistics page.
What to do with these numbers
The studies point to a few habits any team can try this quarter.
- Pick formats where everyone talks. Groups that shared speaking time evenly scored higher, so favor activities built on rounds, not one loud captain.
- Practice beats lectures. In the teamwork training meta-analysis, workshops, simulations and team reviews improved teamwork; lectures alone did not.
- Mix groups on purpose. Remote work shrank cross-group collaboration, so seat people from different teams together.
- Keep it to one focused hour. With the busiest users interrupted every couple of minutes, a short block with notifications off is a gift.
- Measure your own team. A two-question pulse before and after shows whether anything changed for your people.
A hosted game is one easy way to practice the first three. A live host splits people into small teams that all play at once, and in Trivia with a Twist the host can remix teammates between rounds, so people play with someone new. See our virtual team games and virtual trivia, or the free team building games you can run yourself.
Three hosted team games, with today’s price.
Send your date and headcount and get a free quote. We reply within 24 hours.
Using these statistics in a deck or report
- Name the publisher and the year, and link the original page, not a roundup.
- Keep the population: U.S. workers, global employees and Microsoft telemetry are different groups.
- Say "associated with" for survey findings; only controlled experiments test cause and effect.
- Check for a newer edition before you present; most of these reports update yearly.
Sources
- Google re:Work, Understand team effectiveness (Project Aristotle), 2015. rework.withgoogle.com/intl/en/guides/understand-team-effectiveness
- Science, Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups, Woolley et al., 2010. doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147
- Small Group Research, Does team building work?, Klein et al., 2009. doi.org/10.1177/1046496408328821
- Human Factors, Does team training improve team performance? A meta-analysis, Salas et al., 2008. doi.org/10.1518/001872008X375009
- PLOS ONE, The effectiveness of teamwork training on teamwork behaviors and team performance, McEwan et al., 2017. journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169604
- Harvard Business Review, Collaborative Overload, Cross, Rebele and Grant, 2016. hbr.org/2016/01/collaborative-overload
- Microsoft Work Trend Index, Breaking down the infinite workday, 2025. www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/breaking-down-infinite-workday
- Nature Human Behaviour, The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers, Yang et al., 2021. www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-effects-of-remote-work-on-collaboration-among-information-workers/
- Pew Research Center, 5 Years Later: America Looks Back at the Impact of COVID-19, 2025. www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/02/12/how-covid-19-changed-u-s-workplaces/
- Gallup, The Increasing Importance of a Best Friend at Work, 2022. www.gallup.com/workplace/397058/increasing-importance-best-friend-work.aspx
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report, 2026. www.gallup.com/workplace/697904/state-of-the-global-workplace-global-data.aspx
