# News Roundup: Workplace Buzzword Bingo

- **Episode:** [166](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/166.md) (2025-01-28)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** news, workplace-buzzwords, buzzword-bingo
- **Time:** 3:51–11:47 (start 231s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/166?t=231](https://truthliesandwork.com/166?t=231)

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[3:51] Leanne Elliott: News roundup. I didn't say that bit. It's time for the news roundup. That's my favourite section
[3:54] Al Elliott: They know that. They know that. Anyway, what have you seen this week, Le?
[3:57] Leanne Elliott: Workplace Buzzword bingo. Al, do you wanna play?
[4:01] Al Elliott: Love to. I love this game
[4:03] Leanne Elliott: So I feel like in January, there's lots of articles around still looking back at trends of 2024 and looking ahead to 2025. Fair enough. I think we all need 3 or 4 weeks to bed into it. We certainly do, as you've heard. But this one is from Sarah Jackson in Business Insider, and I thought it was brilliant. It listed all the workplace buzzwords of 2024. So I thought we could play a little game, Al, of workplace buzzword bingo. Some of these we've mentioned on the show before, Others we haven't. Let's see if you can remember them or guess what they are
[4:34] Al Elliott: Okay, let's go for it
[4:36] Leanne Elliott: Okay, the first one, ghost jobs
[4:37] Al Elliott: Uh, when you have a second job? When you, um, when you work on Rent-A-Ghost, the, the TV program from the '80s in the UK. Such a niche reference. Don't worry, you're not gonna get that. Don't worry. What was a ghost job?
[4:51] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, I think you were talking about moonlighting. That's when you have more than one job
[4:55] Al Elliott: All right, okay
[4:56] Leanne Elliott: Um, no, ghost jobs is when a company will advertise for a position but not actually have the vacancy. I've I've worked with many organisations that do this before, and we call it talent pooling in the recruitment world, which just makes good sense for jobs that you typically have a high turnover in and a high volume of. For example, call centre staff might be a typical talent pool job there. But yeah, apparently the purpose, according to this article, for an organisation doing it is to signal company growth, so they might just be doing it for ego, not for any particular reason, or to prepare talent pools. So, So yes, next one, quiet vacationing
[5:34] Al Elliott: Just before you do that, could you not rub the dog's paw against the table? Because it's— we're recording it on the mic. So if you've heard some weird grumbling, it's not my stomach, it's the dog's paw, I think
[5:44] Leanne Elliott: Oh, is it?
[5:45] Al Elliott: Anyway, sorry, what was the second one, Le?
[5:47] Leanne Elliott: Quiet vacationing
[5:48] Al Elliott: Uh, so quiet quitting is when you stop— when you, when you lose interest in your work. So quiet vacationing would be when you lose interest in your vacation because you're thinking about work?
[6:01] Leanne Elliott: No. So, well, no, it's not. Um, so apparently Quiet vacationing. I wasn't sure about this one actually. I had to look at the definition. It's employees taking vacations without officially requesting time off or informing their bosses. So I'm guessing that's maybe for employees who are typically remote might be able to do this
[6:19] Al Elliott: Um, or if they work in the broom cupboard or something and no one sees them during the day, you could just—
[6:24] Leanne Elliott: yeah, yeah
[6:25] Al Elliott: Or you could do a cardboard cutout. Or you could do like on, um, like on Home Alone, you could just do this through the silhouette of your glass door
[6:32] Leanne Elliott: Like, yeah, yeah, you get— have you seen those things where you get like your cat to move the mouse tracker?
[6:37] Al Elliott: No, brilliant though
[6:38] Leanne Elliott: For like the, you know, the remote monitoring things
[6:41] Al Elliott: Brilliant
[6:41] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, um, apparently why it's an act of quiet resistance to rigid workplace rules. Here's one you'll know, Al. RTO
[6:49] Al Elliott: Return to office
[6:51] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, all those, all those people, men
[6:54] Al Elliott: You almost said it bad word thing
[6:56] Leanne Elliott: Um, no, just Some leaders prefer to have people in their sight so they can feel a sense of control. I'd argue that those who are capable leaders don't think that's a necessary step, but, um, what do I know? I'm only a psychologist who knows the research. Anyway, hushed hybrid
[7:14] Al Elliott: Oh, uh, if that's gonna be hushed hybrid, then hybrid is when you work both in the office and remotely. So hushed hybrid Might be when you are quietly bringing people back, but you're actually not bringing them back
[7:28] Leanne Elliott: It's kind of the other way around, actually. So it's managers that empathise with their staff who have been called back to the office more days than they'd like. So they're kind of informally agreeing that they can work from home on certain days. So line managers with their team, and that's hushed hybrid
[7:44] Al Elliott: Oh!
[7:45] Leanne Elliott: I know, I applaud them
[7:46] Al Elliott: Today I learned
[7:47] Leanne Elliott: There you go. Anything else? Coffee badging, we did that one before
[7:52] Al Elliott: Yep, when you basically scan in your work using your pass, get a cup of coffee, and then bugger off home because then that shows you've been in the office. But really all you've done is had a cup of coffee and shown your badge
[8:02] Leanne Elliott: Exactly. Um, you know this one as well, a PIP
[8:05] Al Elliott: Uh, performance input— uh, performance improvement plan is what someone would be— God, this is difficult— what someone might be put on if they like this, if they weren't— well, if the performance wasn't— doesn't improve
[8:16] Leanne Elliott: Absolutely. Um, sadly though, in 2024, this article points out that it was increasingly, increasingly used as a way to reduce headcount. Whereas what a PIP is designed to do is to actually support an employee with getting their performance back up to an acceptable level. So yeah, meant for good, used for evil. I think that was kind of the theme of 2024, really
[8:36] Al Elliott: Yeah
[8:37] Leanne Elliott: Quiet firing
[8:38] Al Elliott: You just get rid of someone by giving them the minimum amount of work or something
[8:44] Leanne Elliott: Basically treat them like rubbish
[8:46] Al Elliott: Oh, okay
[8:47] Leanne Elliott: Hope they'll resign. Then we had silent layoffs
[8:51] Al Elliott: Silent layoffs, uh, again, uh, just quit. I don't know, would that just be getting rid of someone but not meant— how would you do that? How would you do a silent layoff?
[8:59] Leanne Elliott: Silent layoff is essentially asking— is making somebody redundant, giving them a severance payment, ask them to keep quiet about it
[9:04] Al Elliott: Oh, I see
[9:05] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. Um, and then this one—
[9:07] Al Elliott: So what happens? Are you like, what happened to Derek?
[9:09] Leanne Elliott: Oh, um, he decided to leave
[9:10] Al Elliott: Yeah, I know Derek's— yeah, no, he's moved to South America. Something to do with Colombians
[9:15] Leanne Elliott: And this one I hadn't heard of, but again Honestly, it is so— it's so 2024, Al. Stealth sackings
[9:23] Al Elliott: Again, it sounds too much like the rest of them, so I'd say like very quietly getting rid of— but we already covered that. What is stealth sacking?
[9:29] Leanne Elliott: So it's terminating employees for minor infractions, often to sidestep larger layoffs. And the article used the example of Meta firing staff for misusing meal credits
[9:40] Al Elliott: Oh, I see. Right, so that's the difference, isn't it? that you're being petty, but I'm guessing there's some kind of like law or HR behind that who know that that could be classed as gross misconduct or something
[9:52] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, I think it depends on the contract, doesn't it? Particularly if somebody's in their probation period, you don't need much of a reason, and technically you could say that's breached kind of the ethical guidelines of the organisation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, seems a bit sneaky. So there you go, well done, Al. I think you got a lot of those right. The author did then also share some buzzwords and trends that might come around in 2025. Apparently upskilling and reskilling is gonna be a thing in terms of making sure our employees have got the skills they need to—
[10:23] Al Elliott: How's it getting on with that dog? I was working out for you
[10:25] Leanne Elliott: Really well. Yeah, in terms of the job demands around artificial intelligence. Are you off now? Can you go?
[10:33] Al Elliott: Go on
[10:33] Leanne Elliott: You just wanna show the world your bottom?
[10:34] Al Elliott: I don't think anyone needs to see that
[10:37] Leanne Elliott: AI integration was talked about a lot. And then one that was kind of new, revenge quitting. Any guesses?
[10:45] Al Elliott: Revenge quitting. Uh, oh, I don't know. When someone— when your employer gives you like, oh, we're gonna bring you back to the work— back to work, and you just get really like rage quitting. You just go, they're gonna do that, so therefore I'm gonna tell them to stick it
[10:58] Leanne Elliott: Exactly. Yeah, I think it is the same as rage quitting. Um, sounds exactly that. Um, so yeah, there you go. Um, that's what we'll look up to look forward to in 2025. That is what defined 2024. All in all, I don't think it was I don't think it was a really great year from business leaders in terms of how they treat their employees, but then maybe that's not the case. Maybe it's a sign of the times. Though I did see that the latest employee engagement report out of the US has now put US workers' job satisfaction rates at the lowest they've been for almost 2 decades
[11:35] Al Elliott: That's a bit depressing, isn't it?
[11:36] Leanne Elliott: It is, it is. I'm gonna ask you what you've got, but before I do that, I think you might need a poo
[11:42] Al Elliott: That's the dog, not me. Back after this very short break for the dog to have a pee