Ever found yourself in an office meeting, nodding along as colleagues toss around terms like “Quiet Quitting”, “Culture Fit” or “Quiet Vacationing”, and wondered if you missed the memo on this new corporate jargon? You’re not alone!
These buzzwords have probably popped up more on your social media feed than in any English dictionary. Welcome to the world of HR buzzwords! While these concepts aren’t exactly new, they’ve recently been given catchy labels, thanks to the rise of the internet lingo. The corporate dictionary has expanded, and with it comes a fresh wave of jargon. Let’s dive into the modern workplace’s latest obsession.
What are HR Buzzwords?
For the unversed, HR buzzwords are often trendy phrases and words used by corporate employees, especially HR professionals. They describe workplace strategies, trends in workplace management, and company culture. HR buzzwords are often generated on the internet, thanks to the ever-online ‘netizens’ that can turn anything into a trendy word. These buzzwords reflect the dynamic nature of the modern workplace and how today’s work culture is shaping itself.
Why HR Buzzwords Matter
They help encapsulate complex concepts into simpler terms, thus easing communication within organizations. With a majority of employees being active on social media platforms, they can share their work experiences more freely with these words. This has led to the rise of a variety of HR buzzwords entering the corporate jargon.
These terms often reflect industry standards and current trends, helping HR professionals stay aligned with evolving practices and expectations. Additionally, knowing about popular HR buzzwords helps professionals stay relevant and responsive to the ever-evolving workplace. Even though the buzzwords are new, some of these behaviors have existed for quite some time and have gained new terms now.
Let’s Decode Some Popular HR Buzzwords
1) Culture Fit
Modern workplaces put a bigger emphasis on their work culture today. This buzzword is used by HR professionals to assess how well a new hire would integrate into the work culture of their organization. A great Culture Fit is someone whose values align with the organization’s goals and missions, and who has similar interests to those of the other employees.
For example, an organization might only hire Gen Z employees in its social media team. Here, a Culture Fit would be a new employee who falls into the Gen Z age group and is well-versed in trendy social media tactics.
2) Quiet Firing
You might’ve heard of quiet quitting, but do you know a phenomenon called Quiet Firing also exists?
While quiet quitting is practiced by the employee, Quiet Firing is when an employer neglects, mistreats, or disengages an employee to the point that the employee leaves on their own. This can happen when a company is on the verge of downsizing. It can instruct managers to intentionally hold off promotions and increments to force employees to quit on their own. On the other hand, most of the time employers unintentionally quiet fire their employees when they fail to discuss employee progress, provide effective feedback, or give timely recognition.
An example of the same could be the news of tech giant, Amazon, allegedly being involved in Quiet Firing. Amazon told its managers to give poor performance ratings and block promotions of employees who refused to comply with their stringent Return to Office policy.
3) Mommy Tax
The next term on our list is what most working mothers are likely to face. It refers to the financial and career obstacles that women go through by virtue of being mothers. Many working mothers face challenges while maintaining a healthy work-family balance. From reduced career advancement opportunities and wage reduction due to maternity leave to high childcare costs, family pressure, and workplace discrimination, there are several challenges faced by working mothers. Mommy Tax, just like a glass ceiling, prevents and penalizes women who’ve embraced motherhood.
4) Office Peacocking
Don’t worry; it has nothing to do with peacocks! Office Peacocking is a recent buzzword that refers to the act of making the workplace more attractive for employees. It can be achieved through personalizing individual workstations of employees. Other ways of Office Peacocking involve having renovated workplaces, casual workspaces, dedicated lounge areas, and cafeterias.
Office Peacocking helps make employees feel more comfortable in their workplace, especially new hires and remote employees who’ve returned to the office after a long time.
5) Coffee Badging
Coffee can brew a lot of informal connections in the workplace, and this term is rightfully named after that phenomenon. This term refers to the act of forming connections and gaining influence through the shared ritual of coffee breaks. Coffee Badging can allow employees to gather and exchange ideas in an informal way, and it can ultimately lead to better team dynamics. It’s also likely to foster effective communication within the different teams in an organization. After all, bonding over coffee goes a long way!
6) Industry Hopping
You might’ve heard of Cafe Hopping, but have you ever heard of Industry Hopping? Just as its ‘cafe’ equivalent, the term refers to moving between different industries or sectors throughout one’s career, rather than staying within a single field. While it may present employees with adaptability challenges, it can also present them with diverse experiences.
According to a study conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, over 22% of workers aged 20 and older spent a year or less at their jobs in 2022. This is the highest percentage with a tenure that short since the year 2006.
7) Rage Applying
Rage Applying refers to impulsively submitting job applications in response to frustration or dissatisfaction with one’s current job or work situation. This is likely to occur when an employee is overwhelmed by stress, anger, or burnout, which then prompts them to apply for numerous positions in a short period. Employees often apply without thorough consideration, research, or without tailoring their resumes to specific roles or companies, which may reduce the effectiveness of the job search.
8) Quiet Vacationing
Quiet Vacationing is when employees take a vacation without formally requesting time off. Instead, they maintain a facade of working remotely.
Imagine a project manager, feeling hesitant to take a proper vacation because their team is swamped with deadlines. Rather than requesting leave, the manager heads to a hotel, checking in on emails and attending a few virtual meetings while lounging by the pool. On the surface, it looks like they are working. However, in reality, they’re enjoying a vacation without fully disconnecting from their job. While this might seem like a clever workaround, it can lead to incomplete rest and increased long-term stress.
9) Ghost Jobs
As the name suggests, Ghost Jobs are postings that companies don’t have any intentions of filling in the near future. They might be postings that have been on the internet long after the desired employee has been hired or posted in advance to gather more applications. In some cases, the job might not exist at all, but companies use it as a tactic to diversify their talent pool. Ghost Jobs prove helpful in gauging potential employees, and their resumes are kept handy in case an employee resigns or a new job position is opened.
10) Career Cushioning
You must’ve heard countless times that one must always have a backup plan or a plan “B” if things don’t go the right way. Career Cushioning refers to preparing yourself for a possible layoff by upskilling, starting a side hustle, and searching for new jobs. It refers to the act of having a plan ‘B’ in the wake of an unpredictable scenario at the workplace. While this phenomenon is not new, it has become more prevalent due to recent global happenings like the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the global workforce.
11) Bare Minimum Mondays
The long-standing collective hatred for Mondays, over the years, finally became a trend in the form of Bare Minimum Mondays. As the name suggests, this trend encourages employees to do the bare minimum at work on Mondays, as the first working day of the week tends to make most people anxious. Similar to Quiet Quitting, Bare Minimum Mondays encourage employees to devote time to their well-being in a corporate world focused on being hyper-productive.
12) Proximity Bias
Proximity Bias is the tendency of senior executives in power to favor workers who are physically closer to them. It stems from the notion that remotely working employees tend to be less productive than those working in the office. According to a 2021 study by SHRM, about 67% of supervisors of remote workers admitted to considering remote workers more easily replaceable than onsite workers at their organization.
Even though Proximity Bias isn’t always an intentional cognitive bias, managers must actively work to mitigate it to encourage the morale of remote workers.
13) Big Stay
The Big Stay is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a buzzword to denote the prediction that employees will hang onto their current jobs rather than switch jobs to withstand current economic conditions. The term was coined by Nela Richardson in a commentary based on ADP research.
Richardson noted the fact that in the first three months of 2023, quits fell 5% from the prior period and more than double that from a year ago. The buzzword points out the rare, growing trend of employees staying in their jobs rather than quitting and switching jobs.
14) Great Regret
Picture this: Hopping into a new role in a new organization, only to find that it’s more stress than success. This buzzword is the perfect reminder that, in the workplace, change isn’t always as rewarding as it seems. It refers to employees who left their jobs during the Great Resignation, only to realize the grass wasn’t much greener on the other side. This happens usually due to unmet expectations from the new role, a lack of proper research before joining the organization, and the inability to adjust to the new environment.
15) Social Capital
Social Capital encapsulates the social relationships, connections, and trust built between employees within an organization. Social Capital acts as a currency that can be used to form further relationships and connections, both inside and outside the organization. When HR professionals prioritize building Social Capital, they can help create a positive environment for the employees to work and interact in.
An HRMS software’s social feed, such as that on greytHR, can be effectively used to socialize with employees to prioritize building Social Capital.
16) Overemployment
Side hustles are quite common, and many employees supplement their primary income with the income earned through side hustles. However, there’s a growing bunch of people who are taking ‘side hustles’ to the extreme by being employed in two or more full-time jobs at once. The catch? The employers are unaware of the others. This phenomenon, also known as moonlighting, is on the rise amongst remote working employees. The privacy of their homes allows them to switch between different jobs without disclosing it to their employers.
According to a 2022 survey by Mumbai-based Kotak Institutional Equities, nearly 65% of IT employees said they or someone they knew had been moonlighting or pursuing part-time opportunities while working from home.
17) Anti-Perks
Often organizations tend to introduce newer perks to employees with the hope of alluring them into joining or sticking with the organization. However, employees are turning away from these ‘perks’. They do not care enough about them and they they think it might affect their productivity. Even though some employees might like these perks, many demand better perks such as higher wages, improved work-life balance, and workplace security over such ‘performative’ perks.
Here are a few examples of Anti-Perks:
- Nap rooms
- Massage rooms
- Free lunch
- Pet-friendly office space
- Dedicated fitness rooms or memberships to exclusive gyms
Summing Up
HR buzzwords aren’t just trendy jargon; they reflect the shifting dynamics of how employees work, collaborate, and grow professionally. These terms help HR professionals share ideas and communicate efficiently within their organizations. They can also be used while communicating on an HRMS like greytHR. This software streamlines communication by offering intuitive features like a dedicated social feed, automated messaging, and mass-mailing capabilities. That’s plenty of opportunities for you to show off your newly learned buzzwords! Go ahead and drop some of these the next time you are Coffee Badging ;)
FAQs
What Are HR Buzzwords?
Buzzwords typically originate in jargon, acronyms, or neologisms, and are often overused. Examples of HR buzzwords include Career Cushioning, Quiet Quitting, and Ghost Jobs.
Why Do Companies Use Buzzwords?
Buzzwords often play a significant role in shaping corporate culture. Knowing how to use them effectively can help businesses communicate better with colleagues and clients. This ensures that colleagues and clients are well-aligned with the norms and expectations of the organization.
How Do HR Buzzwords Impact the Workplace?
HR buzzwords help define and shape workplace culture, guide behaviors, and set expectations for employees. They are often used in discussions about strategy, teamwork, or employee well-being, influencing everything from hiring practices to internal communication.
