This week on Undercover Boss Canada. A soap and cosmetics giant leathers up for a big change. Lush is currently embarking on some pretty aggressive expansion. But have they got what it takes? I don't have the raw materials.
Oh, oh, see, look, I got distracted. Boss Brandi Halls is about to take on a secret assignment. Thanks for coming in.
I want you to go undercover in disguise. I'm on board. She'll go from power-dressing brunette to bubbly blonde. From top floor to shop floor. Oh!
There's a lot to know here. Is this overtime because I was so slow? All on you. And what she finds out will change the way they do business forever. So this is it.
This is it. We are out of stock on that one. It feels kind of like a jail.
When her week of covert inspections is up, she'll return to HQ. You look different. And reward the workers she's met. Oh my God.
And someone's life will truly be transformed forever. Ah! With the world economy in a fragile state, top corporations must adapt to survive. The bosses of some of Canada's biggest companies are about to take extreme action. To stay ahead of the game, they're going undercover in their own organizations.
Lush Cosmetics has been handcrafting bath and beauty products out of fresh ingredients since 1995. In Canada, a staff of just 350 makes all the products for North America. While a few thousand more sell the lotions, potions, and soaps in 160 retail locations. And the company plans to double its stores over the next three years.
I'm Mark Wolverton, president and CEO of Lush Cosmetics. Brought Lush to North America in 1996. In 2007, we started expanding and we opened about 45 stores in a very short period of time. But the existing stores suffered.
In addition to that, the manufacturing teams ended up with a lot more stress than they probably should have had to deal with. So this time I want to make sure that we plan properly. I can't go undercover myself because I have a lot of interaction with our staff at every level. I'm Brandy Halls, the Director of Brand Communications for Lush North America, and I lead all the teams that are responsible for communicating the brand story and brand messages to the public.
Brandy is a great choice to go undercover for me. because she has worked in many parts of the business. I've got something really important that I want you to do for me. Okay. I want you to go undercover in the shops and in the factory and talk with the staff and find out the challenges that they're having. Wow.
I'm going to give you the authority to make any changes that you see fit. All right. I think this sounds amazing, and I'm on board.
Excellent. We're looking at the new plans. I've been with Lush for 10 years.
I graduated from university with a degree in communications and one week after that landed my job here at Lush. I started as the PR assistant. At that time the business was much smaller and I got a really good understanding as to how the business works.
I'm a vegetarian. I'm an animal lover. I try to lessen my personal impact on the environment.
I am the woman who would walk into Lush. I have a crazy life. I live between New York and Vancouver. I spend tons of time in flight, in airports, in taxis.
I have my family in Vancouver. I have my boyfriend in New York. I'm here, there, and everywhere.
And all the while trying to maintain my workload and also my personal life alongside that. Let's cheers to Brandy on a great adventure. Her adventure.
Yeah! I grew up in North Vancouver. I'm the youngest of three daughters in my family. My mother's side is First Nations.
My grandfather was actually the honorary chief of the Squamish Nation, which is a tribe that my sisters and my mother and I belong to. My grandfather was the one who really instilled in me this strong desire to have an education. I used that to advance myself in a career.
LUSH is currently embarking on some pretty aggressive expansion. We are about to double. Our store count base.
With that comes growing the business in order to support that expansion. It's the growing pains Brandy's most concerned about. I have a big announcement that I want to share with you guys that's going to impact the business. We've been experiencing some really significant growth over the last few years.
In light of that, Mark has asked me to work in disguise in our shops and on our... Factory floors. Wow! Wow! Good luck!
Mark has also given me authority to make some changes along the way based on the things that I discover when I'm out there. Might be tough decisions, but I'm looking forward to the challenge and hopefully we'll find some things that we can clean up for the big push to open all these shops. Alright.
Sound good? Alright. While I'm undercover, I'll be assuming the identity of Catherine Maines, telling everyone I'm from Kelowna, BC, and I've spent the past 10 years working at a cosmetics counter at a local drugstore.
I'll be posing as a new employee who's being followed by film crew making a documentary about the cosmetics industry. Get out of here! She's my baby daughter and I didn't even recognize her.
The boots and the scarf, Brandi would not be caught dead in. If I saw her walking down the street, I would never notice that was my aunt. Did you?
Not, not at all. Bye, aunt! Bye, honey. I'm quite confident in the knowledge that I have of the products and the brand. So it's going to be difficult to dumb that down.
And I'm a little concerned about being on my feet all day. Going undercover is definitely going to take me out of my comfort zone. Coming up, Brandi discovers the highs and lows of life on the shop floor.
This is very jail-like. And later, a Brandi botch-up throws the entire factory into chaos. Everyone's pretty much hustling as fast as they can to get this done. Yesterday, Brandi Halls was working on the fly as the bi-coastal boss of Lush Cosmetics. But in the last 24 hours, she's taken on a new idea.
and is about to start her first day posing as a trainee called Catherine. I'm on my way to one of our busiest stores in Canada and it's Saturday. Because we don't advertise, we rely on a positive in-store experience for our customers that will translate into new customers by word of mouth. I need to make sure that this is happening. Excuse me.
Hi. I'm looking for Sina. Yes. Sina has no idea his trainee is the boss in disguise. Hello.
I love your sparkle. Oh, thanks. Sparkle glitter. Girl, get it.
Okay, so come with me. How are you feeling? I'm a little bit nervous. Okay.
I don't know anything about this company. Your mind is going to be a little bit blown. Everything you're looking at is hand-painted. Think of us like the hippie cosmetic company. We very much are hippie.
Besides being a flexible worker, Sina's a walking encyclopedia of lush knowledge. Body lotion, shower jellies, shampoo bar. He has to know how to... products are packaged. All right.
These are actually edible. Just, probably got a soapy piece. What their ingredients are.
What's making a fizz like this? Sodium bicarbonate. Baking soda.
Baking soda. And how to use them. This is going to stimulate that bath water running.
Do you see the bubbles? Yeah, that's amazing. Have you ever seen the Lush commercial on TV? No.
We're more about sharing through word of mouth. We know our products are good. So if you get great customer service, if you get amazing products. You're inclined to tell people about that.
Sina has a great energy about him. He has the passion that we look for in an employee. What brings you in, what's up?
This is Cass, right? These are all bubble baths. This one's cooler.
Well, this one's like the best. Customer service is extremely important. They all have their own fragrance. It's Play-Doh that you can use as bubble bath, shampoo, and soap.
It can make or break a sale. People can come into a store and not expect them to buy anything. Make that.
connection with a sales associate and leave the store buying a hundred dollars worth of product all made in Canada yep done enjoy you're welcome hey I just sold the tin that's sorry for swearing that's really amazing yeah that's like a $60 sale Wow go ahead and scan is there a spot on this yes there you go yeah sorry I'm new so then I do I have no idea what's next he's a little stressful working the cash there's a There's a lot to know here. The first few transactions, she had a lot to learn. There's a lot of names to remember. It's a little slow. No.
It's her first day. Meet Catherine. She's learning.
She was doing a really good job of training me, but I just felt a little bit frantic over here. She's getting it. Bye.
Do you want your receipt? Oh, sorry. I messed up there.
Something always throws you off for the loo. Like something goes wrong with the TIL system. That one doesn't take certain bank cards.
This one... machine. Yeah.
When a line's forming that must sort of mess with the... It slows everything down. Yeah.
And obviously it's an inconvenience for the customer because it's like sorry you can't pay here. I'm not sure why the two tills that are sitting right next to each other differ in any way. They should be taking all cards.
So that's something that I would want to look into. What are they doing? I don't know what's happening. Loud and proud.
When staff gets up on the chair and kind of screams, it's called a Loud and Proud. Basically what that is, is showing a huge entire group of people one certain product. So we do make a lot of sales through those, yeah. Dunk it in the box!
Oh, whoo! Get a good lift. of this love battle. Who feels great today? Girl, grab some bubbles in your hand.
High five, one, two, three, go! Ah! That was fun. It's exactly what Lush is about.
Is there a uniform, dress code? What is... Black or white. Lush did not look like this two years ago.
There was more color and staff were allowed to wear whatever they want. And I wish it was still like that, to be very frank and honest. This is very jail-like.
Feels like a jail. You wouldn't expect to see white and black walls with white and black packaging. And what made Lush so great was having that color, being able to wear what you want and being expressive.
Being described as being like jail, I was really saddened by that because I think we do a lot of work to make the brand consistent. So were you born here in Canada? No, I wasn't born here in Canada. I was born in Iran. Then we moved to the Philippines, then we came to Canada, but we came here with no money.
We had no money. We knew someone living in the area, and they had a family of three and a dog. And a two bedroom apartment. You all lived there? We all lived there at one point.
Seven of you and a dog? Seven of us and a dog. What was it like for you growing up?
I guess the hardest part was high school. High school was really hard for me. What was going on for you? I got a lot of hate for being LGBT.
I got a lot of hate for my... my skin and the way I looked at the time. Kids can be so mean. When I came out as gay in high school, my best friend at the time, who used to be my bully, actually, became my bully again because I came out. And I lost my best friend because of it.
That's when things started to go downhill. I couldn't handle it, I wanted to kill myself. I think around a year ago, my mom found a suicide note that I forgot to throw away. And that's when she found out how bad it was. And there are moments where I came this close to actually doing it.
But I just decided not to it's not worth it. I was completely shocked Incredibly energetic and positive with me and it's really hard to hear that story from him someone who I've really grown to like today This is charity pot all the proceeds go to the charities that we support for example I get forward is a charity based in Guatemala and basically what they do is they build schools out of plastic recycled bottles I think that the charities are awesome, and I do I'll push them as much as I possibly can. Do you mind if I show you something?
Has anyone told you about Charity Pot? Has anyone showed you this? Fairtrade organic cocoa butter.
100% of the proceeds will go to charity. They each have different charities on the top. Let's do the animal one because my daughter is so animal-oriented. Oh, is she?
Alright, well, I look forward to seeing you again. That was really good. That was perfect.
It felt fantastic to sell Charity Pot. I talk about it all the time. So it felt good to put that inside that gift box and know that it's going to be given to someone else with love.
Really, really awesome job. Thank you. Hopefully I've inspired you, my people, and I'll see you soon. Thank you, it was so fun working with you. Sina was a great representative of the brand and his customer service was exactly where I wanted to be.
I couldn't be more satisfied with what I found today. Coming up, is the new trainee about to get her pink slip? I made a big boob here.
And later, a costly revelation. We are out of stock. A customer came in to buy cherry pop, there are none for them to buy.
Demoted boss Brandi Halls has been working in disguise on her own shop floors. Now, she's about to start her second day on the job. I'm in Vancouver today on my way out to our bubble bar room where I'm going to work with one of our compounders to hand make... some of our solid bubble bath products.
With our expansion plans, I'm concerned that there might be increased pressure to meet demand. I want to get in there and see firsthand how they're coping and what the morale is like. Brandi will be mixing it up with Farrell. I am a compounder. Compounders are basically the equivalent of a baker.
So I bake soap, basically. Without ovens, I mix soap. On a typical day, the bubble room turns out around 6,000 solid bubble bars.
All right, so we're going to be making fun. It's sort of like our take on Play-Doh. We have some shapes over there that some of our staff have made.
So it actually is like Play-Doh, but you use it as soap. Yep. This is our essential component. That's what that smell is. And then, yeah, it's pretty heavy.
This is really heavy. Still too much. Oh, yeah, good job. These are a lot lighter. There's only nine kilos in here.
Still heavy to me. Wow, look at it. It looks like bubble gum.
It's gonna be about as fun as pulling bubble gum out of a giant bowl. You're just gonna dig in like as much as you can. Oh my gosh, this is the hardest part.
Yeah. I'm out of breath. Lifting that gooey substance out of that bowl was incredibly difficult.
You literally have to be in good physical shape to be able to do this job. Sure will get you that way. My heart's pounding.
Yep. I was hot, I was sweating, and it was a lot heavier than I would have ever expected. Wow, I am smoking hot right now.
Are you making hot milk? So they make the essential components, and then you just leave. UK and then they send them over. So we have to order like eight weeks ahead and sometimes we don't have our essential components so you can't make the product basically. Like you can have everything you need but if you don't have that you have nothing.
That can be extremely frustrating. We do try to ship our essential components via ocean containers so that we're not air freighting and we do that for environmental reasons. We want to reduce the company's impact on the environment so it's worth looking at how we can better forecast so that our production teams are better. supplied to produce the products. You're also weighing right into the EC, so you have to be super careful to not overpour.
The EC is what's expensive. A couple of grams of the EC was like $200. No pressure, just holding a bucket of gold.
Oh wait, you want $750. And this is the one with the EC in it. Yeah, we're just going to have a little extra in there this time. Exactly the thing you told me not to mess up, I just messed up. I made a big boob room.
I'm not moving fast enough. No, you're not. Go faster.
She needs to pick it up more. Probably a lot. We're growing like crazy, which is really nice. We open stores so frequently that I can't keep track of them. Have you noticed a significant sort of increase in your workload because of this?
Oh, yeah. Is it still manageable or? Yeah. With the right people, it's possible any time.
There's pressure every day to make everything always. You just sort of breathe deep and keep going. She is exactly what we look for in a lesson.
Does that noise ever get to you? All day, no. That is one of the biggest perks about being deaf in your left ear.
It's like, I don't even know. Oh, you're deaf in your left ear. I hadn't noticed that you were having any difficulty hearing me.
I've been working with her for a few hours now. I didn't notice anything along the way. That's probably when I was around eight.
I had a cyst in my ear that crushed my bones of hearing on my left side, and nobody noticed until I was 13. They just thought I was slow. It sucked in high school. school but that's just because like anytime you're different in high school sucks and a hearing aid would be nice I had a hearing aid when I was in high school they broke years ago and I haven't been able to replace it because the new hearing aids like 10 grand Wow it's terrible seeing how hard she works every day and that she still you know can't get her hands on this one thing that could change your life I was saying that things change a lot.
Well, originally we had planned that we were gonna be doing a sugar scrub. However, don't have the raw materials. So, we're gonna do a yuzu cocoa bubble rune instead. All right, so we're just rolling with it. I kind of got to.
They've had to juggle their entire schedule, so I really want to look again at where are we dropping the ball and getting the raw ingredients to our production staff. Because we're nearing 3 o'clock. I am going to rush us through this as fast as possible because we are all done at 3 and I'm a little concerned That we won't have it done in time.
We have to go top speed right now. Oh gosh. I gotta move faster Yeah, you gotta hurry up. I have no how to work out like this Ever Every muscle in my arms is hurting right now.
But I can't stop because production staff finished at 3. And this product cannot sit overnight like this. I did. So the objective here is to be fast.
You don't even know the half of it. Plus, I'm seeing a lot of finger marks. I know. These ones are getting redone.
Ah! Ugh. Ah! Oh, my gosh.
So everyone in here right now is working on these same things. Yeah, everyone's pretty much hustling as fast as they can to get this done. Is this overtime because I was so slow?
All on you. I feel like it is. We didn't want to do overtime today.
I'm not going to specifically point any fingers, but maybe people weren't scooping their bubble runes fast enough or just, you know... hanging out near the fun and not working hard enough. Not gonna say who. I feel terrible that we're all having to move so quickly right now to make up for a bit of my slowness earlier in the day.
I have been talking about the handmade aspect of this brand for... Ten years and not until today did I actually understand how physically difficult the handmade aspect of the brand is. Thanks so much for everything.
It was really fun. You did great. Thank you. Well, you were a good teacher. Thanks for all your patience.
I came here today to see how the morale is on the floor. With all of our expansion, they appear to be managing things quite well. And that connection to the brand that I was hoping I would find, I found in Philly.
Farrell and I believe is in a lot of the other people who are in that room as well. Coming up, a call to the bar. It says gin. And later, is the secret boss about to get busted?
It's day three and Boss Brandy is moving on to a different factory floor. I'm in Toronto on my way to the soap factory to work with one of our master compounders making soap. Every bar of soap that we sell from our stores all across North America comes...
from this facility. I want to get in there and see what their workload is like and see some of the challenges that they're facing in production so that I can hopefully make their working lives easier. Hi there. Hi.
How are you? I'm Catherine. I'm Juan.
Welcome to Sovroom. Come on. I'm the first master compounder in Toronto of Lush.
A master compounder is like a master chef. Quang oversees the mix of all raw materials and keeps tabs on the flow of production on the factory floor. In a typical shift, he makes about 10,000 bars of soap.
First of all, we look at the formula over here. So we need 45 kilos of lithium. It's heavier than it looks.
Yeah. Don't be nervous. It's okay. Don't stop my noise, everybody.
Everybody getting nervous in here. Oh, come on. That's it, that's it.
Yay, all right, got it. Before we dump it inside the kettle, just to make sure it accurate with the numbers. 53. 53, you see, we make a mistake already. Okay, so we did 45, so we need 53. Don't follow what I said. Follow the formula.
You need me to double check. Yeah, double check it. Why I'm doing this, if we don't make a mistake, we never learn.
Exactly. The way I train the people, I like getting worse before getting easy. Okay, getting worse before. before it gets easy. Yeah, so we're gonna take off two kilo.
We need to take off two kilo, we need to add, don't we? I wasn't quite sure whether my math was wrong, his math was wrong, whether I was just misunderstanding him. No, we need to take off from there at two kilo up.
Oh, okay. Right? Yes.
We got 45. Yeah, we have 45 and we have to get to 53. 53? Yeah. Oh my goodness, good God. Are you testing me? And then I slowly but surely realized that he was testing me. but doing so in a way that I was learning to be really diligent about those numbers.
He's so incredibly precise. So it's really like a recipe that you have to follow exactly. Yeah. I cannot modify the formula.
This is real peppermint. Yeah. All we make in here is natural ingredient. It smells like tea.
So this is freshly squeezed apple juice. Yeah. Look like we work in a restaurant or bakery store or something like that. Wow, it's getting harder to stir, too. Whoo!
Oh! Oh boy. I can give you a little hand here.
No, I'm determined. It's a good workout on the arms. Oh, yeah. Is that bag empty?
So much more. Oh. There you go. That's it.
Sweating under here. Oh my gosh. We're gonna put a collar. The collar is very most important for us.
Really, really important. Really important. Customer really picky with the collar. They do want the soap always have the same collar.
The collar is beautiful. Yeah, the collar is beautiful. It smells really good.
Minty. When I saw on the formula sheet that it was Demon in the Dark, my heart took a pitter patter because this is the very first soap that I ever used at Lush. So it has a little place in my heart.
It's special to me. It takes me back 10 years to when this whole adventure began for me. Are you ready to pour?
I'm ready to pour. It's done? It's done.
What's your favorite part about working here? Fun and no pressure at all. No pressure? No.
Just fun? Just fun. You just come to work every day and have fun? Yes. Well, I'm having fun, so I believe you.
We're done. We're done? the bottom and on to the next i see a really interesting ingredient in here it says gin is that real gin real gin gin's added because it tones the skin can you hold on for this one i sure can but don't drink this 500 grams nobody all right can you take a shot with it almost there that's it oh oh oh see look you did i got distracted by you i'm so sorry all right now now mr punch is going to get some punch made the pun gonna I'm gonna get some punch.
10 of this. 10 of these little baked cucumbers? Yes. Oranges, lemons.
This one is strawberry. It looks like a bowl of pie. I like to get all the green, you know, it's on the side like the way I did it over here.
Kwong is incredibly passionate. He's not throwing these things in there, he's placing them. He said that he wants it to look beautiful for the customer, so I was touched by that.
They put their face thicker in there. This is the only one. Oh, let's see.
For five years. Let's see if there's resemblance. Oh, yeah, I see it.
You're looking good. You're the first one to say that, eh? But I never said that to me.
But you hurt my feelings. Coming up... A worker's secret past. Oh my God, we're gonna die.
It's Brandy Hart. It sounded like hell. I've never heard anything like that.
Boss Brandy Hulls is three hours into her shift at the Lush soap factory. Now Mr. Punch is gonna get some punch. They look like a giant bowl of punch. Now I understand where the name comes from.
So what do you like to do for fun on your time off? I like to cook. Have you ever taken any cooking classes?
No, but I like to cook. and I like to make all kind of different food to serve my family. Oh, to serve to your family. Yes.
This is a family company. Like a family? Like a family and no pressure at all.
I heard somebody said, happy people making happy soap. I always say that when I'm publicly speaking about the brand. And is that true? I think so, yes.
So to have someone who's here every day hand-making the soap to say he's a happy person making happy soap, that was really, really nice to hear. Were you born... in Canada?
No, I was born in Vietnam. After 1975, everything controlled by the government. They forced you to join the army.
I don't want to join it. I think that is not right for me to fight with different countries. Why should I do that? And after, I just took off. I took off.
You ran away. I ran away. We need to jump over the fence like... 12 meter height.
So we climb up at night and nobody see us and we just jump, like a movie, but it is for real. It is like a movie. They shoot it at us with AK-47.
They shoot it at us. We just, we ran. Oh my gosh. We jump on a boat on the ocean and we just go. They don't know where you go.
That was like big ships? No, 2 and 1 half meter wide and 12 and 1 half meter length. How many people get on that boat? 84. 84 people?
84 people was. In that boat, no seat at all. So everybody just for me and I really tiny, I sit like this, not even room for me.
For eight days and nights. Was there food? There is no food.
So each day they give me a cup of water. You know the lid of water cups? The lid of a water bottle. Yeah, once a day.
And we was, oh my God, we're gonna die, we're gonna die. It around a million or some people. People were lost in the sea.
Yeah, lost in the ocean, in the sea. Trying to escape from Vietnam. Yes. He said it himself, it sounded like a movie. It sounded like hell.
The first day in Canada, I have a pair of slippers, T-shirt, shirt and shorts. So when I reached to the airport over here, most of the people staring at me. They were staring at you.
Hey, come on. In February, it snowed outside about this height. So how you wear this? I don't have any clothes.
You've come a long way. You're here. You've been with Lush for four years, you have a wife.
It's completely blown my mind that after all that he's endured, he still is the man that I've met today. I'll work extra fast. Okay, please.
I know that. I don't think I could do this all day, every day. It's a really physical job. We're going to peel the kiwi. The soap is getting ready soon, so can we do a little bit faster?
A little bit faster, yeah. That's sort of the theme of me working in any of these physical jobs. I can't seem to keep up with the pace that they are working.
This is cool, all fresh kiwi. Today is your first day and you're doing great. Oh, thank you. Thank you.
You care about the product we're making. I'm really, really happy with that. I care because you care and that's how you taught me. All right, that's it.
That's it, we finished. That's it, we're finished. You did good.
Yeah? You did a very good job. High five.
Thank you. She doing great. I'm so proud of her. Quang was brilliant to work alongside. He took such care with everything that he did.
Everything seems to be flowing perfectly here. The rooms are incredibly organized. The morale is exactly where I'd want it to be. The job was getting done.
No one seemed overworked. Overall it was a great work environment. Coming up, after two Huangs, undercover boss Brandy finally makes it right.
How is it? Perfect! At the beginning of the week, Lush Cosmetics boss Brandy Hulls was head of branding.
But since becoming a trainee, she's been gaining unprecedented insight into what it's really like for staff on the front lines. I messed up there. Life on the road is also making her think about her own work-life balance.
It's nice to see your face. It's nice to see you too. Have you always wondered what I look like as a blonde?
It's really hard being on the road all the time. It makes it very difficult for my boyfriend Adam to stay in touch. Can you see these?
These? Those are like sequins. Alright babe, well I have to head out. It's time for my shift.
I love you. Love you too. Bye.
Now, she's about to start her last day working undercover. I'm in Halifax today. When you're dealing with a shop that is based across the country from the head office, where all the branding messages are coming from, There can be a breakdown in communication, and I want to see if that's happening, how we can fix it, and make sure that the staff here in Halifax are confident in the brand's values and are communicating it in the same way that all of us in Vancouver are hoping that they are.
Hi, you new one. Hi, I'm looking for Jen. Jen, that's me. Hi, Jen, I'm Catherine. Hi, nice to meet you.
Hi, nice to meet you. I'm the manager here at the store in Dartmouth at Micmac Mall, and I've been here for just over a year. That's for her.
Awesome. Jen's responsible for the... day-to-day operations in her shop.
This is fresh cut soap. It is bulk so we can cut it to any size that anybody wants. It always has a little sticker on the back by the person who made it.
Because we believe in happy people and showing their faces so their moms can be proud. For the first year of my job at Lush, I cut and wrap soap eight hours a day. So I have some pretty talented soap cutting and wrapping skills. This is perfect! How is it?
Really? I just followed your method. I've never seen anybody wrap soap. Soap is awesome for sure!
That's fantastic! I have a secret skill set. The majority of the time this is actually reserved for charity pot.
We just don't have very much of it right now. How come you don't have much of it? We sold a lot of it and they just sometimes, we don't get our shipments filled as much as we would like because there's such a big demand.
So right now if a customer came in to buy charity pot, there are none for them to buy. Because even though we've ordered it for tomorrow, again it depends on the shipment fulfillment if they can fill it or not. That's just you. you out a little bit.
A little bit. So I'm gonna look in to see where the breakdown is happening and getting those products to our stores when they order them. I saw these looking a little... Empty, yeah. This is it.
This is it. We are out of stock on that one. Our displays are designed so that they can always be voluptuous and overflowing and enticing. There are a lot of empty bath bomb units here and bath bombs are a staple Lush product. Unless the company can get a grip on its delivery issues, their expansion plans will suffer.
And then are we going to fill it with something? Hi ladies, how are you guys doing? Hi! No matter what we're doing, the minute a customer walks in, we stop. Number one priority.
is always a customer. When she said that customers come first, that customers are a priority, she nailed it. That is exactly the Lush ethos. Do you want to know what you do?
You go, hey, Mic Mac, I'm going to do fast blown dabble. I have to yell it out loud. Yes, you do.
OK. You can do it. Hey, Mick Mac bath bomb demo time I'm not shy but yelling out in the middle of the store was a little nerve-racking.
I just can't be shy right no you can't I'm glad I didn't bomb the bath bomb demo Did you come from retail before you know I have a background in accounting I'm a hair stylist I used to be in the Navy you're the jack-of-all-trades In work-life balance I am currently failing I'm a fairly I'm a really new manager and when I dive into something I kind of tend to go full bore for the first little while because I like to learn everything I can and do my best. 50 countries around the world. I am incredibly impressed at her product knowledge, at her knowledge of the business. The most recent store opened up in South Africa, which is really cool. So she's astounding to me, the fact that she knows this much about the brand and that she's this far away from Vancouver where all of this information is coming from.
Now this is basically the epitome of Lush. This is where... We want all of our customers to come to sit down to get pampered. Would you be interested in actually trying this out on your skin? Sure!
Yeah? The beautiful thing about Lush is that we demo everything in the store. We show customers every product.
They can touch it, they can smell it, they can feel it. Does it feel nice? It feels very nice.
It's probably been five years since I've had to do an in-store facial, so I was really nervous going into that. I'm glad you had such a great experience. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Our massage bar is, and you're just going to massage it in, so it's great if you have a partner that you can, you know, massage each other.
Do you have the good fortune of having a partner? He's actually moved to the US. So we're kind of doing the back and forth thing right now. He's in New York. In New York?
Yeah. That must be difficult. Yeah. We're living parallel lives, Jen and I.
She has no idea. I want to stay with Les, but I do want to move to New York. Yeah. I kind of want to be with my both. I wanted to get in their heads.
You know, hug her and say I know how it feels. I have a friend that actually lives in New York and does a long distance relationship. So, yeah, it's a little bit, I know some of the hardships that she faces.
Yeah. If I can get to New York to be with my boyfriend and stay with Lush, that's the perfect scenario for me. So, it was a great day. It's 5 o'clock. It's time to go home and relax and we'll see you next time.
Yeah, and good luck with figuring out everything. Thank you. Alright, bye Jen. Bye.
Jen is a stellar Lush employee. She is... everything that I think we would want all of our shop managers to be. I absolutely want to do everything in my power to keep her within the company. I have found that I get that same feeling walking through the doors of this store that I get, walking through the doors of our Vancouver stores, of our New York stores.
So, yes, it's something that we're doing is working and getting the messages throughout the business here. When I get back, I definitely want to look a little closer at the distribution and ordering process. What's preventing some of our best-selling products from getting to the shelves here? As much as I'm exhausted, I'm feeling reinvigorated. I'm ready to get back to my job and to share with the senior management team everything that I have discovered along this journey.
I think that with the changes that I'm going to suggest to them, we can have a real impact on making this business. Even bigger, better and more successful than it is. Coming up, it's time to come clean.
Sina, Farrell, Huang and Jen find out who their trainee really is. I had no clue. Ah, okay.
Brandi Halls has whipped off her wig and returned to her old job at head office in Vancouver. Hi. I'm so happy that I got to experience this. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity.
I did find a few things that I think we as a group should look at. There was a shortage of ingredients on more than one occasion. We can definitely work on improving that. I did find a lot of empty shelves in our stores.
I think we need to take another look at our distribution and inventory systems. And from an IT perspective, look at all the registers taking all the cards. I think that if we can fix some of the things that I've found... And we are going to have a seamless transition into this expansion. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out ways to get feedback from staff members on how to run the business and how to improve the business.
And I think we've learned a great deal from it. Sina, Farrell, Huang and Jen are on their way to meet the boss. They're expecting to dish about the trainee who worked with them this week. But instead, they're in for a big surprise.
Hi Hoang, do I look familiar to you? Yes you do! You look different.
You have blonde hair and different colored eyes. Well I'm actually Brandy Halls. I'm the director of brand communications here at Lash North America.
I had no clue. Uhhh. I went in disguise to get a front line view. on how you guys are coping with the expansion. You were fantastic at training me.
I have to say, I've been with Lush for 10 years and I've never been so sore after a day of work. Of course, I did find a few things that concerned me and that was the shortage of some of our ingredients. Yeah.
I'm gonna do my best to try to improve that for you so the ingredients are actually there for you to make it. You know, we spent a wonderful day together and about halfway through the day, I discovered that you had a hearing impairment. Yeah.
And you explained to me it's been a long time since you've had a hearing aid. Yeah. Any one day. You know, you give 100% every day that you walk into our factory floors.
And because of that, we want to give you the gift of hearing. Are you serious? And we are going to get that hearing aid for you.
Wow. What an amazing look. The fact that I'm getting the opportunity to hear entirely again and getting to hear like Maybe like my cat meowing.
It's so exciting. Thank you guys. Like I kind of blows me away that this is where I get to work.
Well, we're very lucky to have you. To work somewhere that I didn't even have to ask and they're doing it kind of blows my mind a little. Hi, Sina. You were incredibly welcoming in your shop, so thank you.
However, you did mention to me the uniform and I think you actually referred to it as feeling like being in Prison? Yeah! Yeah.
It's not something that we're going to change right now, but I do want you to know that sort of the black and white was chosen because it does align with the brand's image as far as, you know, our chalkboard writing. But also, our products are so beautiful and bright and colorful. So we really want customers to be able to come into the store and their attention to be on those products. I loved how incredibly passionate you were about... The charitable givings program that we have here at Lush.
As a thank you for being a great representative on the floor, I would love to send you to Guatemala with Hug It Forward to build schools for children. It means a lot to me. A lot. Yeah.
You were also courageous enough to share with me some of the struggles that you faced growing up as a gay teenager and I hope that nobody has to go through some of the things that you... experienced. Because this is a personal struggle that you faced, I would love for you to come to Vancouver to plan, create and execute an anti-bullying campaign that we're gonna run all across Canada.
That's so cool! We are opening up all of our stores across Canada to whatever it is that you can create with us. I've always wanted there to be a bullying campaign for Lush. I want to be able to kind of save that one or two teenagers that are kind of ready to take it away, their lives away from themselves. And being able to do that means a lot because I wish I had that person to do that for me.
Hi, Hoang. You had such a positive energy. You were a delight to be around. We're very lucky to have you. Thank you.
I had a good snoop around. I wanted to see if there was anything I could find that needed improving. And I have to say, I couldn't find anything.
Everything was amazing. Really? Yeah. Thank you very much. I just tried to do my best, that's all.
We would like to do something for you. For all that you have done for us, you mentioned to me that you love to cook. Right. We are going to send you and your wife anywhere in the world that you want to go to an exclusive cooking school for 10 days where the two of you get to choose the cuisine that you would like to learn, where in the world you'd like to go.
And we're going to cover all the expenses for you and your wife to take that trip. Oh, that is amazing. If I can learn this, maybe somehow I can bring it back in here, do a barbecue, or maybe make the whole company happy and enjoy my cooking. I feel really, really great. You sort of blew my mind on the shop floor.
I was, the whole day I could not get over how fantastic you were and what a great representative you are for the company. Thank you, that means a lot. So you talked a little bit about this struggle with your work-life balance, and I have these same struggles. It was really hard for me to bite my tongue.
I wanted to reach out and give you a hug. Sort of what united us both is our desire to stay with this company. Because I saw this potential in you and I know how much you love New York, I would love to bring you to New York for a month and mentor you in the PR team.
Oh my God. Seriously? Yeah. So... Holy crap!
That's fantastic. Oh, my God. I would love to expose you to a new part of the business and also to bring you closer to your boyfriend.
Oh, my gosh. I'm going to cry. Holy man, this is amazing. Thank you. Oh, thank you.
Well, thank you. You are an amazing addition to this team and this family, and we definitely don't want to lose you. We also are going to give you an extra week of paid vacation and $3,000 so that you two can... Take a vacation together.
Oh my god! I feel like I've just won the lottery. Holy man! You guys are amazing.
To hear her say these wonderful things about the job that I'm doing means a million times to me. And to be given the opportunity to explore another avenue of Lush and to have that possibility of actually getting to New York to be with my boyfriend, I just feel like I've won the lottery. In my ten years with Lush, I've sacrificed a lot.
And I've struggled with a work-life balance and I feel like my sacrifice has been paid back a thousand times in human relationships. Lush has brought us all together and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of this company and I can say with a lot of confidence that the people that I met along this journey feel the exact same way.