Because it’s the world of corporate jargon. In some workplaces, you can’t get down the hallway to the next department without tripping over it.

“Outside the box” was the top buzzword/phrase that should be banished from this planet, according to a recent CareerBuilder survey of 5,000 workers. It was named the most unpopular buzzword by 31% of the participants.

Other words/phrases cited:

• Low-hanging fruit: 24%
• Synergy 23%
• Loop me in 22%
• Best of breed 19%
• Incentivize 19%
• Mission-critical 19%
• Bring to the table 18%
• Value-add 17%
• Elevator pitch 16%

Not listed in the survey but still working their way under your skin:

• End of the day
• Old school
• Back in the day
• It is what it is

What about you? Do you have anything to add to this list (see Reply box below)?

A recent study asked employers how they handle employees who call (cough cough) to say they won’t be in that day.

But our favorite part of the study asked employers to share the most unusual excuses they’ve been given by employees for missing work.

Some of the best excuses:

• An employee said his 12-year-old daughter stole his car, and he had no other way to work. He didn’t want to report it to the police.
• Another said bats got in her hair.
• One guys said a refrigerator fell on him.
• An employee said she was in line at a coffee shop when a truck carrying flour backed up and dumped the flour into her convertible.
• A hunter said a deer bit him.
• An employee’s child stuck a mint up his nose and had to go to the ER.
• Another employee hurt his back chasing a beaver.
• After going to too many garage sales, one employee claimed to have a headache.
• One person said their brother-in-law was kidnapped by a drug cartel in Mexico.

The study was conducted by Harris Interactive and surveyed more than 2,600 employers and 4,300 workers. The results were initially published by CareerBuilder.

Other findings:

• 15% of employers have fired people for calling in sick without a legit excuse, and
• 28% of employers showed a little more faith (but not by much) — they checked up on someone who called out with a questionable excuse.

Of that 28%:

• 69% required a doctor’s note
• 52% called the person at home
• 19% had another employee contact the missing employee, and
• 16% drove by the person’s home.

What about you? Got any “can-you-believe-this” moments you can share about absences? Share your best in the Reply box below.

These excuses come courtesy of CareerBuilder, which conducted a poll of HR managers asking them to describe the strangest excuses they’d heard from employees who called in sick:

My 12-year-old daughter stole my car.

I got bats in my hair.

A refrigerator fell on me.

A truck carrying flour backed up into my convertible and dumped the flour into it.

A deer bit me.

I ate too much at a party.

I fell out of bed and broke my nose.

I caught a cold from my puppy.

My child stuck a mint up his nose.

I hurt my back chasing a beaver.

I got my toe caught in a vent cover.

I got a headache from too many garage sales.

My brother-in-law was kidnapped while in Mexico.

I drank anti-freeze by mistake.

I was at a bowling alley when a bucket of water crashed through the ceiling and hit me on the head.

The study, conducted by CareerBuilder, found 45% of female sales pros feel they are paid less than male counterparts with the same skills and experience. That’s an 11% increase from 2008, when CareerBuilder conducted a similar study.

The study also revealed 48% of women feel men have a better chance for career advancement and promotion (a 25% increase from 2008).

In terms of salary, the study found:

• 49% of male salespeople made $50,000 or more, while only 28% of female salespeople claimed to make that much
• 13% of males make $100,000 or more, compared to only 9% of women, and
• 39% of women claimed they make less than $35,000 a year, compared to only 18% of men.

In addition, 33% of men claimed they hold a management position, compared to only 28% of women. Shockingly, 41% of female sales workers say they are technically in clerical or administrative positions, compared to 18% of men.

Finally, 45% of women reported men in their organizations were given more recognition for their accomplishments.

When women were asked why they felt there was such a disparity:

• 26% believed it was because they didn’t “schmooze” with management as much as men.
• 30% felt it was a simple case of favoritism, and
• 17% felt it was a case of men being with the company for a longer period of time.

On the male end of the spectrum:

• 77% believe both sexes are paid equally
• 68% of men believe both sexes have equal opportunity for advancement within the organization, and
• compared with the same study from 2008, more men now believe it’s easier for women to climb the corporate ladder.

When both sexes were asked what annoyed them most about the other gender in the workplace:

• The males claimed women tended to gossip in the office, and they also became overly sensitive about specific issues, and
• Women felt men were arrogant, tended to gossip among themselves, and occasionally make off-color remarks.

Info: For more results from the CareerBuilder study, click here.

What do you think? Is there a sexual bias when it comes to male and female salespeople in the workplace? Share your thoughts in the Reply box below.

Marketers once counted on monkeys to capture customers’ interest, pique their curiosity, make them laugh — and then buy the product being pushed by the primates.

Audiences’ initial attraction started decades ago with Cheeta the chimpanzee in the 30s and 40s, and then a slew of other primates turned into a steady source of green for marketers and advertisers.

But it’s getting a lot more difficult to make a monkey commercial these days.

That’s because animal-rights activists have put the squeeze on ad agencies and marketing groups, driving monkey-fueled ads to near extinction.

CareerBuilder, which came up with the original Super Bowl ads featuring monkeys, offers up a prime example of this trend. The company retired the monkeys it used to the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, FL (where Michael Jackson’s Bubbles is also living).

It ain’t cheap — it can cost up to $20,000 a year to care for chimps in their twilight years.

But recently, CareerBuilder decided to reprise the monkeys theme for its 2011 Super Bowl campaign, and ad production occurred under a watchful eye. Animal rights’ activists, including the American Humane Association, were on the set the whole time.

This time around, the commercial was about monkeys wearing suits and driving (and parking) cars.

Why do marketers keep coming back to the same theme?

Research shows that ads with animals have greater appeal. People are even more likely to latch on to apes, since they resemble customers in many human-like ways.

Still, over the past few years, 18 ad agencies have agreed to stop using apes in commercials.

The reason most cited: Chimps used are taken from their mothers around age 8, and researchers say they should remain with mothers until at least age 10.

Why do more than a third of salespeople plan on testing the job market, and how can you keep them from flying the coop?

The answers range from pay to work/life balance, according to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.

It revealed 35% of salespeople have plans to seek employment elsewhere, and 28% of sales managers have begun taking measures to retain their best salespeople — and keep turnover low.

The survey included responses from nearly 400 salespeople across a broad range of industries, and found that:

• 35% of salespeople were dissatisfied with their current pay
• 20% were unhappy with their work/life balance, due to more hours and added responsibilities, and
• 21% were unsatisfied with their job growth potential in their current sales position.

So what can managers do to keep their best talent from jumping ship? The answer may lie in the responses salespeople provided regarding what they’d be looking for with a new employer (in addition to better pay and benefits):

• a positive work culture (59%)
• good career advancement opportunities (52%)
• a company that’s financially stable and growing (52%)
• a less stressful environment (40%)
• the feeling that what they do makes a positive difference (40%)
• paid training and learning opportunities (34%)
• flexible work schedules (28%), and
• more camaraderie and stronger ties among employees (26%).

Do you expect retention be a major issue at your company in the near future? If so, what are you doing to keep employees happy? Share your thoughts in the Comments Box below.

1. Reassess priorities: Before asking reps to take on more responsibility, consider which of their tasks can be reallocated, put off or done away with altogether. A lot of times it’s the low-priority tasks that eat up salespeople’s time, providing them with less opportunity to pursue revenue-producing ventures. Streamlining responsibilities lets reps know you’re on their side, while allowing them more time to close deals.
2. Do something on each rep’s behalf: With so much pressure to perform, salespeople need to feel like you’re a partner in their success. Whether that means helping them close a top prospect, going to bat to get them the bonus they deserve or simply joining them on sales calls, let them know you’re in their corner at all times.
3. Create a low-cost incentive: Some sales organizations give reps a day off for achieving monthly goals. Others allow reps to work from home one day a week. The key is to create a win-win where the company achieves its goals and salespeople don’t feel overworked.

The key to avoiding burnout is taking measures before problems arise. Otherwise, stress-related burnout could lead to decreased productivity and increased turnover, as well as stress and depression — all of which end up costing the company in the long run.

Almost half (48%) of the workers who were laid off from their full-time jobs in the past three months have found new, full-time work — up from 41% in March.

That’s according to a recent CareerBuilder survey of 921 employees who were laid off from full-time jobs within the last 12 months.

Another 3% of laid-off workers found part-time work, which is down from 8%.

The survey also looked at a variety of characteristics of the individuals returning to work and found:

• 56% were able to negotiate comparable or higher pay for new positions
• 44% took a pay cut with their new position
• 38% found work in a different field than they were previously employed in, and
• 20% found work in a new city or state.

The bottom line: If you’re in a position to add staff, experts say do it now.

The number of hiring managers reviewing a candidate’s musings, photos, updates and tweets on social media sites has doubled compared with a year ago, when only 22% looked online. And by the end of this year, a further 11% will be checking online profiles before hiring.

In this economy, employers can afford to be picky. And they are. Nearly 35% say they’ve found inappropriate content online that caused them not to hire a candidate.

What turns them off?

• 53% ruled out candidates who had posted inappropriate photos
• 44% eliminated candidates who’d said something about drugs or drinking (a reminder not to tell the world when you have a hangover!)
• 35% said no to applicants who had bad mouthed colleagues, coworkers and previous employers
• 26% discovered job hunters had made discriminatory comments
• 24% found  job hunters had lied about qualifications, and
• 20% discovered that candidates had shared confidential info from previous employers. That could send a red flag that they may take a similar approach to commercially sensitive data.

It’s not all provocative photos and bitching online, found the study of 2,600 hiring managers by CareerBuilder and Harris Interactive.

Some employers have found info on sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, blogs and LinkedIn that have encouraged them to hire candidates.

You may want to ask:

Does the profile of the candidate fit the job description? 50% of employers say candidates’ online activities and profiles confirmed their instincts.

Does the candidate’s bio support their professional qualifications? 39% employers have analyzed this.

Does the candidate show creativity? 39% checked this.

Do they write well? Show solid communication skills? 35% have looked at this.

Have others posted references? That was important to 19% of recruiters.

Of course, what’s inappropriate to one employer may be acceptable to your organization. For example, 14% have eliminated candidates who have sent e-mails with text language like GR8 instead of writing great. That could be a big deal to some recruiters, but irrelevant to others.

Read more on this study at CareerBuilder.

Posted by Julie Power, editor in chief of the Internet Marketing Report Online.  Follow her on Twitter on JuliePower and HRTraining.