Holiday Inn launches anti-jargon campaign

Holiday Inn is urging its business guests to cut back on corporate jargon, after a survey revealed 39% of people lose focus in meetings after 20 minutes.

The hotel group surveyed 1000 UK workers in April, 21% of whom blamed lack of concentration in meetings on "jargon overload".

Just under half (47%) agreed that business jargon annoys them, while 42% said they find it hard to follow what's being said in meetings.

One in two respondents said they think their colleagues only use business jargon to appear more intelligent.

Holiday Inn has proposed a number of alternatives to the worst offending phrases, as voted for in the survey: ‘touch base' should be ‘make contact'; ‘blue sky' must be changed to ‘limitless thinking'; and the worst offender ‘out of the box' should be simplified to ‘think differently'.

Meanwhile, incentivise becomes encourage, downsize becomes reduce and brain dump becomes transfer information.

Florence Eavis from Holiday Inn said: "We believe getting rid of pointless jargon will help people concentrate for longer in meetings, which is why we're asking our guests to be themselves and speak in plain English."

To encourage meeting productivity, other tips from Holiday Inn can be found at www.holidayinnmeetings.co.uk/planning-tips