Your Gen Z and Millennial employees hate it when you use these corporate buzzwords

Every time a Gen Z or Millennial employee hears their boss utter the words “let’s go around again” in a meeting, they secretly cringe inside.

At least that’s the case, according to a new survey that has uncovered the most hated corporate jargon.

The research team at AI transcription tool Notta.ai analyzed more than 5,000 Reddit comments from nearly 100 different subreddits using a Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool to rank the common office buzzwords that employees find most annoying—and ‘circle back’ ended up on top.

Employees are also increasingly hearing how agile their company is. Meanwhile, classic office jargon such as ‘take this offline’ and ‘touchbase’ are also causing a lot of frustration among staff.

While the top 5 annoying jargons account for more than 40% of all complaints collected, there are some pretty unique entries, including “Blue Sky Thinking” (which apparently means brainstorming without limits) and “Boil the Ocean” ( meaning you are trying something impossible).

The top 10 most annoying corporate jargon

1. Circle back

2. Synergy

3. Scanty

4. Touch the base

5. Resilient

6. Bandwidth

7. Leverage

8. Reach out

9. Low hanging fruit

10. Take this offline

The 5 Most Unique, But Still Annoying, Office Jargon

1. Boil the ocean
   Meaning: To attempt something impossible

2. Blue sky thinking
   Meaning: Brainstorming without limitations

3. Open the kimono
   Meaning: reveal information

4. Swimming lane
   Meaning: the area of ​​responsibility of a person or department

5. Peel the onion back
   Meaning: To investigate a problem in detail

“This study exposes a gap between corporate language and effective communication,” said Kiyoto Tamura, spokesperson and COO of Notta.

“We have also noticed that while some jargon terms persist, new ones are being introduced, especially from the tech industry. Terms like ‘bandwidth’ and ‘agile’ are now being misused outside their original context. Meanwhile, traditional business terms like ‘synergy’ and ‘leverage’ remain some of the most annoying jargon used in corporate environments.”

Whether it’s an old or new term that gets on the nerves of your subordinates, they have one thing in common: The researchers noted that the most annoying phrases are often vague and noncommittal.

“Employees are frustrated by unclear guidelines and a lack of actionable communication in their work environment,” Tamura said.

He urged that if you’re going to use terms to pump up staff and promote productivity, you need to ditch the jargon and use specific, actionable language.

For example, instead of saying “circle back,” you can indicate when you will contact us. Or replace ‘take this offline’ now with clear next steps.

“This is especially important as more people work remotely or in hybrid environments, where clear communication directly impacts team cohesion and efficiency,” concludes Tamura.

Young employees are probably thinking: what exactly is synergy?

Really, corporate jargon isn’t just annoying. For some young employees, this is the difference between understanding what their manager asks of them and not.

Much research has suggested that a communication barrier exists between young workers and their more seasoned colleagues — and office terminology that is adage to boomers but new to “zoomers” only adds to the friction.

Just last month, one study highlights that Gen Z and millennial employees have no idea what their boss is talking about when they say KPI, CRM, VPN and more.

“Jargon or abbreviations can make communication faster, but it can also increase the likelihood of misunderstandings, especially among entry-level employees who may already have difficulty adjusting to their new role,” the researchers noted.

They’re not wrong. At least once a week, half of employees think a colleague has used a sentence that sounds like a foreign language:when in fact it is just jargonwith Gen Z and Millennials struggling to best understand their colleagues.

At the same time, 1 in 5 Gen Zers haven’t had a single conversation with anyone over 50 at their workplace in the past year. LinkedIn research shows. Why? They don’t know how to talk to them, which isn’t surprising when they feel like they’re speaking completely different languages.

This story originally ran Fortune.com