The Corporate Lingo: Understanding the language of your boss

The Corporate Lingo is a language which is common in all offices. In a Corporate dictionary, the same word may have two different meanings. One which the Employer understands and one which the employee understands. So, what are these words and what do they mean? I have tried to decode these terms from 2 different perspectives – Employer and Employee. Hope you enjoy reading and please don’t take it seriously:

Meeting the most common word in corporate lingo

Employer – A gathering of few or more employees who are accountable for certain things. If the task is not moving in the desired direction the employee needs to be taken to task. It is a platform where employees have to be reminded that they are not working in a charitable organisation. And if they don’t mend their ways, they can face serious consequences.

An employer in such meetings is represented by his senior management team. Past examples of employees who were not serious and were shown the exit doors are shared with all.

Employee – From his perspective a meeting is a gathering of members from the same or different teams which has got no purpose. It is generally designed to kill the productive time of an employee. It can be called at any hour in the day. Employees call it the most unproductive task of the day.

It’s generally called at a time which overlaps with an employee’s personal time thereby making a mockery of work-life balance. For an employee, a meeting is a platform where the ones who hardly work create the maximum noise to earn brownie points. On the other hand, the ones who are work focused generally keep quiet and remain in the background.

Salary the favourite word in corporate lingo

Employer – It is considered to be another cost head in the balance sheet and in adverse circumstances most prone to review. One of the best ways to trim down losses is to figure out the big fishes. Salary day is also the day when outstanding needs to be reviewed. The employees are reminded that in spite of huge pending recovery from the market, the organisation credits salaries to its employees on time.

Employee – The most awaited moment in an employee’s life. This is a day which not only an employee but his whole family looks forward to. On this day an employee checks his mobile after every hour for a new message. The moment he sees the message “Salary credited”, the smile comes back on his face. Any change of date in this holy day leads to a lot of speculation about the organisations future.

Appraisals

Employer – A day when the senior management really feels on top of the world. It is the “Judgment day” and it is time to reward the loyalists who have kept you happy the entire year. Few performers also getting rewarded is a by-product of the review system.

The review system evolves every year and becomes more and more complex to understand. Bell curve to a continuous grading system are few of the review methods. The parameters to judge an employee’s performance keeps increasing every year. The objective of the review system is to make it robust so as to keep away the dust. It is like a reverse osmosis filtration plant which will take 5 litres of water to filter out 1 litre of pure water.

Employee – He waits for this day with so much hope only to be dashed in the end. The objective of the employer is to make the review process fool-proof. The employee on the other hand, after seeing the results gets proof that he was a real fool. This is one exercise which makes everybody more unhappy than being happy.

An employee who has got a good raise is unhappy seeing that his peer, who is totally undeserving, got a much higher raise. A guy who was not seen in the office most of the time has just walked out of his bosses cabin with a big smile. Last but not least, the most deserving candidate on the floor has just left office (after picking up his letter) without speaking to anybody. There are few who are making noises about and thinking of representation while some have already started searching the job portals.

Revenue

Employer – A figure which will always move upwards just like an ISRO rocket launched from Sriharikota. The expectation is that this figure should not grow at double the speed every year but should grow at “n raise to power 2”. Teams that agree are “Star teams” while teams that try to reason out are considered to be low on motivation and drive.

Market conditions, Production capacity, Inventory management, Dealer stockpile, Low consumer sentiment are excuses made so as to keep the employer away from achieving this magical growth rate. The measurement of a good revenue growth is one that grows at double the industry average.

Employee – A Number which can only be achieved in dreams and which makes teams go berserk. Teams lose mental peace and their work-life balance goes for a toss. Survivors in the various organisation have devised numerous ways to beat the unrealistic expectations of the management. Reasons vary from Poor demand, Factors beyond anybody’s control like de-monetisation, Low consumer sentiment. Macro reasons are Global downturn, Brexit, Poor monsoon, Crude price, Slowdown in the Chinese economy, The US-China trade war, etc.  

Few other words

Bonus a word in corporate lingo that excites employees

Employer – A word that existed in prehistoric times.

Employee – A fundamental right of an employee under the constitution,snatched by the autocratic management, so as to help the organisation improve its bottom-line.

Perks

Employer – Only for selected ones at the top and not for all jerks.

Employee – We earn, they spend.

Targets

Employer – Achieve and earn incentives.

Employee – A mirage that disappears as you get closer to it. Targets are like your floating rate housing loan EMI. If you achieve it before the defined period, they go up like your EMI ( linked to Bank interest rate). But if you don’t achieve it within the defined period, they remain static like the EMI which never comes down even if the interest rates fall.

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