From hustle culture to quiet quitting: The good, bad and ugly of business jargon in 2024

Research found that 83% of workers admit to regularly using a corporate buzzword they didn’t understand to sound more professional.

Business jargon is a topic that generally divides people down the middle, with little room for sitting on the fence. John Maynard Smith, founder of economic game theory, believed “we invent jargon because it saves time talking to one another”. 

On the contrary side, David Ogilvy, known as the father of advertising, said that “business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon”. 

With both of these commercial legends long since passed, one wonders what they would make of the psychobabble and gobbledygook proliferating the commercial sphere in 2024. Possibly they would need to engage in some blue-sky thinking and embrace low-hanging fruit in order to get all their ducks in a row. 

Research from LinkedIn and Duolingo revealed that half of Gen Z and Millennial employees said they felt excluded in the workplace due to the excessive use of jargon. Whether it was ‘double-clicking’, ‘circling back, or ‘moving the needle’, 83% admitted to regularly using a corporate buzzword they didn’t understand to sound more professional.

“Jargon is the verbal sleight of hand that makes the old hat seem newly fashionable; it gives an air of novelty and specious profundity to ideas that, if stated directly, would seem superficial, stale, frivolous, or false,” wrote critic David Lehman in his 1991 book, Signs of the Times. 

The line between serious and spurious scholarship is an easy one to blur, with jargon on your side. 

According to research by Glassdoor, the job search and career platform, the worst workplace jargon of 2024 was “We’re building the plane as we fly it,” closely followed by “Let’s double click on that”, and taking third place “We’ll circle back with you on that”. 

The origin of the term jargon itself dates back to the French word jargoun, meaning “twittering”. This ties neatly to Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th-century opus, The Canterbury Tales, where the word jargon referred to “the utterance of birds”. 

In fact, much of contemporary corporate jargon originated in the military world, according to Leon Prieto, professor of management at Clayton State University, Georgia. “Corporate jargon emerged as a by-product of the cultural and professional integration of military veterans into the business world post-World War Two.” 

These army veterans brought with them not only their specialised skills but also their military lexicon. “This language, steeped in discipline and strategic thinking, found a natural fit in the corporate environment, which was rapidly evolving during the post-war economic boom.” 

Cultural detox is the process of cleansing toxic behaviours, dynamics, and habits that hinder productivity and overall team morale.

Over the decades from the 1960s onwards, different commercial sectors developed their own versions of corporate speak finance-initiated terms like “leverage” and “standard deviations”; marketing brought in “thought leader” and “run it up the flagpole”; while technology gave birth to “bandwidth” and “disrupt”. 

For better or worse, jargon is here to stay.

LEADING CORPORATE JARGON 2024 

996

Working from 9am to 9pm six days per week and possibly directed more toward office newbies or juniors keen to impress supervisors with their appetite for work.

Act your wage

Thrust into an area of significant extra responsibility, but without the expected additional wage, often leading to a pushback on these new demands.

Back of the envelope 

A first cousin of ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ it covers an idea or proposal without any visible foundation, a calculation often based on guesswork, and probably a position that doesn’t hold any water.

Boil the ocean

Undertaking a task without any realistic chance of success. Usually used in the negative, but sometimes as an encouragement for an impossible dream.

Bottleneck boss 

That kind of line manager who’s full of praise for your efforts, but constantly blocks your ambition for further advancement within the company.

Change agent 

An individual who promotes new methods of doing tasks within the company, ranging from pushing a new management structure or the transformation of an old business model.

Cultural detox 

The process of cleansing toxic behaviours, dynamics, and habits that hinder productivity and overall team morale. Generally targeted at cliques like high-driven male or female groups that operate to their own rules while ignoring company processes.

Ghost job 

Positions offered and published by companies with no intention of hiring for them. The practice has negative social and economic consequences — in addition to melting the brains of those perplexed victims waiting fruitlessly on an interview call.

Greenhushing 

Defined as the intentional downplaying of corporate sustainability goals to avoid public comment and uninformed scrutiny — and highlights the methods of some commercial entities to hide their environmental sins behind a false façade.

Hustle culture 

Working flat-out and constantly pushing aggressively in the hope of career advancement. Can result in either job success or burnout.

Lazy Girl Job 

A term describing a role that is well paid, often fully remote and undemanding. Emerged in the post-pandemic rejection of toxic workplaces and the growing demand for mental wellbeing over the stress of financial reward.

Offboarding 

Also known as employee exit management — a process transitioning a worker out of the business and facilitating knowledge transfer to others. It is the exact opposite of employee onboarding.

Performance improvement plan 

The PIP is a document aimed at rousing the spirits of those employees who are not meeting job performance goals. Generally sets clear expectations for future conduct.

Quiet quitting 

Doing the bare minimum to get the job done and maintaining a defined work-life balance that rejects the inclination to stand out with their superiors.