Management-speak and all-staff e-mails have become some of the biggest office bugbears, according to a new study.
Management-speak and all-staff e-mails have become some of the biggest office bugbears
Phrases such as ‘thinking outside the box’ and ‘going forward’ were found to be among the most overused jargon, while other irritations included staff arriving late, or those who gossip about colleagues.
Many took issue with people sending an e-mail to a colleague sitting opposite, a survey of more than 2,000 managers by the UK’s Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) also found.
The study found that management-speak is used in most offices, with one in four managers describing it as a “pointless irritation”.
Managers added that food and dirty plates left on office desks get on their nerves, while one in four bosses never make tea and coffee for their team.
Charles Elvin, chief executive of the ILM, said: “When office-based teams work in close proximity for long periods of time, we see that seemingly trivial issues can grow disproportionately, if left unchecked, and begin to cause upset and resentment.”
At the end of the day, office jargon is what it is, but if you don’t want to 110 per cent annoy your colleagues, try replacing the 10 business terms listed below with their real-world equivalents.
In the meantime, at least office-ese is not limited to the UK. Spanish workers have complained of over-use of ‘Es lo que es’ (It is what it is), while the French say they cannot stand anglicisms such as ‘win-win’, ‘next step’ and the verb ‘brainstormer’.
English words have also crept into Russian management-speak, where workers complain of their ‘top-manager’, and even the Italians refer to ‘core business’ and ‘benchmarking’.
10 infuriating office terms and their equivalent
1. Reach out: Call, e-mail or meet.
2. Touch base: Contact; see above.
3. It’s on my radar: I’m aware.
4. Flag up: Make aware of .
5. Low-hanging fruit: An easily-achievable goal.
6. It’s a win-win situation: It’s a good idea.
7. It’s a no-brainer: See above .
8. Best practice: A good way of doing something.
9. I’ll ping you an agenda: I’ll e-mail you with what’s happening.
10. Take it to the next level: Improve (alternatively, avoid dealing with abstract ‘levels’ altogether and give your colleagues a tangible goal).