- Management
At Sephora, the difference between what makes a BOSS and a LEADER is very apparent, and unfortunately I was in the former situation. I was confused as to what my role was from day one, I never had any clear direction. Myself and members of my team were constantly shamed for simple mistakes (which occurred frequently due to time constraints and lack of training), and for not knowing what we were supposed to be doing. Responsibilities would often be pushed on the team without any form of training or communication of expectations, and we would be harshly criticized when we had no clue as to how to do the job. We were given minimal time to learn and understand something, and were expected to be subject matter experts regardless. We were often told to know as much as the developers or engineers that owned the respective system or app, which is literally impossible without technical training. We were set up for failure constantly. No one on the team respected the word of management, and everyone had resentment for the constant negativity. It was a bad sign when everyone on the team was apathetic to the success of the team and relentlessly bored because of the lack of true leadership. I eventually learned not to care about what management thought (for the sake of my health), and I put as minimal of myself as possible into the job. I think the goal of a leader would be to want you to care by inspiring you to be a crucial part of the company, which was not at all what I experienced.
- Work life balance.
Although this is a value that the company pushes, it does not exist. It is actually reminiscent of the concept of "doublethink" from George Orwell's novel '1984', where Sephora is very aware that people are incredibly overworked, but espouses "Work Life Balance" like it's one of their best virtues. It's contradictory to say the least. Management is very aware of this situation, and does absolutely nothing to relieve it. Everyone was working constantly, 24/7. It's understandable to work some overtime, but when it happens because your team is incredibly mismanaged, and not at all run in an efficient way, it's unacceptable. I was literally told: "You never want to be known as the guy that leaves on time." I was expected to work late, for no other reason than having the appearance of being productive. The appearance of being productive was more important to management then actually producing value. It didn't seem to matter that we were all working on our own time outside of the office, afterhours and on weekends, just to keep up with the workload and deal with constant high priority issues. Good luck asking for comp time for all the afterhours work, management will make it as difficult as possible.
- Career growth
One of the things that Sephora seems to be proud of is the ability for employees to grow their career at the company. The company states that you will have many opportunities to grow and advance your career, but unfortunately this is another case of doublethink. A rare employee here and there will be given an opportunity, seemingly due to nepotism, and most qualified employees will be passed up. In reality, management could care less about promoting their employees, and will hire outside of the company to fill roles. They completely fail at recognizing employee talent and potential in their own teams. This causes much frustration and despair to say the least. People deserve transparency in the job that is offered to them. We were all told that the job could lead to advancement in the company, which was just not true. If you promise growth, career advancement, learning, then provide it. Otherwise, be honest and state the facts: what you are requiring out of candidates is someone that will do only one specific role, and WILL NOT have opportunities of advancement at Sephora. Sephora is not a place where everyone has a seat at the table, that is a complete lie.
- Training
When I was hired on, there was promise that I could get proper training and have funding for classes to improve my skills. This did not happen. I was denied classes I wanted to take (even though there was dedicated budget for this, and the classes were relevant to my job). I was put into positions where I was definitely under qualified (which is fine, and actually a normal deal), but was given absolutely no room to learn (not fine). In fact, I was often shamed for not knowing something, and shamed for when I would ask someone else for help. I was expected to learn intricate new technology on my own time, which frustrated me because my team had funding to pay for training. It seemed like a no brainer to pay for the employees training, but management seemed more interested in using the money to fly themselves out to expensive conferences.
- Day to day operations.
Many of the day to day process are incredibly wasteful and redundant. Any ideas or opportunities to improve the processes or automate certain tasks are (usually) shot down, because there is a status quo. This really kills any sort of ingenuity you might get from creative people; no one is going to want to make things better if they get berated for thinking different. Often, you are working on something for no reason other than management has busy work for you to do. Again, the appearance of doing work seems to trump creating any real value. Many people get by, because they have mastered the act of looking busy. I saw quite a few people literally surf the web for hours out of the day, and actually work on real tasks for a small fraction. Bottom line is that the environment is not designed for creating real value, and enables lazy people to surf through their jobs by pretending to look busy (at least until they get bored and quit.)
- Human Resources.
The final issue, and possibly the worst, is HR's lack of responsibility and action. I know countless people that have complained to HR regarding mismanagement, shaming, favoritism, unfulfilled promises on training, lack of career advancement, etc. Not one thing was done to improve upon these issues. In fact, what it seems is that HR's only interest was in protecting the company, and you would be naïve to think anything else. Everything they do seems to revolve around covering their tracks and ensuring the company is not open for a lawsuit. I don't want to saw much more about this other than HR fails so bad, that employees have no trust in HR and will avoid talking to them. This sentiment was held by most of the people I met at Sephora.
