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Latest News

Jargon baffling new recruits

by Personnel Today 16 Jan 2004
by Personnel Today 16 Jan 2004

New
recruits to large organisations are increasingly baffled by jargon-filled
business language.

A
survey of 81 recruits to large accountancy, law, commerce and industry
organisations, found a wide range of problems, from coping with new systems to
internal politics. But the most common complaint, cited by more than two-thirds
of respondents, was the prevalence

of
jargon, or ‘management speak’.

The
HR department was one of the worst offenders, with one respondent reporting:
"Everybody is now referred to as ‘human capital’ by our HR department –
they’ll be getting us to learn Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ and ‘doublethink’
next."

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The
report, by recruitment firm Macildowie Associates, found that many companies
had left day-to-day English behind for a whole new language.

By Ross Wigham

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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