A co-worker stated (and I agree) that Essilor feels like we are working in a bad episode of "Mad Men". They treated women and minorities inferior to white men in terms of career advancement. The nicer looking men who are "brown-nosers" and hang out drinking until 4 pm (and sometimes throughout the entire night during meetings) are the ones who have been promoted. I have consistently seen highly-qualified people passed over for promotions, while employees who were under performing, employees who had sales territories that were badly in the red or people who were all-around bottom-kissing slackers were promoted. This happened ALL THE TIME. It was a gross and toxic environment. EVERY SINGLE VP or higher was a older, white male. During a recent National Sales meeting, the comedian hired for the event tried to joke about the lack of diversity saying he commended Essilor for it, "the diversity is astounding, you can either choose a white male with or without hair". Because it was too close to the truth, the joke fell flat.
If you want any form of work-life balance, this is not the company for you. My colleague in the South said it was the same for their team. Expect to work 10 hour days only to come home and have to continue working on SalesForce, multiple reports (weekly, monthly and whatever random requested reports come through at least a few times per week), responding to the 20-70 emails per day, responding to manager and RVP requests, preparing for ride alongs, etc. ) The amount of paperwork and "desk" work was overwhelming considering our roles as outside sales consultants.
