27 Trending HR Buzzwords To Know in Your Role [2025 Edition]

The one thing that ‘bare minimum Mondays’, ‘new-collar jobs’, and ‘Quittok’ have in common is that they are all HR buzzwords. While buzzwords tend to have an expiration date, it is good to know what they refer to since they often express a genuine, underlying workplace trend. 

This article explores 27 HR buzzwords, providing you with a handy resource to refer to when you encounter a fancy-looking word or phrase in the HR field.    

Contents
What are HR buzzwords?
23 trending HR buzzwords
A
B
C
D
E
G
I
J
L
N
P
Q
R
S
T

What are HR buzzwords?

HR buzzwords are popular terms or phrases used in Human Resources and often in wider society to capture current workplace trends, strategies, or ideas. 

These HR buzzwords increasingly derive from trends that start on social media platforms such as TikTok or LinkedIn. We’ll see examples of this in the section below.

27 trending HR buzzwords

A

1. Anti-perks

Anti-perks are workplace policies, conditions, or practices that negatively impact employees, making their work experience less enjoyable or stressful.

Examples of anti-perks might include:

• Unreasonable workloads or expectations
• Strict attendance policies with little flexibility
• Unpaid overtime or the expectation to work long hours
• Lack of growth opportunities or career stagnation
• Micromanagement that leads to a lack of autonomy
• Poor office environment like uncomfortable workspaces or noisy settings
• Complicated or outdated processes that make work harder than it should be.

B

2. Bare minimum Mondays

Bare minimum Mondays have become a workplace phenomenon in certain companies. The philosophy behind it is that employees get a more leisurely start to their workweek by prioritizing, for example, three or four less time-consuming tasks and keeping the work they do on that day to a bare minimum. Benefits of bare minimum Mondays include:

• Less stress and potentially less burnout among employees 
• Increased productivity 
• Better retention
• No more Sunday scaries.

3. Boomerang employees

Boomerang employees are people who, like boomerangs, leave the organization and then come back again. There can be various reasons why former employees want to rejoin the company; they may be disappointed in their new role or organization they went to work for, perhaps there are better opportunities for growth at their previous company, etc.

Hiring boomerang employees comes with some interesting benefits: 

• They know the organization and its culture 
• They need less time to be operational 
• Their return may boost employee morale.

Potential drawbacks of hiring a former employee again include the fact that they may repeat old (unproductive) patterns and bring a limited fresh perspective. 

C

4. Career cushioning

Career cushioning refers to employees proactively taking steps to secure (cushion) their professional future in case their role changes or is eliminated. Career cushioning activities vary from upskilling and reskilling to (online) networking, searching for jobs, and taking on a side hustle or freelance project.

As an HR department, you may want to let the organization’s managers know what ‘career cushioning signs’ to look out for. These signs may indicate that an employee intends to leave, providing an excellent opportunity to talk with them and see what can be done to retain them.

5. Coffee badging

Coffee badging is a tactic employees use to comply with their employer’s return-to-office mandates. The move is simple: you go into the office just long enough to show your face, log into the system, have a coffee, and then go home again.

Some say coffee badging is an alternative to quiet quitting (also on our list of HR buzzwords); employees still meet the technical requirements of their jobs but remain in control over their office hours and work-life balance.

6. Conscious quitting

Conscious quitting occurs when employees intentionally leave their company for ethical and moral reasons. In practice, this means that especially Gen Z employees will likely leave if their organization’s social and environmental values aren’t aligned with theirs. A couple of tips to prevent conscious quitting can be: 

• Implement Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions
• Ask employees for input on what to do and, where possible, act on it 
• Include communication about your ESG and CSR activities in your employer branding strategy.

D

7. Digital nomad

A digital nomad is someone who primarily works online and can, therefore, work from anywhere as long as there is a stable internet connection available.

While some countries and communities aren’t happy with the sometimes rather large influx of digital nomads, which drives gentrification and prices out the local population, others look for ways to welcome them. For instance, the regional government of Extremadura in Spain is offering digital nomads up to 15,000 euros to move to the area to boost the population and the economy.

8. Digital employee experience

Digital employee experience (DEX) reflects how effectively employees interact with the digital tools in their workplace. 

DEX is key to the overall employee experience (the next term on this list) because both frontline employees and knowledge workers in virtually every industry need to use technology to do their jobs.

Digital employee experience includes interacting with the following technologies: 

• Communication and collaboration (i.e., instant messaging, email, video calls, phone calls)
• Learning (professional development and official training)
• Workflow and productivity (customer relations, project management, analytics)
• HR systems (compensation, self-service access to policies, performance management information, PTO, etc.)

E

9. Employee experience 

Employee experience (EX) is like the Mother of all HR buzzwords. It is the HR equivalent of customer experience and refers to how employees feel about the various things they encounter while at a company.

Three elements have a significant impact on the overall employee experience, namely:

• The physical experience 
• The digital experience 
• The cultural experience.

Investing in EX makes a lot of sense from a business perspective, too: Organizations that invest in their employee experience generate more than double the revenue of their competitors that don’t and are up to four times more profitable.

10. Employee journey mapping

One way for companies to assess how their employee journey is organized and identify its strengths and weaknesses is to measure their employee experience. 

Various so-called ‘moments that matter’ throughout the employee journey are key experiences for the employee that employers should measure and monitor. Identifying those critical points in the employee journey can be done using a technique called employee journey mapping. It aims to detect and chronologically list the employee’s ‘moments that matter.’

G

11. Ghost jobs

Ghost jobs are, as the term suggests, fake job listings. According to an article from CNBC, four in ten companies posted fake job listings in 2024. Ghost jobs are coming from real companies, but they refer to vacancies that aren’t real or for which the organization doesn’t intend to hire anyone (anytime soon).

Ghost jobs are problematic because they make it difficult to get an actual idea of what the job market looks like in a country and for institutions like the FED and other central banks to base their policy on.

Reasons why companies post ghost jobs include:

• To give the impression that they are growing 
• To have an active pool of candidates if someone leaves unexpectedly 
• Because they are ‘always looking for good people to join’
• Because the job was filled and they forgot to delete the ad.

HR tip

Create a shared file for the entire People Team to add any new HR buzzword or phrase they encounter and where they discovered it. Once a month, during a team meeting, you can briefly discuss the latest additions to the file and determine whether or not this deserves further attention.

I

12. Industry hopping

Industry hopping refers to people moving from one industry to another throughout their career rather than spending their entire working lives in a single sector.

Industry hopping can be seen as a career cushioning activity (see earlier on our list of HR buzzwords) and has multiple benefits:

• It expands someone’s professional network 
• It leads to a diverse skillset 
• It is likely to increase people’s job satisfaction.

J

13. Job cuffing

Job cuffing is a trend in which employees, especially those in uncertain roles, commit more firmly to their current jobs, often during economic downturns or uncertain times in the job market.

Employees may increase their engagement, take on extra projects, or even signal long-term interest to avoid layoffs or increase their job security.

While job cuffing can boost commitment and productivity, it can also lead to burnout if employees feel they must go above and beyond just to maintain their roles.

L

14. Lazy girl jobs

Lazy girl jobs are low-stress, decently paid jobs that emphasize work-life balance and flexibility over high responsibility or career progression. The phrase gained traction as a way for Gen Z workers to reject hustle culture and opt for roles that allow them to maintain personal fulfillment without the stress of climbing the corporate ladder.

According to Gabrielle Judge, the term’s originator, these roles often offer remote work with annual salaries ranging from $60,000 to $80,000. They aren’t necessarily “lazy” in the traditional sense but rather prioritize mental wellbeing, allowing these workers to maintain a steady income without sacrificing personal time or facing burnout. 

Examples include certain administrative roles, content moderation, or freelance work with predictable and manageable demands.

15. Learning agility

Put simply, learning agility is people’s ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn. It is a mindset that allows employees to continuously grow, develop their understanding, and use new strategies.  

There are a couple of reasons why learning agility is an essential attribute for organizations:

1. It is a predictor for long-term success and drives profit margins
2. Without employees who are learning agile, the organization can’t change
3. It is vital to stay competitive. 

There are various ways to assess someone’s learning agility, including cognitive ability tests and learning agility assessments.

N

16. New-collar jobs

New-collar jobs are on the rise. They require advanced skills in areas like cybersecurity and AI but do not necessarily require advanced degrees. 

New-collar jobs offer significant opportunities for skilled (often blue-collar) employees who: 

• Have the mindset to learn new skills through practical experience or occupational training or; 
• Already have the necessary soft skills.

P

17. Personality hire

Personality hires are people who are hired primarily for their personality. There are, however, some characteristics and soft skills that personality hires often have in common, including: 

• Strong interpersonal skills (teamwork, active listening, empathy, relationship building, etc.)
• A positive ‘can do’ attitude 
• A great culture fit
• The ability to cheer on their co-workers.

As with everything, though, it is important to strike a balance and not just hire people who have the ‘it’ factor on the one hand and people who have the right (technical) skills to do the job they were hired for on the other.

18. Proximity bias

Although proximity bias has existed since the 1970s, it has reached new heights due to the rise of hybrid and remote work, so it deserves a spot on our list of HR buzzwords.

Proximity bias refers to our tendency as human beings to favor those who are literally or figuratively in our proximity. This can be a location, an office, a workplace, or a social circle.

Examples of proximity bias in a hybrid or remote workplace can look like this:

• Remote employees are excluded from important meetings, conversations, and promotions
• Office-based employees are favored
• Employees are promoted based on personal relationships.

Q

19. Quiet hiring

Quiet hiring refers to companies acquiring new skills and addressing (urgent) business needs without hiring new full-time employees. There are various ways to ‘hire quietly’: 

• Upskill and reskill current employees 
• Hire temporary people to do specific tasks 
• Assign current employees to new roles  
• A combination of these.

While quiet hiring allows companies to keep their headcount stable and give existing employees exciting opportunities to grow, it’s important to ensure that you’re not asking too much of your employees or giving them extra responsibilities without a proper raise or promotion.

20. Quiet quitting

Quiet quitting is a bit like a bare minimum Monday (earlier on our list of trending buzzwords), but employees put in the minimum amount of effort all the time instead of just one day a week.

Employees who quietly quit fulfill the requirements for their jobs but don’t work overtime, volunteer for extra responsibilities or projects, or take initiative. In other words, they are not going the proverbial extra mile.

Where’s the line between doing the job you’re hired and paid for and meeting all the extra expectations, like volunteering for additional tasks or working overtime? Isn’t quiet quitting just another way of describing people sticking to their basic job duties?

21. Quittok

Quittok is a trend on TikTok, especially where employees (often from Gen Z) post their resignation stories. Sometimes, people even live-stream themselves while quitting.

For HR departments, this trend of employees sharing their resignation stories and other things like their discontent with internal company policies or their onboarding package on social media means that they are operating in a glass box.

Here are a few ways to manage this: 

• Be prepared: Actively monitor online employer brand perceptions and have preemptive responses for potential PR issues.
• Create a social media etiquette policy: Include this policy in your employee onboarding to align expectations upfront.

R

22. Reverse mentoring

When we think of a mentor, we often imagine someone older and more experienced than us. While this can still be true, the opposite can also be true.

Reverse mentoring can be a great way to bridge the generational gap between employees of all ages and create a mutually beneficial skills transfer.

S

23. Side gig/Side hustle 

A side gig or side hustle is an extra job or project that someone takes on in addition to their primary job. Most of the time, people do side gigs primarily to generate additional income. Still, it can also be a way for them to pursue their passion and eventually start their own business. 

The main benefit of having employees with a side gig is that they will also learn new skills that may be useful in their main job. The biggest downside is that their side hustle may (eventually) distract them from doing their job or lead them to resign. 

24. Sunday Scaries

The Sunday scaries is that feeling of dread and anxiety that, unfortunately, many people experience on Sunday evening, knowing they have to go to work again the following day.

A survey by the Office for Health Improvements and Disparities (OHID) in the UK found that 67% of adults regularly have the Sunday scaries. Among younger workers, this number goes up to 74%.

The good news is that this issue isn’t just tied to people’s jobs—even those who love their work can feel anxious on Sunday evenings. Other factors that contribute include:

• A lack of sleep 
• Overly full weekends (household chores, errands, social gatherings, family visits, etc.)
• Overloaded to-do lists for the week ahead.

T

25. The Big Stay

Following the Great Resignation (another HR buzzword), we’re now seeing what’s called the Big Stay. With a tighter job market and shrinking pay raises for job switchers, more employees are choosing to stay put in their current roles.

According to James Crockett, labor market economist at the CIPD, the so-called ‘Great Resignation’ is well and truly over and has been replaced by the ‘Big Stay,’ with more people opting for job stability. “Falling staff turnover and vacancies also mean the balance of power in the labor market is moving in the direction of employers and away from workers,” he said.

26. The Great People Shortage

The Great People Shortage seems to contradict some of the things mentioned above regarding the Big Stay. According to a report by Korn Ferry, within the next five years, there will be a global people shortage of 85 million people.

Several factors will cause this, including: 

• Most of the baby boom generation will be retired by then, leaving plenty of jobs unfilled
• Birth rates are drastically declining in many (Western) countries
• The Great Resignation (see below) caused a reshuffle in the job market and impacted certain sectors more than others.

While there’s not much that can be done about an entire generation retiring or declining birth rates, companies and their leaders can still influence some things to retain their people, such as the employee experience they offer and striving to be a great place to work.

27. The Great Resignation

The Great Resignation refers to a development that started during the end of the Covid era and reached its peak in the period just after that. Many people reconsidered their career paths, wanted a better work-life balance, or simply didn’t want to return to their jobs – and decided to resign instead.

In the US alone, four million people left their jobs in April 2021, hence reaching its highest level in over two decades. Interestingly, 20% of employees who left their jobs during the pandemic have since boomeranged back to their former employers.

Key takeaway

• HR buzzwords are unavoidable for those who work in Human Resources. While People professionals will know most of these terms, the thing with trending buzzwords is that new terms keep being added constantly.
• Bookmark this page so that you can look it up in this article next time you’re unsure what a buzzword refers to.