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The Joy Gap at Work: Why It Matters

The “joy gap” highlights the disconnect between expected and actual workplace experience, driven by chronic stress and poor culture. Amy Leneker argues that joy is not optional but essential for performance. By prioritising connection, purpose and recognition, leaders can reduce stress, improve engagement and create more sustainable, high-performing workplaces.

This article was written by Amy Leneker and published in SmartBrief.

After landing what I thought was my “C-suite dream job,” I expected to finally feel successful. Instead, I mostly felt stressed.

There were moments of pride, joy and fun sprinkled in — but they were the exception, not the rule. Most days, stress was running the show, and success and joy felt like moving targets I couldn’t quite reach.

There was a significant gap between how joyful I expected this dream job to feel and how joyful it actually felt. I was exhausted, overwhelmed and confused. This isn’t what success was supposed to feel like… was it?

It turns out my experience is far from unique.

In 2018, management consulting firm Kearney began researching the state of joy at work and identified what they called the joy gap. Across all generations, geographies and organizational levels, 90% of working adults reported expecting to experience a substantial degree of joy at work; however, only 37% reported this as their actual experience.

In 2026, I led a national research study on the intersection of stress and joy in the modern workplace and here’s what I learned: the gap between what we hoped work would feel like and what it actually feels like isn’t a personal failure. It’s a cultural one.

Why closing the joy gap matters

This gap matters because the costs of unhappy, chronically stressed workplaces are not abstract.

Researchers working to develop a blueprint for joy in the workplace wrote in the European Journal of Radiology that “the costs associated with an unhappy employment environment are colossal,” citing outcomes such as increased absenteeism, high turnover and reduced productivity. The same research found that positive emotional associations with work lead to higher engagement, effectiveness and work quality.

Global health authorities agree that this is not a fringe issue. In 2019, the World Health Organization officially classified burnout as an occupational phenomenon, recognizing chronic workplace stress as a serious organizational health problem rather than an individual weakness.

And decades of organizational psychology research show that psychological safety — the belief that it’s safe to speak up, ask for help and make mistakes — is a foundational driver of performance, learning and innovation. Google’s well-known Project Aristotle found that psychological safety was the single most important factor distinguishing high-performing teams.

In other words: joy is not a “nice to have.” It’s an operational advantage.

The myth that widens the joy gap

When I started looking for answers, I discovered a myth that had been sabotaging me — and I suspect it’s been sabotaging a lot of leaders too: Stress is the price we pay for success.

That myth isn’t just misguided; it’s dangerous. It fuels overwork, self-doubt and relentless pressure to do more, prove more and be more. It normalizes chronic stress and celebrates burnout like ambition’s loyal sidekick.

But here’s what I’ve learned through research, hundreds of conversations with leaders and teams and my own lived experience: Stress isn’t the price you pay for success — it’s the thief that steals it.

Chronic stress keeps people’s nervous systems in survival mode. Neuroscience shows that when the brain is focused on threat and pressure, it has less capacity for creativity, learning, connection and strategic thinking — exactly the capabilities modern organizations depend on.

Over time, stress reshapes what people come to accept as normal. Expectations shrink. Overwork becomes a badge of honor. Exhaustion becomes proof of commitment. Trust and belonging erode. People stop believing that work can be joyful at all — turning what they hoped work would be into something they merely endure.

That is how stress quietly widens the joy gap.

Where joy actually comes from

At the height of my burnout, two questions changed my life:

What are your hobbies?
What do you do for fun?

I couldn’t answer either one. I didn’t even know what “fun” was.

In an interview on NPR, Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, defines fun as a combination of three states: playfulness, connection and flow. Price’s recipe for fun includes adopting a lighthearted attitude, creating a special, shared experience with others and committing to being active, engaged and present.

This maps closely to what Kearney found in its research on workplace joy. In Joy Works: Empowering Teams in the New Era of Work, Kearney Chairman Emeritus and Partner Alex Liu argues that joy at work isn’t a luxury — it’s a leadership responsibility. “Why,” he asks, “would we settle for anything less than joy at work?”

In the book, Liu offers a practical, step-by-step blueprint for building joy using three key drivers that determine employee happiness: people, praise and purpose — the same core elements Kearney identified in its joy gap research.

In practice, that looks like:

Giving specific praise to recognize effort and impact
Connecting individual work to a meaningful organizational purpose
Nurturing social connections and encouraging lightheartedness on teams

As one Kearney survey respondent put it: “When I can help customers and make them happy, that brings me joy.”

Another described joy as emerging from shared experiences with colleagues: “When I was with my fellow colleagues, and we were doing a team exercise, we got along so well together and had so much fun we couldn’t stop laughing.”

These are not frivolous moments. They are the building blocks of engagement, belonging and sustainable performance.

Read this article in full here: The joy gap: What’s missing in the modern workplace