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© 2026 WTF is Business Casual
Description
Buckle up for real HR stories that'll make you laugh, cringe, and thank your lucky stars you're not that guy.
WTF is Business Casual is the HR podcast where two seasoned consultants—Sarah Bursten and Jenny Lavey, co-founders of RiseHR—dish on wild workplace fails, toxic bosses, employee drama, and leadership gone wrong. With 35+ years of combined experience in HR, leadership development, and people management, they offer surprisingly useful advice wrapped in real talk and hilarious storytelling.
If you’re an HR professional, small business owner, people manager, or just someone who’s survived office politics, this show is for you.
Subscribe to WTF is Business Casual—because work is weird, leadership is messy, and people always be peopling.
Hosted by Sarah Bursten & Jenny Lavey | RiseHR
www.risehumanresources.com
23 Episodes
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Send a text This week, Jenny and Sarah lean into the weird. They kick it off with an AI interview note-taker that accidentally sent a candidate the hiring team’s unfiltered commentary about other applicants. Yes, really. Including the not-so-flattering parts. It’s a cautionary tale about AI tools, privacy, and why you should absolutely lock down your settings. They also get into: Employees being “forgotten” but still collecting paychecksWhy keeping money you know you shouldn’t have neve...
Send a text This week, Jenny and Sarah tackle the HR landmines small businesses step on all the time. They break down three compliance issues that quietly turn into very loud, very expensive problems: employee misclassification, messy PTO policies, and unpaid interns who legally aren’t interns. First: employee misclassification. Paying someone a salary does not make them exempt. Titles don’t matter. Good intentions don’t matter. If someone should’ve been earning overtime and wasn’t, the Depar...
Send a text This week, Jenny and Sarah tackle a topic that somehow manages to be both extremely relatable and extremely lawsuit-y: swearing at work. It starts with a law update that made both of them do a double take. Turns out, “letting an F-word fly” at work is no longer just a culture question. In some cases, it is a legal one. And in 2024 and 2025, the courts made that line a lot thinner than it used to be. What’s inside this episode: [05:32] Why swearing can make you seem more auth...
Send a text This week, Jenny and Sarah start the year by doing what they do best: collecting a pile of workplace nonsense from the internet and asking the uncomfortable question. Why are we still building work like people are machines? They bounce through everything from four-day workweek studies to open offices, from job hunting on dating apps to LinkedIn slowly becoming Facebook with certificates. Somewhere in the middle, they land on the real issue: work keeps taking more, and nobody seems...
Send a text Rebroadcast: We’re bringing back one of our favorite episodes as hiring ramps up in the new year—and it’s just as relevant now as ever! In this laugh-and-learn episode, Jenny and Sarah take you inside the beautiful mess of modern recruiting. From jaw-dropping candidate missteps to the surprising rise of parental involvement in job applications (yes, it’s happening), they break down what’s really going on behind the interview screen. With plenty of humor and hard-earned HR wisdom, ...
Send a text 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 deve...
Send 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” response...
Send 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 wh...
Send a text Welcome back to WTF is Business Casual, where HR consultants Jenny Levy and Sarah Bursten roast, rant, and reality-check the weird stuff that somehow passes for “normal” in the workplace. This week we’re calling out all the things people still think are fine at work, but absolutely aren’t. From awkward hugs to speakerphone oversharers, cubicles that look like dorm rooms, and the office “Happy Birthday” song no one actually enjoys, Jenny and Sarah break down what’s WTF-acceptable a...
Send a text Gen Z has officially entered the chat and corporate America isn’t ready. Jenny and Sarah rip into the chaos (and low-key brilliance) of the newest generation in the workplace. Are they entitled job hoppers with no soft skills… or the only ones brave enough to call BS on burnout culture? Spoiler: it’s complicated — and very, very human. They unpack everything from Gen Z’s allergy to fake leadership to why they’ll quit faster than you can say “circle back.” Plus, the hosts dra...
Send a text Employers love to say they support work-life balance and encourage you to take your PTO. But here’s the workplace reality: when employees actually unplug, they’re often seen as less committed, and less promotable. Welcome to the detachment paradox. In this episode of WTF is Business Casual?!, Jenny and Sarah unpack the HR bias that rewards “always on” employees and punishes those who set healthy boundaries. It’s the messed-up cycle that fuels employee burnout, slows career growth,...
Send a text Jenny and Sarah rip into the black hole of modern work life: meetings. Endless updates, back-to-back Zooms, and “quick syncs” that somehow eat your entire day. It’s no wonder productivity is tanking. They break down: Why update meetings are the real productivity killersThe hidden cost of meetings when you factor in salaries (spoiler: it’s a lot)How stripping recurring meetings off the calendar could actually fix workplace cultureWith plenty of side-eye for the corporate “I’ll give...
Send a text Jenny and Sarah lay down the leadership boundaries that keep their teams sane, their workdays functional, and their patience intact. From bosses who brag about “open door” policies but vanish when the tough stuff hits, to leaders who think skipping lunch is a sign of commitment (spoiler: it’s not), they’re calling out the habits that quietly wreck morale, and the ones that actually build trust. You’ll get: Boundaries that protect your time and your credibilityHow follow-through tu...
Send a text Jenny and Sarah get real (and a little vulnerable) about what it actually looks like to build something together when your brains couldn’t be wired more differently. From inner monologues that never shut up to brains that see zero pictures when they read (yes, it’s a thing), they unpack how wildly different mental wiring shows up at work, in friendships, and in every tense “are you mad at me?” conversation they’ve ever had. They talk through: Why friction between “big‑picture idea...
Send a text Jenny and Sarah get real about how the pressure to always exceed expectations at work is quietly fueling burnout, quiet quitting, and toxic workplace culture. They swap HR stories (some hilarious, some horrifying) about leaders who demand 24/7 peak performance, and the human cost that follows. It’s messy, honest, and painfully relatable for anyone who’s ever felt PTO guilt or caught themselves trying to be “on” all the damn time. Inside, they break down: A reality check on why “ex...
Send a text Jenny and Sarah get into the HR trenches to talk about every people leader’s favorite nightmare: managing performance issues without a single documented conversation, aka zero receipts! From the leader who drops a “we’ve got to let them go” bomb via text, to the one with a novel-length complaint file (and zero follow-up), they break down the real reason performance management so often goes sideways and how to stop making it harder than it needs to be. This isn’t about paperwork ...
Send a text In this episode of WTF is Business Casual?!, Jenny and Sarah go full rogue with a chaotic, hilarious deep dive into the strange world of workplace shenanigans. The pranks that made the office fun… until they didn’t. This episode is a tribute to the coworker chaos that somehow made your 9-to-5 bearable. You’ll hear: 💻 Why “lock your computer” is more than just IT’s favorite slogan🧀 The cheese prank that cleared a whole office🌶️ A popcorn machine saga featuring jalapeño drama and ...
Send a text In Part Two of our deep dive into the WorkHuman Conference, WTF is Business Casual hosts Jenny and Sarah pick up where they left off—this time digging into the big, bold conversations around AI, leadership, and what it really takes to build a human-centered workplace. Trevor Noah set the tone with humor and heart, reminding us that curiosity isn’t optional—it’s essential. And while AI dominated the agenda, the real takeaway? It’s not about replacing humans. It’s about empowering t...
Send a text In Part One of our two-part deep dive into the WorkHuman HR conference, Sarah and Jenny unpack their favorite moments, biggest surprises, and most impactful insights from the event. They tackle some provocative HR realities—like why your team might be spending a staggering 2.5 hours every day just complaining—and explore eye-opening advice from thought leaders like Adam Grant, who reminds us why simply putting in effort doesn’t always merit an 'A.' Along the way, Sarah and Jenny d...
Send a text In this laugh-and-learn episode, Jenny and Sarah take you inside the beautiful mess of modern recruiting. From jaw-dropping candidate missteps to the surprising rise of parental involvement in job applications (yes, it’s happening), they break down what’s really going on behind the interview screen. With plenty of humor and hard-earned HR wisdom, this episode serves up real talk on how to stand out—in a good way. Whether you're hiring or job hunting, you'll leave with practical ti...
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