Benefits December 29, 2004

Survey Finds Most Overused Office Clichés

December 29, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Sick of hearing post-modern office jargon? So are senior executives at some of the nation's largest companies, apparently.
Reported by

According to a survey conducted for Accountemps , a temporary staffing company for accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals, going overboard in the cliché department is a no go.

Words that the survey found to be most overused include:

  • “At the end of the day”
  • “Solution”
  • “Thinking outside the box”
  • “Synergy”
  • “Paradigm”
  • “Metrics”
  • “Take it offline”
  • “Redeployed people”
  • “On the runway”
  • “Win-win”
  • “Value-added”
  • “Get on the same page”
  • “Customer centric”
  • “Generation X”
  • “Accountability management”
  • “Core competency”
  • “Alignment”
  • “Incremental.”

“Buzzwords and industry jargon are a form of shorthand used by people within a particular company or profession, but they can be confusing or even seem exclusionary to individuals outside of that field,” said Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps, in a press release. “When these words are overused, they can lose their impact altogether.”

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