The song's musical style, and production by Timbaland, were heavily inspired by old school hip hop from the early 1980s.

A portion of the song's lyrics helped popularize the slang term "badonkadonk" with mainstream audiences ("Love the way my butt go bum-bump-bum-bump-bump/Keep your eyes on my bum-bump-bum-bump-bump/And think you can handle this badonk-a-donk-donk").

This is present in the explicit and edited versions; the obscured word is meant to be left to the listener's imagination.

The video pays tribute to Aaliyah (1979–2001) and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (1971–2002), who at the time had both recently died.

In shooting the video, director Meyers shot the opening scene with live honey bees; only one crew member was stung.

[10] This was done after people had been asking her why she didn't dance with Missy Elliott and Katy Perry during the 2015 Super Bowl.

[11][failed verification][12] John Bush of AllMusic described the song as "turn[ing] the tables on male rappers, taking charge of the sex game, matching their lewdest, rudest rhymes, and also featuring the most notorious backmasked vocal of the year."

Bush cited the song as an example of Elliott's "artistic progression, trying to push hip-hop forward...neatly emphasizing her differences from other rappers by writing tracks for nearly every facet of the female side of relationships.

Instead, the song stayed at number two for ten weeks, a record that it shares with "Waiting for a Girl Like You" by Foreigner from 1981.

On the Billboard magazine issue dated February 21, 2015, "Work It" re-entered at number 35, more than a decade after its original chart run.