Sephora

Stores & Services
Find a Sephora

Happening at Sephora

View all

Services

From makeovers to personalized skincare consultations

Free Classes

Get inspired, play with products & learn new skills

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Post in Besides Beauty
|

the firing of sephora partime workers.

the way sephora or the head of one of the richest companies louis Vuitton group fired these employees was unethical..degrading at this time...
31 Replies
AnonymousInsider

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

I would like to know if ANY of Sephoras CEO took a pay cut like they forced all the rest of the Sephora employees to do.

AnonymousInsider

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

Luxury segment has been hit hard since the COVID-19 started raging in China. Add to that Sephora has locations in over 30 countries (thousands of stores). Now when COVID-19 forced most countries in the world to enter a variety of quarantine regimes, one has to realize how much support the company can possibly provide to its employees in 34 countries while suffering financial losses. If they didn’t let go their part time employees, their full time employees would have had to carry the burden of that decision. 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@nat57 

I’ve seen/heard many people shocked at the way Sephora let part timers go. And yes, the method is kinda sucky. But it’s not uncommon. My former employer—a company much larger than Sephora, with many more employees—has “surplussed” waves of employees via short-notice conference call at least twice a year for the last decade. 

 

“Surplus” is corporatespeak for “we’re not outright firing you today, but we’ve eliminated your job. But see, we’re not total jerks: we’re giving you a couple months to find another job within the company—just not with your current organization/business unit, probably not in your field of expertise, and most likely not in your geographic location—and if you haven’t by then, well, then we’re firing you. Okay bye now!” This happens to both hourly and salaried full time employees. It’s what happened to me (and MANY other salaried employees at the same time, some of whom were also in my geo location) last year, and I’m honestly surprised it didn’t happen sooner. The only positives were my severance package and getting out from under an incredibly toxic and demeaning work atmosphere, which hadn’t always been that way (once upon a time I loved my job) but that’s a long story for later. 

 

My point: many companies cut employees via last-minute mass conference calls, during which someone reads from a legally crafted script and leaves no time at the end for questions/comments. That’s how it’s done, folks. Yes, it sucks, and the fact that it’s common practice doesn’t make it any less sucky. I’m just saying it’s not unusual. I would not be shocked at all if Ulta decided to do the same later this month. 🤷‍♀️ Sephora’s trying to keep full timer paid. At some point, Ulta might have to make cuts to care for their full timers, too. 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@WinglessOne 

Ulta did today. 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@GG84  Ah, and I see they announced it yesterday. I’m not even a tiny bit surprised. 

RE: the firing of sephora partime workers.

I guess I will be taking my business elsewhere from now. I always said, after this is done and said I will only give my business to companies that treated their employees with care and class. My sister will also be taking their business to Ulta.

Re: RE: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@Brutalitops @GG84 @pocketvenus I read an article somewhere, and forgive me for not remembering the details, but they were talking about how all these multinational corporations are looking for handouts from the government.  The key point was that these corporations, instead of reinvesting in themselves, chose to pay share holders and keep their liquidity at a minimum because they know any time there's a financial crunch they can go hat in hand to the government and get some kind of bail out for their piss poor planning.

 

Meanwhile, the average joe who doesn't have a financial safety net gets reamed when s/he doesn't have funds to tide themselves over.  And we have a political party on the right that wants to cut every last bit of social safety net from the average joe with the reasoning that this is going to lower taxes and give the average joe the ability to save money on their own.

 

I just can't stand the hypocrisy of "big money needs bailouts" but telling the average american that access to healthcare and education is a privilege not a right.  The government will bail out CEOs a thousand times over before they consider providing assistance to the people.  

 

If this makes you mad, get out and vote, and tell your friends and family to vote, too.

Re: RE: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@itscarin 

Yes, we can see the decimation of public services and the labour movement since the late 1970s has led to a real increase in precarity for most workers. It seems to me that half a century of fiscal policies like the post 2008 austerity measures have led to a general attitude that this is just the way things are, as if tax cuts for the wealthiest members of society or fiscal policies and regulations are an immutable fact of life, like gravity.

 

Human rights need to be fought for whether it's rights for women, people of colour, LGBTQ people, or workers and you're right, voting is one way to push back when you live in a democracy. At one point, child labour and slavery were legal. Things Canadians consider absolutely basic, like the right to a safe working environment or parental leaves, were not always legal requirements. Those who profited from these kinds of exploitation didn't just decide one day they felt like paying for these rights, people had to organize and fight for them. We are still fighting for basics like employers paying for sick days during a PANDEMIC.

Re: RE: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@itscarinExactly. I also (currently, unfortunately) live in Wisconsin, if you happened to see what a rigged s*** show our very recent election just was

Re: RE: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@itscarin 

I’m not American so..

 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

It is true that all businesses are struggling now. But it is also true that many of those who helm these massive, multinational corporations have amassed truly obscene amounts of wealth, esp in the post-2008 years. That concentration of wealth away from pricey public services like healthcare and the general squeezing of the labour force toward more contingent, precarious work, has weakened our societies' ability to handle an already terrible situation. I think more than ever, we need to not overlook the structural social inequalities that exacerbate crises like covid and climate change in ways that damage our ability to respond to them and to protect our own lives and health.

 

I read the CEO of Canada Goose is not taking a salary for at least three months, CG is adapting production to create PPE for frontline healthcare workers and will produce this all at cost. CG has also created an emergency fund for "impacted" workers who don't qualify for EI which I assume means they were fired. This is like, the bare minimum of what I'd like to see from executives at this time.

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

Absolutely agreed @pocketvenus, very well put. Especially in this context as many if not most retail employees are kept at part time status to save the company the cost of benefits like healthcare under normal operating conditions which forces many to get second jobs (if even possible with the utterly stupid schedules some of these places have) or remain underemployed and underpaid

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

Apparently Ulta is still paying their team and gave warehouse workers a $2/hr raise. So, *removes items from cart* 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

While Ulta hasn't done the mass layoffs yet, I wouldn't be surprised if that comes down the pipeline after April 18 (the date they've been given payment details thru). Also, the Sephora statement did in fact say they have increased hourly pay for their warehouse workers as well. 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

I’m not sure how you aren’t looking at the bigger picture. I read the above pinned statement and my take on the situation, which is not unique to Sephora - thousands of companies are going through the same thing is different. No company of that size can afford to indefinitely pay employees who are not working. Myself I lost my job. We are all going through the same thing collectively as a world. 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

That sucks @GG84, but while generally a lot of places are going through a hard time sephora is still selling product here online, so they should presumably still have some of the cash flow necessary to do more

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

@Brutalitops 

Respectfully disagree. The overhead they have in product alone must cost a fortune. I work(ed) with business owners everyday, while none were of the magnitude of Sephora, I did have some very large businesses. Even with e-com you cannot sustain regular operational expenses. Think of all the overhead in product, rent in malls and power centres - it would be impossible for them not to cut costs somewhere. Yeah it sucks for the people affected however millions of people are right there with them in the same boat. 

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

That's a fair point @GG84, I still feel they can/should do more but without knowing the actual numbers there's really no way for me to say definitively and there is certainly stuff I don't know

Re: the firing of sephora partime workers.

Sadly it's not just Sephora that is letting employees go during this time. Look at WestJet, Air Canada, Delta Airlines... Look at all the hotel chains that are shutting their doors. While I'm sure they are also seen as "rich", that's not necessarily the bottom line. 

I'm sure Sephora letting PT employees go was not an easy decision, especially in a day of age with social media, and people voicing their concerns and having to worry about the backlash of it. But I wouldn't consider it "unethical" consider how many other company's are laying off many, many more workers during this time to stay afloat. 

I've been fired over the phone without cause from a job I...

I've been fired over the phone without cause from a job I worked full time and was promoted into. You guys seem very naive.
Conversation Stats
  • 31 replies
  • 10036 views
  • 83 Hearts Given
  • 16 Contributors