Every Finance department includes someone who thinks the more office acronyms and corporate jargon he spews, the more competent it proves he is. Here’s why that’s a problem.
1. Jargon makes it harder for new hires to catch on. If your company relies on a series of acronyms and phrases as complex as Tolkien’s Elvish language, it’s going make it even more difficult for new employees to get comfortable. What’s worse, some workers may be too embarrassed to ask important questions, because they don’t want to admit they don’t know what’s being said.
2. It carries over into unwanted areas. When workers make it a habit to abuse office speak among their peers, what’s to stop them from overusing it around important clients and customers. If these clients and customers don’t know what’s being said, it’s easy to see them losing patience very quickly.
So what can you do? In this article, Michael Crom, the executive vice president and chief learning officer at Dale Carnegie Training, says workers can create a lunch where they place a dollar in the fund every time they abuse corporate jargon. Then employees can use the total funds to throw a lunchtime party … a party that’s hopefully devoid of any annoying office speak.