First, let's dig deeper into our research about joy at work. As I shared in the introduction, my firm, Kearney, has been studying the “joy gap”—the troubling discrepancy between how many people expect to feel joy from their work and how many people actually experience joy.
The joy gap is real
In 2018, we surveyed people around the world and asked: How much joy do you expect to experience at work? And how much joy do you actually experience?1 Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they expect to experience a substantial degree of joy at work. But only 37 percent report that they actually experience substantial joy at work. That leaves 53 percent of people who are coming up short on joy. They feel less joy than they'd hope.
We want joy at work. We hope for it. We expect it. But we're disappointed when work doesn't live up to our expectations. We call that disconnect between expectations and reality the “joy gap.”
Our research revealed the following findings:
The joy gap affects people of all ages: Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials. And it affects people at all levels in the organization, from entry level to the C‐suite.
People all around the world feel a joy gap. This isn't a problem that discriminates based on where you live. Work cultures around the world are ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
