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Development planning is the most ignored, and most misunderstood, part of performance management.

In this episode of WTF is Business Casual, HR consultants Jenny Levy and Sarah Burston break down why development planning deserves its own lane and why bundling it into performance reviews quietly wrecks employee growth, engagement, and retention.

This is Part Two of their performance management series, focused on the forward-looking side of work.

What’s inside this episode:

• Why development planning deserves its own conversation separate from performance reviews
• Why tying development to compensation creates false expectations
• What Individual Development Plans are supposed to do versus what they usually become
• Why training is the smallest piece of real development
• How on-the-job learning actually builds skills leaders care about
• The problem with leaders deciding career paths without asking employees what they want
• Why succession planning often ignores human reality
• How lateral moves develop people without inflating titles
• Why growth doesn’t look the same in every season of life
• What leaders owe employees when they say they “care about development”

Listen to Part 1: Performance Reviews Are Broken (Part 1): The Messy Reality of Workplace Evaluation

Want Practical Tools Without Corporate Jargon?

Jenny and Sarah also share details about upcoming free HR training sessions through Rise HR, focused on continuous feedback, development tools, and modern performance management for small and mid-size businesses.

Visit our website: RISE Human Resources

Book a call: 30 Min HR Consultation

Follow us on Instagram: WTF is Business Casual

Send us a text

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.

Visit our website: RISE Human Resources

Book a call: 30 Min HR Consultation

Follow us on Instagram: WTF is Business Casual

Send us a text

Cold and flu season has arrived, and Jenny and Sarah have officially reached their breaking point. This week, they break down the circus of people dragging themselves into the office sick, logging onto Zoom while sweating through a fever, or insisting it’s “just allergies” in the middle of December.

From vomiting kids to adults powering through meetings mid-retch, this episode gets blunt about how unhinged workplace culture has become around “pushing through.” The hosts explain why showing up sick isn’t brave, why it’s often selfish, and why everyone else is tired of catching your germs.

This week’s chaos includes:

• A car ride that felt like a biohazard event
• A client who tried to finish a Zoom call while actively throwing up
• Kids who refuse to drink water and are confused when their throat hurts
• Adults claiming “winter allergies” while running a fever
• Jenny’s emergency plan for vomiting during a video call (step one: slam laptop shut)
• How France sees working sick as selfish while the U.S. calls it dedication
• The badge-of-honor culture that keeps people working when they should be in bed
• The germ gauntlet of parenting small children
• People with paid sick leave who refuse to take it
• A reminder that potluck food handled by children should be illegal

Jenny and Sarah say it plainly:
If you're too sick to be in the office, you're too sick to “just check email.”

Take the day.
Drink some water.
Stop distributing your germs like confetti.

Key takeaways:

1. Your company can replace you faster than it can fix your immune system.
2. Rest is essential, not optional.
3. No one is impressed when you show up sick.
4. Closing your laptop immediately removes you from a Teams call. Use that information wisely.

Listen in for an unfiltered breakdown of why sick-at-work culture makes no sense, why boundaries matter, and why rest is part of being a functioning adult human.

Visit our website: RISE Human Resources

Book a call: 30 Min HR Consultation

Follow us on Instagram: WTF is Business Casual