We spend around one-third of our waking hours at work – that’s often more time than we spend asleep or hanging out with our family and friends. So, it’s no wonder that workplaces tend to develop their own languages.
Workplace jargon can help streamline our jobs and bond us to our colleagues, but sometimes it just gets on our nerves. So which buzzwords can we expect to hear in 2023 and which do we hope to never hear again?
To find out, we surveyed 1,002 people and asked them about their perceptions of office buzzwords.
Key Findings
“Vibe” was voted the most annoying word Gen Z brings to the office, and “circle back” is the phrase we all want to eliminate.
Slightly more than 1 in 4 people report hearing corporate buzzwords multiple times a day.
The corporate jargon people find most annoying in a job posting is “like a family.”
How do Americans feel about corporate jargon?
While not everyone loves corporate jargon, it seems to have found a home outside the office. In fact, a majority (58%) of Americans admit to using buzzwords in their private life at least sometimes. Whether it’s business idioms or popular slang, buzzwords make their way into all parts of our lives.
“FYI” is the one term people say above all others, with a whopping 81% using it at home. Around 2 in 3 people use the expressions “at the end of the day” (65%), win-win (64%), and “touch base” (63%) when not at work.
