My experience at Aēsop started as a love story, a lovely brand with impeccable design, great care of us retail consultants at the start and lovely training but this has all changed within the last year.
The brand now focuses merely on making profit and push all retail employees on their KPIs without looking at the bigger picture.
Management at Aēsop is horrible. Store managers all micro manage everyone and complain about everything without even doing the bare minimum chores and setting the example. In two years I have worked with 12 different employees that all left because of the toxic environment store manager created, bare in mind this year retail turnover was massive over 70%; talking behind customers and colleagues back with racist, sexist and homophobic remarks. Clearly showing favoritism towards specific staff members and comparing colleagues. Micromanaging seems like the key skills required to be a manager at Aesop as no trust is given to the staff; asking others if a certain person arrived late, if they cleaned, assuming they don’t, complaining for leaving on time…or worse, destroying any initiatives to make work life better. Passive aggressive behavior is constant, e.g. if you are quiet they say you are unprofessional, if you got a new haircut, grooming policies are sent in the group chat
Upper management such as RBM will force managers to cut people hours forbidding part timer to do overtime without even talking to them which caused me to be in big financial insecurity with no warnings. Management will talk in your name without even consulting you such as cancellation of your participation in internal opportunities without communicating it to you.
I highly discourage anyone to work as a part-timer for Aesop as you will clearly be treated as a nobody by everyone and will be used as a chess piece to cover other stores at anytime without notice. Aesop used to ask if it was okay to cover other store sometimes which was fun but now they don’t ask you anything and will send you at the other side of the city to cover 45 mins without paying commute. If you work in a department store it will be even worse as they dont try to understand that it works completely differently than signature stores and will always compare you to them.
If your store is not performing well you will be thrown around even giving three deliveries to do in one week, managers never helping for deliveries and always giving it to the man of the team. Working department store will also mean no free products or written off, no snacks, no samples given as managers are scared of the department store managers.
Working as a part timer for this brand also means HR will never take your complaints seriously even if it is for bullying others.
This brand is putting stress on everyone for the surprise visits of head office and ceos of the company so everyone is always under the stress and forced to do useless tasks to appear busy. Head office staff, when visiting dont even address a word to you but just the manager. There is a serious lack of trust and respect when it comes to sickness and days off as you will be questioned whether you are really sick, be contacted on days off. For instance, my number was given to contractors of the store without my knowledge.
The company never invest in their internal talents unless you are super close to upper management and will even reject you for moving stores if they deem your kpis to be low. They are forced to give feedback to internal opportunities rejection but never give them. There is a big lack of diversity in upper management which showcase in the mentality of the managers. I was told all Asians look the same, Asians people cant dance, Asian food looks scary or “I love working with Asians because they dont complain and work hard”.
Avoid this company as they now prioritize profit and lost their human side. Great products and great branding, all the rest is bad.
