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This week, Jenny and Sarah drag the workplace ritual everyone hates: performance reviews. They open with a simple truth HR has known forever. Nobody likes them, nobody trusts them, and nobody thinks they actually work. Managers dread writing them. Employees dread reading them. Yet here we are, still clinging to a system that feels older than a fax machine.

And yes, they get into the cultural shift that has managers terrified to say anything direct, the rise of “triggered” responses in the workplace, and the confusion leaders feel when employees treat normal feedback like a personal attack. The conversation gets honest about accountability, psychological safety, and why discomfort is not the same as danger.

What’s inside this episode:

• Why everyone complains about performance reviews but nobody changes them
• The four pieces of performance management that companies mix up constantly
• What continuous feedback actually looks like when it’s not performative nonsense
• Why managers need to stop blending praise, coaching, and conflict into one chaotic meeting
• The problem with leaders who want to fire someone but never documented a thing
• When corrective action is appropriate — and why clarity matters more than comfort
• The real difference between doing your job and “going above and beyond”
• Why market adjustments, merit, promotions, and bonuses should never be lumped together
• How generational shifts and therapy language have changed workplace conversations
• What managers owe employees, what employees owe themselves, and what HR is tired of explaining

Jenny and Sarah don’t pretend performance reviews are going anywhere tomorrow. But they do challenge the entire way we think about them, and push for a version that’s clearer, kinder, and way less convoluted.

Hit play for unfiltered HR truth, some laughs, and the reassurance that if you hate performance reviews, you’re not alone, and you’re not wrong.

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