Brazil Ranks 4th in Global Workplace Joy Index, But 20% Report Frequent Burnout

What Edenred's Workplace Joy Index Found About Brazil

Brazil ranks fourth among 27 global locations in Edenred's Workplace Joy Index, scoring 70 out of 100 — seven points above the global average. The study, conducted by Ticket, Edenred's benefits and engagement brand, surveyed 17,450 workers and 8,920 HR leaders worldwide, including 1,500 participants in Brazil. India leads the ranking at 73, followed by Mexico and Peru at 72, with Chile (69), the United States (68) and Argentina (66) rounding out the top tier.

The index measures joy not as a fleeting emotion but as a composite of daily work experiences: energy and enthusiasm, pride in one's work, sense of purpose, connection with colleagues, recognition, burnout and frustration levels, engagement, and willingness to recommend the employer. Tatiana Romero, Edenred's HR and sustainability director, describes it as a metric that connects how people feel to how companies perform. "Joy becomes a metric that helps us understand how people are feeling and how that connects to business performance," she said.

But the headline ranking masks a more complicated picture. One in five Brazilian workers reports frequent burnout symptoms, a figure that climbs to 35% among frontline professionals and 71% among those classified in the low-joy bracket. Additionally, 19% say financial stress frequently affects their work. The data also reveals a striking trust gap: 85% of high-joy professionals trust senior management, compared with just 16% of those in the low-joy group — a 69-percentage-point difference.

Romero attributes Brazil's strong overall score to a combination of recovering purchasing power, minimum wage increases above inflation, perceived social mobility, and the strength of interpersonal relationships in Latin American work cultures. "In Latin America, we have cultures where connection between people and mutual support play a very relevant role," she said. Yet she cautions against reading the ranking as a sign that all is well: "A high score doesn't mean we don't have challenges."

Why High Joy Scores Coexist With Burnout — and What It Means for Employers

The Gap Between Joy and Burnout

Brazil's fourth-place finish sits uneasily alongside the finding that 20% of its workers report frequent burnout symptoms. The coexistence of high aggregate joy and significant burnout suggests the index captures a polarised workforce rather than a uniformly positive one. The 71% burnout rate among low-joy workers — compared with the overall 20% — indicates that distress is heavily concentrated in a specific segment, likely those with fewer benefits, weaker leadership relationships and lower perceived belonging. For employers, this means the national ranking is less actionable than the internal distribution of joy scores across their own teams.

Benefits as a Differentiator — and a Signal of Inequality

The survey found that Brazilian workers in the high-joy bracket receive more than double the benefits of those in the low-joy bracket. Nationally, 87% of Brazilian workers consider benefits as important as or more important than base salary, compared with 63% globally. Among senior executives, 75% hold this view, versus 60% of mid-level workers. This gap between executive perception and broader workforce sentiment suggests that some decision-makers may still underestimate how central benefits have become to retention. For context, Brazil's benefits landscape has expanded in recent years amid a tight labour market and rising competition for talent, though the survey does not specify which benefits are most valued.

Trust, Belonging and the Retention Equation

The data reveals that retention drivers differ sharply by joy level. Among high-joy workers, 64% stay because they enjoy the work, 54% because they feel job security and 51% because they like their colleagues. Among low-joy workers, the primary reason for staying is the difficulty of finding something better elsewhere, cited by 46%. This distinction matters: high-joy retention is driven by pull factors, while low-joy retention is driven by push factors — essentially a lack of alternatives. The trust gap reinforces this: 85% of high-joy workers trust senior management versus 16% of low-joy workers. Similarly, 94% of high-joy workers feel they belong, and 93% feel they can be authentic at work, compared with 33% and 38% respectively in the low-joy group.

What Emerging-Market Joy Leadership Suggests

The top of the ranking is dominated by emerging markets — India, Mexico, Peru, Brazil — while East Asia (Japan) records the lowest score at 47, with 54% of workers reporting low joy. Romero links this pattern to factors such as recovering purchasing power, above-inflation minimum wage increases and perceived social mobility. For context, several emerging economies have seen real wage gains in recent years, which may lift the baseline work experience even where job quality varies. However, the survey does not establish causality, and cultural factors — such as the emphasis on interpersonal connection in Latin American workplaces — may also play a role. The finding challenges the assumption that economic development alone determines workplace satisfaction.

Implications for Employers in Brazil

The survey's most practical insight is that benefits alone do not create joy. Romero notes that "benefits are important, but they don't work alone" — trust, belonging, authenticity, development and good relationships form the rest of the equation. For Brazilian employers, the data suggests that investing in leadership quality and team culture may yield returns comparable to or greater than expanding benefit packages, particularly for frontline and lower-joy segments where burnout is most acute. The finding that 94–95% of high-joy workers intend to stay for the next 12 months, and 70–73% feel more productive than a year ago, quantifies the retention and productivity upside of closing the joy gap.

What HR Leaders and Employers Should Take From the Data

The national ranking is a distraction — the actionable data is the internal joy distribution, where a 69-percentage-point trust gap separates high-joy from low-joy employees.

For HR leaders and executives at Brazilian companies, the Edenred survey offers several concrete directions:

• Audit your benefits distribution against joy scores. High-joy workers in Brazil receive more than double the benefits of low-joy workers. If your benefits are concentrated among senior or high-performing staff, the data suggests you are reinforcing the gap rather than closing it.
• Target frontline burnout specifically. With 35% of frontline professionals reporting frequent burnout — versus 20% overall — generic wellness programmes are unlikely to reach the most affected group. Consider shift-level interventions, workload reviews and direct manager training for frontline teams.
• Measure trust in leadership at the team level. The 85% vs. 16% trust gap between high-joy and low-joy workers is the single largest differential in the survey. Engagement surveys that do not segment by joy or engagement level will miss this entirely.
• Recognise that retention in low-joy teams is driven by lack of alternatives. Among low-joy workers, 46% stay because they cannot find something better. This is a flight risk that will materialise as the labour market improves — not a sign of loyalty.
• Reassess the executive–workforce perception gap on benefits. 75% of senior executives see benefits as equal to or more important than base salary, versus 60% of mid-level workers — and 87% nationally. Executives may be over-indexing on benefits relative to what actually drives joy for their broader workforce.

Metrics to watch: Edenred's next index edition for year-on-year movement in Brazil's score and burnout rate; your own internal joy or engagement score segmented by job level; and frontline turnover rates as a proxy for whether burnout interventions are working.