Organizations spend an average of $1,280 per employee on learning.
td.orgResearch reportUpdated 18 September 2026
Team Building Exercises Statistics: Participation, Formats & Impact
Explore team building exercise statistics on participation, remote and hybrid formats, employee perceptions, collaboration, trust, retention, and spend.
Key insights
the numbers most people quoteOrganizations allocate an average 4.4% of payroll to learning.
td.orgOrganizations spend an average of $1,207 per employee on learning.
td.org57.7 hours was the average amount of formal learning provided per employee in ATD's 2022 State of the Industry data.
- 3.7%
of payroll was the average learning expenditure reported by organizations in ATD's 2020 State of the Industry study.
$1,207 was the average direct learning expenditure per employee in ATD's 2022 report covering 2021 organizational data.
- 42%
of employees reported having a close friend at work in Gallup's workplace research.
- 98%
of remote workers surveyed by Buffer said they would like to work remotely at least some of the time for the rest of their careers.
Practice the conversation before it counts.
Try itWhat we read into it
With 27% of U.S. workers fully remote and 11% fully on site, teams need exercises that work across locations rather than assume shared space. The 62% hybrid majority and Microsoft’s finding that communication consumed 57% to 62% of work time make brief, inclusive activities a practical way to build connection without adding meeting overload.
Share of U.S. workers surveyed in Owl Labs' 2023 State of Remote Work survey, 2023
Hybrid workers
62%Fully remote workers
27%Fully onsite workers
11%
- 62%
of U.S. workers worked in a hybrid arrangement in Owl Labs' 2023 State of Remote Work survey.
- 27%
of U.S. workers worked fully remotely in Owl Labs' 2023 State of Remote Work survey.
- 11%
of U.S. workers worked fully on-site in Owl Labs' 2023 State of Remote Work survey.
- 62%
of Microsoft employees' working time was spent in meetings, calls, or chat during the first half of 2023.
- 57%
of Microsoft employees' working time was spent communicating in meetings, email, and chat during the first half of 2023.
- 8%
of employees' workday was spent creating documents and spreadsheets in Microsoft's 2023 analysis.
- 62%
of working time was spent in meetings, calls, or chat in Microsoft's analysis of work patterns during the first half of 2023.
- 57%
of working time was spent communicating in meetings, email, and chat in Microsoft's analysis of work patterns during the first half of 2023.
What we read into it
Remote work is broadly valued, with 91% rating it positively and 98% wanting it to continue, but loneliness and meeting exclusion still affect a sizable minority. Leaders should make team building routine, strengthening relationships between teams and meeting inclusion rather than relying on occasional events.
Share of Remote workers surveyed by Buffer, 2023
Remote career preference
98%Remote work sentiment
91%Remote worker loneliness
20%
- 44%
of employees globally experienced a lot of stress during the previous day in 2023.
- 20%
of remote workers said loneliness was their biggest struggle with working remotely in Buffer's 2023 survey.
- 98%
of remote workers surveyed by Buffer said they would like to work remotely at least some of the time for the rest of their careers.
- 91%
of remote workers surveyed by Buffer rated their experience with remote work as very or somewhat positive in 2023.
- 24%
of employees globally reported feeling lonely a lot of the previous day in Gallup's 2023 workplace data.
- 43%
of managers said building relationships was the greatest challenge of managing hybrid or remote employees in Microsoft's 2022 Work Trend Index.
- 50%
of employees said relationships outside their immediate work group had weakened in Microsoft's 2022 Work Trend Index.
- 20%
of employees worldwide experienced a lot of loneliness during the previous day in 2023.
What we read into it
Friendships at work correlate with engagement, company connection, and better quality of life, giving team building a clear human purpose. Organizations should design recurring exercises that build trust and invite useful feedback, then track whether belonging, innovation, and performance improve beyond the 23% global engagement baseline.
Share of Employees with a best friend at work
Workplace best friends
70%Company-connected employees
50%Workplace best-friend quality
35%
- 23%
of employees worldwide were engaged at work in 2023.
- 70%
of employees who have a best friend at work are more engaged with their jobs.
- 50%
of employees who have a best friend at work reported that they also feel a strong connection to the company they work for.
- 70%
of employees who have a best friend at work are more likely to be engaged with their jobs.
- 50%
of employees who have a best friend at work reported a strong connection with their company.
- 23%
of employees globally were engaged at work in 2023, tying the record high reached in 2022.
- 18%
of employees globally were actively disengaged at work in 2023.
- 35%
of employees with a best friend at work reported a strong positive change in their overall quality of life.
Spend
8 of 9 statisticsWhat we read into it
Across ATD’s reports, learning spend has settled around $1,200 per employee, while the payroll share rose from 3.7% in 2020 to 4.4% in 2023. That upward movement signals stronger organizational commitment to development, but it does not show that team building receives the increase or that spending produces closer workplace relationships.
$1,280 was the average direct learning expenditure per employee in organizations surveyed by the Association for Talent Development for 2022.
- 4.4%
of payroll was the average learning expenditure reported by organizations in the Association for Talent Development's 2023 State of the Industry report.
$1,207 was the average direct learning expenditure per employee reported by ATD for 2021.
57.7 hours was the average amount of formal learning provided per employee in ATD's 2022 State of the Industry data.
$1,071 was the average direct learning expenditure per employee reported in ATD's 2020 State of the Industry study.
- 3.7%
of payroll was the average learning expenditure reported by organizations in ATD's 2020 State of the Industry study.
$1,207 was the average direct learning expenditure per employee in ATD's 2022 report covering 2021 organizational data.
$1,111 was the average direct learning expenditure per employee reported by ATD for 2020.
Turn Team Building Into Practice
For your next conversation, don’t schedule another generic team-building exercise: practise the moment that determines whether distributed colleagues feel heard, aligned, and able to disagree. Open team development software and set a scenario around a real hybrid challenge—missed input in a meeting, handoff friction, or feedback across locations. Careertrainer turns a few details about your product, industry, or values into a live voice role-play, so you can start in minutes rather than build an IT project.
Then repeat the exercise before the real conversation. One AI plays the counterpart and another evaluates your goals, milestones, and anti-patterns, giving you consistent signals instead of vague impressions. Use conflict management training to rehearse the difficult turn, and check team dashboard to see who practised and where skills gaps remain. That makes team building measurable: a brief, inclusive routine for remote, hybrid, and on-site teams that strengthens collaboration and trust without adding another meeting.
Practice these numbers
- Before your next difficult team conversation or leadership rollout, give people a realistic place to practice—not another training dead end. Careertrainer.ai lets you create scenarios from your own workplace context, run live voice role-plays, and build repeatable learning paths with measurable feedback, so leaders and teams can develop practical skills in everyday work.
- Before your next team review, see where practice is happening and which skills still need attention. Careertrainer.ai combines aggregated team reporting with scenario-based scores and learning-path completion, helping you identify development gaps without turning training into individual surveillance; transcripts remain with the respective user by default.
- Before the next conflict escalates, rehearse the conversation while there is still room to choose your response. Careertrainer.ai creates realistic voice scenarios around your people and situations, lets you repeat difficult moments without real-world fallout, and provides separate, evidence-based feedback on goals and conversation skills with transcript references.
- Before launching a leadership program or addressing recurring performance issues, replace guesswork with evidence from realistic practice. Careertrainer.ai uses live voice simulations, deterministic scoring across defined goals and milestones, and aggregated team reporting to show skill development over time—while keeping the focus on training progress rather than employee surveillance.
Cite this report
Lindner, J. (2026). Team Building Exercises Statistics: Participation, Formats & Impact. Careertrainer. https://careertrainer.ai/en/reports/team-building-exercises-statistics/
Sources
last verified 18 Sept 2026- gallup.com14 stats
- buffer.com9 stats
- microsoft.com8 stats
- td.org8 stats
- owllabs.com6 stats
How we collect and check these numbers
Each figure is taken from a published source with a reachable URL. We keep the original wording, group numbers by theme, and mark one counter-intuitive finding per section. Counts and sources on this page are derived from the cited rows — they are not marketing totals.
