NOT best place to work(corporate not stores) - Anonymous employee Sephora Employee Review

2.0
18 Mar 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lets talk about the PROS first because to be fair there are great things about Sephora corporate and I would be remiss to not mention them. Sephora corporate or as we call it FSC is pretty laid back overall. They don't require you to work full 8hr days all the time and you can call in sick when ever needed. There are Summer Fridays which allows employees to work 1/2 a day during the Summer months on Fridays. Sephora also is an exciting place to work because of the connection to pop culture and trends. Sephora also has some of the hardest working employees in all of San Francisco, very talented and devoted passionate people who care about their work. Lots of employees worked their ways up to corporate from stores and that's great to see.

Cons

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Like many current employees I'm blowing the dust off my resume and updating my linkedin page. I say blowing off the dust because many of us have been at Sephora for years, and now we recognize how awful the culture and corporate leadership has become. It's sad on a personal level because many of us grew up professionally with Sephora and we used to be part of a nurturing and successful corporate leadership team. Over the last few years the upper tiers or the Executive Team have changed hands including our CEO aka 'Calculator and Chief' Calvin McDonald. The CEO is all about numbers and oh boy do we hear about numbers when he takes the stage at events, we all snore through his lack luster presentations and sneak peaks at our phones and whisper to our neighbors while he tries to explain over and over again why Sephora is "WINNING" in retail but at the same time LOSING amongst it's own employees. You see, our new Executive Team puts money first and culture last, it puts corporate earnings above employee's value. I say this because Sephora is doing tremendous in sales but at the cost of employee's value aka salary/bonus. We all saw another blockbuster year at Sephora but the Executive team lead by Calvin McDonald managed our money so poorly that we all lost 1/2 of our earned bonus, yes HALF. I say our money because the money that was mismanaged was the same pot of money our bonus comes from. Anyone who knows Sephora corporate knows we all live and depend on our annual bonus since Sephora does not offer competitive salaries, and this year the Executive Team arrogantly spent our money on "Doubling the Business" a complete and fabricated nonsense business goal because it sounds catchy. The coming months are going to be brutal for the top heads at Sephora, as they attempt to explain to their bosses in France as to why there is an employee base mass exodus. And when they learn that the money was just one of the issues and that the main reason people are leaving is because of the vanishing of the Sephora Culture and Heart, then maybe, MAYBE they will realize that the empire is burning from within and not from outside forces. I'm sad, I really am that Sephora is no longer anywhere close to being the best place to work and it's a real shame.

Explore other reviews about Sephora

5.0
21 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Management was nice, people I worked with were nice, fast pased enviroment.

Cons

Hard to request off at times and a lot of demmand.

3.0
18 Mar 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Loved learning more about products and working with most of the other team members. Helping people find products that worked for them was really fun.

Cons

Managers are WEIRD. They play favorites and will talk about it while you are standing right there. Practically make you beg for hours. If you are anything other than the current viral makeup style look, you will get less opportunities. Leadership acts like mean high school girls. Working here took away a lot of my passion for the beauty industry for a long time. Also, when it comes to gratis - why are you letting certain managers walk out with 4 bags of things that they have hand picked? Then leaving whatever they discarded to be handed out??? Constantly had missing gratis from my bag because of managers going through the products they wanted. Scheduling is not flexible or even makes sense. Whoever they like gets better shifts. Would constantly have extra shifts added with no notice until an hour before the shift. Or shifts taken away because a favorite wanted them.

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