Dynamic Silos: Increased Modularity in Intra-organizational Communication Networks during the Covid-19 Pandemic
This research addresses how remote work during the pandemic altered intra-organizational communication dynamics, providing insights for future work policies, though it is incremental in building on existing network analysis methods.
The study analyzed over 360 billion emails across 4,361 organizations to examine how Covid-19 affected workplace communication networks, finding that organizations became more siloed with increased modularity in 2020 compared to 2019, while silos became less stable.
Workplace communications around the world were drastically altered by Covid-19, related work-from-home orders, and the rise of remote work. To understand these shifts, we analyzed aggregated, anonymized metadata from over 360 billion emails within 4,361 organizations worldwide. By comparing month-to-month and year-over-year metrics, we examined changes in network community structures over 24 months before and after Covid-19. We also examined shifts across multiple communication media (email, instant messages, video calls, and calendaring software) within a single global organization, and compared them to communications shifts that were driven by changes in formal organizational structure. We found that, in 2020, organizations around the world became more siloed than in 2019, evidenced by increased modularity. This shift was concurrent with decreased stability within silos. Collectively, our analyses indicate that following the onset of Covid-19, employees began to shift more dynamically between subcommunities (teams, workgroups or functional areas). At the same time, once in a subcommunity, they limited their communication to other members of that community. We term these network changes dynamic silos. We provide initial insights into the meaning and implications of dynamic silos for the future of work.