Lush reviews

Where do I even begin. Firstly don’t bother if you are external to the company heading into a management position. They provided me with no foundational training in the mere basics of the role. They threw me in with little to no support, I had to devise my own goals so I had structure and I submitted them to their retail support area (I did/didn’t have a boss just a big group of people who were in charge... make sense of that wacky scenario, anyway I digress) I got no response on my goals until midway through my probation when I was accused of underperforming (the store has never been more profitable since I arrived...) they raised my mental health in the discussion basically wanting me to quit as it would be to much, I refused and they then accused me of not being a culture fit for the company. They had this dumb idea of “frank and honest” discussion instead of proffesional and structured, and blamed the probationary meeting snafu on that, all I got was an apology but not an investigation into the matter or a mediation between me and the individual. This probation meeting was verging on unlawful and was a fine line towards discrimination for the mere fact that I suffer ADHD and Anxiety related disorders (apparently those things are limiting, which is a load of crap and I have been a successful manager at other companies and made a transition to one that is a dud) I then went on to find out they wanted to conduct a staff survey on my suitability for the role, the staff had been difficult from day one and considered me to be an enemy as I wasn’t from within Lush and they were toxic as hell, but hey I didn’t let that get to me at first until I realised they will make or break my ability to still be employed and they used that to their advantage. I was basically a servant in my own store to them and it was awful. As some backstory the team hated their previous manager and used the supervisors long standing with the company to treat her like dirt and undermined her then attempted to do the same to me, and hey it worked because retail support would not assist in any way in helping put an end to this. They simply kept saying “it’s a soft skill, we can’t help you”, I mean they could have cleaned up before I arrived and set boundaries and I don’t know, put effort into it. Given this I decided to leave. Some more back story, until 2017 the company didn’t have a established HR department, nor did they have a safety officer, the stores are unsafe and basically a death trap, I have heard of awful injuries from long standing staff and horrible breaches of the fair work act from retail support and management on a whole and witnessing this was just horrible, I tried my hardest to raise these issues with head office and it was not acted on, it’s only a matter of time until something serious happens and then they will be guilty of not listening. They have one safety officer over looking 45+ stores and manufacturing... like one person dealing with all that, and if we did have safety reps, I have no clue who they were. I had no safety training when I arrived nor did my team, I had to google safety modules for retail and train them myself. This company has the potential to be a utopia for all retail companies to look towards, but instead they are stuck in a period of transition and don’t seem to be rushing to make the company a better place for external managers to enter into, but hey... bathbombs... yay... I guess

*Bamboozled and berated to the point of tears by HR staff member within a week of employment with false claims from employees. The reason for the meeting was not told to me prior (they acted like it was this happy, good, normal thing to meet up) and I wasn't given 24 hours notice. *They broke Fair Work policy on numerous occasions (including above). *Threw me into the managerial deep end and expected me to swim. *Treated like dirt by my trainer who was based in Sydney, so I couldn't ask for her help, and was advised to "call the main office" whenever I had an issue. *Expected to recruit an assistant manager within the first two weeks of my role, as well as other staff members. *I had no managerial support on the front line, as all their managers quit before I came (one store manager, one assistant manager, three supervisors). I was the one holding up the ship and I still hadn't been trained properly. That should have been my hint to leave then and there! *Employees don't respect "new" outsider management and want you to be their friend. If you don't become their friend, they'll make up false claims about you. *Because I wasn't a former LUSH employee before becoming manager, I was seen as a threat to their usual way of doing things and they wanted me gone (even though I was knowledgeable and passionate about the range and had the right amount of experience for the role). *Upper management expect you to do absolutely everything, including troubleshooting HR and payroll issues. *Berating from upper management if ridiculous targets weren't met. *Forced to harass customers into buying products they don't need or want. Saw many customers with baskets of items dump them and leave due to this. *Forced to demonstrate products on customers who clearly don't want to be harassed. It made us both uncomfortable. *Faulty automatic customer counter at the door meant that my sales results were inaccurate, and yes, got berated for that even though it wasn't my fault. *Printer didn't work the entire time I was there. Told to walk 10 minutes to Officeworks and back whenever I needed printing done instead of being advised on who to call to fix it. *"New" POS systems were absolute trash, and would cut out all the time. Was told that they refuse to support Microsoft and that Google are "morally a better company", so that's why they used it, instead of using tried and true POS systems (facepalm moment right there). *Wanted me to be a walking talking political activist instead of managing employees. Was frowned upon for not being a member of the far left and shamed for it. *Wanted me to sell sell sell like an employee instead of managing employees and working on establishing myself in the managerial role. *The employee/management area is a thin rectangular strip of a back room (approx 1m x 5m) with one bar stool and no table. Boxes of stock and employee belongings take up half the space. The bar stool is hit by the door each time it opens. How could I conduct payroll activities, meet with employees, organise rostering, organise ordering, have a moment of peace to take phone calls/answer emails? Where was I meant to set up a laptop? *The work laptop they gave me... They didn't have the code for it and forced me to call tech support and spend hours of my day chasing it up. I left before I was even able to log into my work laptop. *I quit after two weeks. The impact this experience had on my mental and physical health was insane. Don't do it guys. Don't even be a casual shop assistant. It's not worth it.