Meetings, deadlines, inboxes on the brink — no wonder work so often feels like a slog. But what if the antidote isn’t fewer tasks, but more joy? Far from fluff, joy at work may be the cultural caffeine shot people need to stay engaged, energized and resilient.
Picture this: It’s Tuesday afternoon, your to-do list is multiplying and the meeting you thought would end at 2:00 has spilled over to 2:37. Then someone on your team cracks a perfectly timed joke or a colleague drops a funny GIF into the chat, and suddenly the air feels lighter. That moment doesn’t change your workload, but it changes how you feel tackling it.
That’s the premise of organizational designer Bree Groff’s new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously). Groff, who has advised heavyweights like Google, Hilton and Microsoft, argues that joy shouldn’t be an afterthought at work. And in an era of perpetual burnout, her message is gaining traction.
Think of it as the corporate world’s answer to Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Only, instead of asking if your socks spark joy, Groff is asking if your job does. “I simply want to de-normalize the notion that ‘Nobody likes work and everyone is exhausted,’” she says.
Groff posits that we should “thin-slice” joy — finding it in the small, everyday moments that make work feel more like life, instead of waiting for the annual retreat or the occasional Friday happy hour.
For companies, this is more than a feel-good suggestion. It’s a culture strategy. When work is relentlessly serious, burnout isn’t far behind.
And while layoffs and economic uncertainty may give employers more leverage today, ignoring employee well-being comes at a cost. Disengagement, turnover of top performers and reputational damage don’t wait for the job market to tighten.
Joy at work is less about perks and more about building a culture that sustains performance, even in tough times.
Here are four ways organizations can start thin-slicing joy into the workday.
Encourage Micro-Moments of Play
Work is important, but it doesn’t have to be solemn. Small rituals — such as a “Friday GIF-off” in Slack, a five-minute trivia break or celebrating quirky holidays (yes, National Ice Cream for Breakfast Day is a real thing) — add levity without derailing productivity.
These micro-moments are deceptively powerful. They reset stress levels, spark creativity and remind coworkers that they’re human beings before they’re job titles.
“Play is not a break from work — it’s a way of doing work,” Groff says. “It’s how we loosen the grip of stress, so imagination and focus can step in.”
Plenty of organizations have figured this out. Google famously carved out time for “20% projects,” where employees could explore passion projects — many of which (like Gmail) became core innovations.
HubSpot introduced “Fun Fridays,” where employees share memes, games or personal wins to end the week with energy instead of exhaustion.
The LEGO Group encourages playful breaks at workstations, with bricks scattered around offices to spark creativity and promote stress relief.
When leaders give employees permission to weave play into their days, they’re making the workplace more enjoyable and unlocking better performance. A little fun isn’t fluff; it’s fuel for creativity, collaboration and resilience.
Make Personality a Strength
For decades, corporate culture has quietly equated professionalism with sameness — neatly pressed, carefully scripted and scrubbed of quirks. However, research and experience show that when people feel safe bringing their authentic selves to work, engagement skyrockets.
That doesn’t mean oversharing every personal detail. It does mean creating room for individuality to shine. Maybe it’s a bit of humor slipped into a presentation. It might be a plant-covered desk that feels more like a greenhouse than a cubicle. Perhaps it’s a quick story about a weekend hobby that sparks unexpected common ground. These small touches make the workplace feel less sterile and more human.
Authenticity is also contagious. When leaders show their own personality — whether it’s vulnerability, humor or simply admitting they don’t have all the answers — their teams follow. And that ripple effect builds trust, connection and stronger collaboration.
“Authenticity isn’t unprofessional. It’s magnetic. When we bring our quirks and humanity to work, we create cultures people actually want to be part of,” Groff says.
The truth is, people don’t rally behind perfect leaders or flawless colleagues; they rally behind real ones. A culture that values personality doesn’t just increase belonging, it creates the conditions where people can do their best work, because they don’t have to pretend to be someone else while doing it.
Redefine Meetings as Human Time
Not every meeting needs to be a soul-sucking calendar block. Adding a short check-in — a “rose and thorn” from the week, a quick gratitude round or a lighthearted icebreaker — can shift the dynamic immediately.
Those few minutes actually save time in the long run. When people feel comfortable, they contribute more openly, share bolder ideas and solve problems faster.
Groff encourages leaders to take it a step further: push aside the overly polished veneer of professionalism and model humanity in the room. Eat your lunch on a Zoom call, show up with wet hair after a workout, mention what’s happening in your life outside of work, or admit when you’re just plain tired. These small acts make leaders relatable and give everyone else permission to be real, too.
The bigger point? Don’t let “hyper professionalism” get in the way of connection. A little humanity makes space for the kind of fun that fuels brilliant and creative work.
Bake Joy Into Leadership
Joy thrives when leaders give permission for it to flourish. And no, that doesn’t mean forced fun with mandatory karaoke (seriously, let’s not). It means weaving small, authentic signals of humanity into everyday leadership.
A manager who swings by with donuts “just because,” signaling that joyful gestures don’t require special occasions. A director who shares a lighthearted joke in a tense meeting, reminding the team that humor can be a bridge, not a break in professionalism. A CEO who cheers for small wins with as much gusto as large ones, showing that progress doesn’t need to wait for perfection.
These aren’t grand gestures; they’re subtle cultural cues. They whisper, “It’s okay to breathe, laugh and enjoy our days here.”
“Work should be a source of joy, because it’s fundamentally good,” Groff says.
That quote effectively captures the larger point: leadership isn’t just a title — it’s an opportunity to embody humanity. When you live “joy permission,” others feel safe to follow suit. Because here’s a truth too many execs discount: employees don’t just follow leaders for their strategy, they follow them for their energy. And energy grounded in joy? That’s how cultures stick, teams thrive and burnout gets shown the exit.
Why It Matters
The case for joy at work is both human and practical. On a human level, employees spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else. If those hours feel monotonous or draining, it chips away at well-being and commitment over time. On a practical level, joy has a measurable impact on productivity, collaboration and retention.
- More collaborative: Teams that laugh together, trust together. Research shows that shared laughter increases feelings of safety and connection, which in turn encourages idea-sharing and problem-solving. A Gallup study found that employees who feel connected to their team are 2.3 times more likely to be engaged in their work. Tech companies like Atlassian lean into this by using humor and play in team retrospectives, which keeps collaboration fresh and candid.
- More resilient: Stress is inevitable, but the speed of recovery determines whether employees bounce back or burn out. Neuroscience research shows that laughter reduces cortisol (the stress hormone) while boosting endorphins and oxygen flow — literally helping the brain reset. During the height of the pandemic, LinkedIn introduced playful “Icebreaker of the Day” prompts in meetings, providing employees with a moment to decompress before diving into more serious work. That small ritual became a significant driver of team resilience.
- More Loyal: Engagement isn’t just tied to paychecks or promotions; it’s shaped by the daily work experience. According to Deloitte, organizations that cultivate strong cultures centered on employee well-being tend to experience higher retention and loyalty. Zappos has long embodied this philosophy with “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness” as a company core value. That intentional focus on joy attracts talent and makes them want to stay.
The bottom line? Joy isn’t a distraction from performance; it’s fuel for it. Companies that make space for fun improve morale and results. Fun isn’t the opposite of serious work; it’s the secret to sustaining it.
The Takeaway
Work will always have deadlines, challenging projects and moments of stress. But if employees walk away each day saying, “Today was fun,” they’re more likely to return tomorrow with energy instead of exhaustion.
Thin-slicing joy doesn’t require a budget line or a policy rewrite. It simply requires a shift in mindset from viewing joy as an afterthought to embracing it as a core ingredient of culture.
Because the truth is, nobody leaves a company because they laughed too much at work.