+100 Business Acronyms That You Will Need At Work

Slack messages and emails are getting shorter and –sometimes– more difficult to decipher. The thing is, we all have busy lives and the pace of work is too fast. That’s why we come up with strategies to streamline our tasks and speed up communication. In an attempt to find short and simple ways of expressing something, acronyms were created. Explore this helpful list with the most common acronyms you will hear at work and download the cheatsheet below.

What’s An Acronym?

An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words to create a new, shorter word. NASA, for example, is an acronym that stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Some acronyms are used so frequently that they are now used as regular words (e.g. RADAR – Radio Detection and Ranging or PIN – Personal Identification Number).

If you are wondering how to pronounce acronyms, the answer is –it depends. Many acronyms are pronounce as a regular word (e.g. NASA /ˈnasə/, RADAR /ˈreɪdɑr/, PIN /pɪn/), but others are said by spelling out the individual letters (e.g. BBC /bi bi si/).

Informal Acronyms

Informal acronyms or abbreviations are those used to text friends. However, younger generations have started to use them at work. They are indeed getting more and more common in business communication, mainly on Slack, and especially among the younger sectors and when the speakers already know each other fairly well. 

BTW, sometimes your HRM tells you it’s NBD and TYT but TBH they just want that file ASAP by EOD and, you know, ATEOTD, they’re the manager. 

No, I didn’t just bash my head on the keyboard a few times. To some people, that sentence makes sense. Let’s have a look at the most common informal acronyms and abbreviations.

1. BTW: By The Way
2. TBH: To Be Honest
3. NBD: No Big Deal
4. Def: Definitely
5. BC: Because
6. OMY: On My Way
7. LMK: Let Me Know
8. WDTY: What Do You Think?
9. NP: No Problem
10. BRB: Be Right Back
11. FYI: For Your Information
12. IMO: In My Opinion
13. ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
14. AKA: Also Known As
15. ATM: At The Moment
16. ASAP: As Soon As Possible
17. TYT: Take Your Time
18. GTMTA: Great Minds Think Alike
19. ATEOTD: At The End Of The Day
20. AYW: As You Want/Wish
21. IAC: In Any Case
22. OT: Off Topic
23. TL;DR: Too Long, Didn’t Read

Commonly Used Business Acronyms

The acronyms in the previous section are fairly common in instant messaging apps. Although they are gaining popularity in business emails, but they are very informal. In this section, you have a list of acronyms that were born in the office, so to say. They are not that informal and it is OK to use them in your emails, even when you don’t know the other person that well.