Say what? : Jargon in the workplace

27 Aug 2025, 8 a.m.

By Linda

Have you ever sat in a meeting and wondered if you had landed on a planet where they didn’t speak your language? Do workplace cliches and buzzwords make you shudder?

Business Business featured

You’re not alone. Businesses may think certain phrases and terminology shows they’re ‘on-trend’ but many consider it alienating.

A new report has found cringeworthy phrases in job advertisements can turn off potential applicants. In particular, more than a quarter of respondents are immediately turned off from a job listing when they read the phrases:

Customer-obsessed (33%)
Wear many hats (33%)
Rockstar (32%)
High sense of urgency (29%)
Fast-paced environment (25%)

An older report surveyed workers in eight countries about terms and phrases used in their workplaces and found management speak could often cause confusion between countries and cultures.

The results differed between countries and cultures with Asian and Latin American countries finding acronyms like EOD (End of Day) and KPI (Key Performance Indicator) amongst the most confusing business speak whereas English speaking nations found it hard to understand expressions such as "Ducks in a row" or "Herding cats".

Aotearoa was not part of the survey, although our trans-Tasman neighbour contributed a colourful list of confounding business speak with the top five being :

1. Boiling the ocean
2. Noodling
3. Low-hanging fruit
4. Juice worth the squeeze
5. Wheelhouse

Whatever you call it – jargon, buzzwords, or management/corporate/business speak - in the workplace makes communication difficult for many people, and is even more confusing for those for whom English is not their first language.

When it comes to acronyms this becomes more complicated when the same, or similar, acronyms have quite different meanings in different contexts.

What is workplace jargon?  This definition sums it up :

Corporate jargon is essentially workplace language, and is used to describe a set of words, phrases, or acronyms used in a business or corporate setup. These can be difficult to understand for people new to the environment... Jargon is deeply rooted in the corporate culture. These words or phrases or acronyms stay in use for such a long time that they become part of the vocabulary. 

However, by becoming part of the workplace vocabulary these words and phrases are often never translated for new hires, leading to confusion and a possible feeling of isolation.

While some jargon is unique to a workplace or industry and used to convey ideas particular to that environment there are those in workplaces who adopt jargon in order to sound more knowledgeable or appear "in the know". IYKYK 😊

As the survey results show, the use (and overuse) of management speak serves to confuse and complicate workplace communication in turn potentially hindering productivity.

Jargon can be used verbally in meetings or in written communication (emails).  It can also be used excessively in other forms of communication such as in reports or on websites and, as a way of addressing this, the Plain Language Act came into being in 2022.

The Act's purpose, while aimed at Government agencies, sets a standard all workplaces can follow :

The purpose of this Act is to improve the effectiveness and accountability of public service agencies and Crown agents, and to improve the accessibility of certain documents that they make available to the public, by providing for those documents to use language that is—

(a) appropriate to the intended audience; and

(b) clear, concise, and well organised.

Workplaces operate more effectively when communication is clear, so to help we've pulled together some resources to help you cut through the jargon and choose words more intentionally instead of peppering conversation with an alphabet soup of buzzwords and phrases.

If you come across a really badly worded public document or, conversely, a well written one, consider nominating it for a Plain Language Award.

Below we've listed some resources to help you communicate clearly and concisely, saying what you mean without confusion.

Watch and listen

Lost in translation: The joy of a jargon-free world
TED talk
When was the last time you optimized something? Perhaps you've been engaging proactively? Are you strategically evolving a market in real-time? Any idea what any of that means? Thea Knight is on a crusade to kill the jargon that is strangling our conversations. She explains how we can be more "intentional" about our words - so we can start to actually say things again.

Learn

Linkedin Learning has short videos on jargon as part of lengthier courses on writing in plain English.
Login using your library registration card and password and type "Jargon" into the search box.

Short reads

Top 50 Corporate Jargon to Help You Survive High-Level Meetings

This article give some examples of what to say instead of the obfuscating terms.

Does Your Office Have a Jargon Problem?
Zachariah C. Brown, Eric M. Anicich, and  Adam D. Galinsky
March 19, 2021, Harvard Business Review online
Presents four steps organisations can take to mitigate the potential negative effects of jargon taking in to consideration context and communication methods and styles.

Boiled oceans and strategic staircases: Corporate jargon that workers hate

Using corporate jargon risks alienating peers — and can just be downright annoying.