Update to answer my question: my work PC had 'turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)' ticked in the ease of access centre under the 'make your computer easie to use'. I don't know if this is by default. Unticking it made these animations occur but wow it creates a bit of lag in excel even on my workstation. This is probably some configuration thing on my work's SOE and why they have it disabled in the first place.