Workplace jargon

I remember starting my new job and within the first meeting, I had already come out with new words to Google. It felt like everyone else knew and I just felt too awkward to ask questions.

Thankfully I have learnt that it is okay to ask questions. No question is a silly one, you’re probably not the only one in the room who is confused!

This experience is very common, so we have compiled a list of all the things our team didn’t know to help you. If you have any more to add, feel free to email us!

• COP or EOD

Close of play or end of day.

If someone is giving you a deadline it may say something like ‘Could you send me this by COP’, so just can you send this by the end of the working day.

• KPI

Key performance indicators.

This term may come up in interviews - it is just a quantifiable way to measure success. For example, were you measured on sales data or customer satisfaction.

• A ‘deck’

  A deck is just another word for a presentation/slides/PowerPoint.

• Circle back

  We’ll come back to this conversation at a later time.

• Pivot

  Changed their mind or changed the direction of business - maybe you’ve been trialling software but it isn’t working.

• Scale

  To scale something is to grow something e.g. scaling the business - growing the business.

• Ping

  If someone asks you to ‘ping them’ something, they are asking you to contact them either via email or a messaging service. For example ‘ping me on teams’ - contact me on Microsoft Teams.

• Quarter or Q1/2/3/4

  The financial year of a business is set up into quarters, so it just refers to what quarter of the year you’re in. This usually relates to financial targets. For example, if you’re asked for a Q2 report, you’re often required to report on everything that happened within the second quarter of your financial year. It can be helpful to ask management when your company's financial year runs as some may be different to others.

• Copy or copywriting

  Writing used to give information, persuade or entertain an audience. For example, writing an Instagram caption for a business would be copywriting, so you could say ‘I wrote some copy for our Instagram post’.

• Wordsmithing

  You need to revise the wording.

• Bandwidth

  Someone may ask a team ‘does anyone have bandwidth to help with this?’, which means does anyone have time or resources to help with a task.

• Align or alignment

  To agree with something. An example would be if a manager says ‘We need the team aligned’, they mean they need the team to agree.

• Deliverable

  Something that is produced as part of a project - the outcome. For example, if you’ve been asked to design an image for an ad campaign, you may be asked to send the ‘deliverables’, which would be the images you have designed.

• Disrupt

  To change. If you want your product to ‘disrupt’ a market, you want to change the market with your product. For example, a new sustainable fashion brand would want to ‘disrupt’ the fashion industry because they want their brand to change the industry.

• Ideate

  Share ideas, brainstorm or generate new ideas.

• Leverage

  Using knowledge, strategies or relationships to help with a situation. For example, someone may say ‘We need to leverage the copywriting team for this’, which would mean the copywriting team will be able to help support you on the project. Basically making the most of.

• Campaign

  A campaign is an activity that has been strategically put in place to help promote something. A ‘marketing campaign’ could include things like posts going out on Instagram or Facebook ads that all talk about the same themes or products.

• Piggyback

  Using knowledge or taking inspiration from. In Sales, you may ‘piggyback’ off the marketing calendar to help increase sales. Which would mean, using or taking inspiration from the marketing calendar to help your campaign.