How has office culture changed in 2024?

Memes often represent the reality around us. The year 2024, marked by chaos, violence, uncertainty, and frenzy, has seen many people embrace a desire for lightness, which at times translates into a critical and liberating detachment from the capitalist world. This detachment takes the form of escapism, with nostalgic tones of a simpler, more spontaneous world, or alternatively, a distant and utopian one. The widespread sharing of memes mocking office culture reflects a need to escape the gray reality driven by profit, a reality many thought we began to change during the pandemic. The lockdown years brought a greater awareness among workers, who now recognize the value of workplace flexibility to achieve an optimal work-life balance.

Initiated out of necessity during COVID, smart working has now become a common practice in companies and is increasingly in demand by employees. According to Statista, 67.8% of global employees in the tech sector have worked fully or mostly remotely in recent years, followed by employees in the financial (50.6%) and insurance (48.7%) sectors. Even in Italy, the numbers are very high: according to the Politecnico di Milano Observatory, smart working continues to grow in large companies and micro-enterprises, while it shows a decline among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and in public administration. In 2024, it involved 3.5 million Italian workers, marking a 0.8% decrease compared to 2023. However, a 5% recovery is forecasted for next year. The Politecnico study from October 2024 states that «73% of workers using agile work would oppose their company's elimination of this flexibility. Specifically, 27% would seriously consider changing jobs, while 46% would strive to change their employer’s mind. To partly offset the lack of remote work opportunities, the company would need to offer greater schedule flexibility or increase salaries by at least 20%.»

Despite the success of smart working, starting from January 2024, numerous large companies worldwide — including Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple — have introduced return-to-office policies requiring at least three in-office workdays per week. In a curious paradox, Zoom — the giant that facilitated remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic — implemented its own rule requiring employees to be in the office twice a week. Meanwhile, X has maintained a strict “office-only” policy since Elon Musk’s acquisition in 2022, mandating employees to work the entire week from corporate offices.

Discussions about the workweek also involve reducing working hours. Numerous global experiments have shown that reducing the workweek from five to four days increases productivity and worker well-being. In past years, European countries like Iceland, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom launched projects on the short week, with «71% of employees reporting lower burnout levels and 39% feeling less stressed», as reported by Geopop. Meanwhile, «company revenues remained stable [...] even slightly increasing by an average of 1.4%.» In Italy, while the number of companies experimenting with new work-hour formulas grows yearly (starting with Intesa San Paolo, followed by Luxottica, Sace, and Lamborghini), there had never been a legislative change or large-scale national experiment until November 2024. At that time, a renewal agreement for the national public administration employee contract was reached, which, according to Il Post, introduced «more flexible and innovative work organization modes, [...] particularly the possibility for public employees to request a so-called “short workweek” of four days, with the same salary and weekly hours.» However, the short week also has detractors: in July 2024, Greece introduced the “long workweek,” allowing certain companies to increase to six working days per week. The right-wing government justified the decision by stating it aimed to further stimulate economic growth.

Whether it’s Elon Musk, Google, Zoom, or Greece, there is always a countertrend to improving work-life balance. Thus, memes against office life gain traction as a response to a work life that must be lived but is not desired in its current form. In the past year, «Humans saw this… and invented Excel» garnered millions of views and was translated into countless languages, along with numerous other ironic phrases about office life. These days leading up to the holidays, content about the heaviness of corporate work before Christmas and the desire to escape is trending. The success of the Chill Guy meme also fits into an escapist and somewhat indifferent perspective in a frantic world: many things, often unpleasant, happen, but «you’re just a chill guy enjoying your day».