There’s a moment in every company when frustration rises fast: a colleague gets the promotion you thought was deserved, and you realize the real reason is a name, a connection, a close relationship with whoever makes the decisions. You feel overlooked, and the question keeps coming back: why do the people who work hard stay in place, while those with “the right contacts” move ahead?

Envy at work isn’t the exception — it’s the norm. A survey of over a thousand professionals found that 44% feel envious of a coworker or boss at least once a week, and a study from the University of California, San Diego found that 79% of women and 74% of men felt envious of someone at work in the past year. The biggest trigger? In 32% of cases, it’s salary — though in mid-sized companies, career advancement often stings even more.

Understanding what’s really behind who moves up in a company can help you deal with that feeling instead of being swallowed by it.

Two profiles, two different paths

Those who advance through connections often reach the top fast, skipping steps others spend years climbing. In the short term, the outcome is undeniable: the title, the salary, the visibility. But the data tells a different story over time. A study published in Sustainability (MDPI, 2022) on employees exposed to favoritism found a significant negative correlation between perceived favoritism and performance: where favoritism is high, motivation, commitment, and performance all decline — not only for those passed over, but often for the very people promoted, who find themselves in roles they aren’t truly prepared for. Trust erodes across the team, projects stall, standards drop.

Those who advance through merit walk a slower path, often with more effort and fewer shortcuts. But the numbers favor them over time. A large-scale study in the public health sector (published in American Economic Review: Insights, 2025) measured what happens when promotions become genuinely merit-based: worker productivity rose by 22%. And when career progression is perceived as meritocratic, productivity grows by 23% — while in a low-meritocracy system, the same progression causes it to drop by 27%, a clear morale effect.

What pays off in the long run

The data is clear: connections win in the short term, but lose in the long term. Organizations that promote based on relationships instead of competence see more job dissatisfaction, higher turnover, and less engagement among the people who stay — including the genuinely capable ones, who see their growth prospects shrink and start looking elsewhere. Meanwhile, global satisfaction with promotion opportunities dropped from 33% to 26% over the past year — a sign this isn’t an isolated problem, it’s widespread.

And when people stop believing that effort gets recognized, the cost is steep for companies too: according to Gallup, disengagement — “quiet quitting” — costs the global economy roughly $8.9 trillion a year in lost productivity, and worldwide, only 1 in 5 workers say they’re genuinely engaged in their job.

Those who build a career through merit end up with something that holds: real skills, credibility, trusted relationships with colleagues and collaborators. It’s capital that doesn’t vanish when the boss changes, when the company hits a rough patch, or when someone new starts evaluating results. Those who arrive through connections often discover they never built that capital — and when things get hard, when real competence and credibility are what’s needed, the gap shows.

How to stay motivated, no matter what

Knowing all this doesn’t erase today’s frustration. Watching someone move ahead without merit still hurts, and it’s fair to acknowledge that instead of pushing it down. A few things can help you stay on track.

Keep a record of your results. Don’t rely only on memory — yours or your manager’s. Track projects, numbers, positive feedback. It will matter when it’s time to make your case, and in the meantime it helps you see clearly how much you’ve built.

Don’t compare your career to someone who took a different path. Connections and merit aren’t playing on the same field, even if they look like they’re running the same race.

Invest in what no one can hand you through connections: competence, reputation, genuine relationships with the people you work with every day. These are the only things that hold steady when the context changes.

If the environment is truly toxic, ask yourself whether staying long-term is worth it. Persistence is valuable, but it shouldn’t turn into an endless sacrifice in a place that will never recognize your worth.

If you’re working with real dedication today, you’re building something with solid foundations. It doesn’t always show right away, and that can be frustrating — but the data says that, over time, it’s that capital — built on real competence — that holds up under the weight of time. Don’t let it get you down. You’re building something that lasts.