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When the recent CrowdStrike IT outage prompted mass chaos across the globe, there was utter confusion about what it would mean for affected businesses.
But amid the turmoil, one thing was certain – people were going to post memes about it.
Many of these included employees celebrating the outage leaving them unable to do any work on a Friday. Take, for example, one X user who wrote: “Shout out to Microsoft for letting everyone have an early finish on a Friday,” alongside a grinning GIF of Ryan Reynolds.
Shout out to Microsoft for letting everyone have an early finish on a Friday pic.twitter.com/fppgrfPUM6
— Rach (@itsrachel_) July 19, 2024
Harmless fun to lighten the mood of stranded airline passengers or overwhelmed IT professionals, perhaps, but it cemented the fact that employees, particularly younger generations, are increasingly likely to make memes nominally at the expense of their employer.
So, should employers be worried about employees who make memes? Or should they embrace the practice as a way for workers to have fun and bond with colleagues?
Why letting employees make memes could be good for culture
It could be easy to dismiss memes as childish, unhelpful, or even rude. And of course, there have been plenty of offensive ones created in the unfortunate history of the internet and social media.
But in most cases, memes are a modern form of communication that can boost morale and create opportunities for shared understanding across teams, cultures, and countries.
As such, they can become a valuable part of company culture. Take, for example, MemeGen at Google. It’s a message board that allows Googlers to vent frustrations, share feedback on company products or internal policies, and even poke fun at company leadership (without resorting to personal attacks).
Memegen is a fundamental part of Google’s culture and lets staff blow off steam, as well as giving Google’s leadership team a good steer on how their workforce feels on important issues.
It’s not just Googlers, though, who want the chance to share memes with colleagues about their employer. Past research has found that 81% of employees say a fun working environment would improve their productivity, and 93% say laughing on the job helps lower work-related stress.
Embracing a meme culture, particularly by creating an internal channel for workers to share memes, could help create an environment where employees feel more relaxed, confident, and comfortable sharing feedback. It can also be a valuable indicator to prospective candidates that the company has an approachable culture full of personality.
HR must balance guardrails without spoiling the party
It’s the classic HR balancing act. Eager to keep the party going and make sure employees are having fun, but wary of fun being taken too far.
Embracing a meme culture has to be done with care. Just like any form of employee communication or behavior, the same rules around offensiveness apply. Any memes that are racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist, or discriminatory in any other way are not acceptable.
Memes that could damage the reputation or brand of a company, particularly in the eyes of customers or investors, are also suitable for a zero-tolerance policy.
The purpose of embracing a culture of memes, whether it is in a dedicated channel like Memegen or encouraging teams to share relatable jokes with their colleagues, is to bring people together and make sure people have fun, rather than upsetting anyone or causing meaningful damage to the company.
Google notably scaled back features on its Memegen board after posts about the Israel-Gaza war turned into angry debates.
This is the balancing act, particularly when memes may be pointing out employee frustrations with the company – but it is no different than managing any form of communication between employees, only in this case there may be a few more images, gifs, and videos to contend with.
Indeed, if workers are posting memes that are offensive or discriminatory, this may be a sign of broader issues with a toxic workplace culture that must be addressed.
@minute When a coworker reports you to HR because you called in “sick” but were seen at the bar #workmemes #workhumor #officehumor #corporatehumor #worklife #9to5life #officelife #corporatelife #workproblems ♬ original sound - Work Humor
On the whole, however, a meme culture will typically be a force for good. That may mean taking some memes on the chin that are at the expense of HR… but we can all take a joke, right?
