‘Circle back,’ ‘synergy,’ ‘boil the ocean’: The corporate phrases Gen Z doesn’t get, and what they say instead
Source: Fortune ·
From “circle back” to “bandwidth,” an updated Preply study finds young workers are trading corporate buzzwords for phrases that just say what they mean.
From the source
It used to be hard to walk through a corporate office without hearing “let’s circle back” or “let’s take this offline.” Gen Z would like to retire both. Gen Z now has the numbers to influence office culture. Glassdoor projected that Gen Z would overtake baby boomers in the U.S. full-time workforce in early 2024. As it does, it is nudging workplace language toward plainer alternatives. An updated study from online language-learning platform Preply suggests some of corporate America’s favorite buzzwords are losing their grip. The study combined an analysis of Reddit complaints, U.S. Google search data, and a small exercise with Gen Z office workers. Preply analyzed 3,000 Reddit posts and comments about corporate jargon from the past five years. “Circle back” was the most complained-about phrase, with 203 mentions. It beat “synergy” (181), “bandwidth” (97), “touch base” (96), and “take this offline” (62). Why young workers are tuning out corporate speak Many Gen Zers started their…