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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
Nathan Bush: Today's check features Amy Lyons, People Support Manager at Lush Cosmetics. Lush has been selling those amazingly fragrant products for almost 30 years now and they have 923 Lush shops in 52 countries worldwide and that includes some brilliant e commerce stores of course in Australia. Amy and the team look after up to 800 team members at a time across Australia and New Zealand, ranging in responsibilities from retail to manufacturing to to support office. Amy, thank you for joining us on the checkout. We've learned a lot around what you're doing and your people at Lush, but we're here to learn a little bit more about you. Five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Amy Lynes: Okay, weird stuff. Do you know what I actually buy a lot of? I do a lot of sewing. I sew a lot of my own clothes. So yeah, a lot of sewing stuff. Like I'll just all of a sudden have a thousand yards of elastic or something. But recently I got a buttonhole gauge which I know sounds weird. Any sewers listening to this are going to be loving means you can space out buttonholes very evenly. So I'm so excited to use it.
Nathan Bush: Do you have like a separate room in your house for your sewing stuff or is it scattered around the house?
Amy Lynes: No, I actually do. In fact I am in it right now. I have it is a Home office, but it also has a sewing space. My husband built me a big cutting table so I could cut really, really big pieces of fabric.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that's amazing. Do you ever. When everything just gets overwhelming, do you ever go, I'm just gonna sew for half an hour? Or do you need to kind of be in the zone for sewing?
Amy Lynes: No, I do like to do that, actually. I really do like to just have a sewing break. But most of the time it's just me and my kids. So, you know, I have to. Sometimes I have to think right when they're in bed, I'm gonna give myself a little bit of sewing time. But I struggle knowing when to stop. You know, that's the difficult part.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. When you kick that creative brain in after dark, it's like it can be dangerous because you never. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Amy Lynes: Oh, can I have two? Can I have an in store and an online. I really love Revu, obviously, Australian company. I love their style of clothes. It's absolutely my style. And I. And there's a shop I go to. I think she's actually a manager there, but she remembers our names. She's really lovely. Like, she just gives a great experience. So I think it's half clothes, half person. And then online, I really love hot milk. Actually. It's a maternity and nursing lingerie company. So they do. Yeah. Maternity bras. They do nursing bras. And I think that they're A, like their resources are excellent and B, they have just really great, I mean, great product as well, but really great returns. Which I think when you're buying any kind of undies, right, you need, you need to be able to try it on a return if it's not right. So yeah, I love, I love hot milk.
Nathan Bush: Especially if you're making decisions. Sleep deprived, 3am in the morning.
Amy Lynes: That's right. That's normally when I'm buying it. Right.
Nathan Bush: Awesome. All right, Amy, which E commerce practice do you wish was history?
Amy Lynes: I tell you what, always as a shopper, what always gets to me is if I get an email and I think, oh yeah, I must go and buy that thing. And then I go onto the website and then I get a pop up that says, do you want to sign up to our email? And they don't have the X and I can't find it and it's really small and then I can't click on it. And yes, a constant sign up to email pop ups or like chats that won't go down. Like, no, I don't need to chat. I just know what I want to buy.
Nathan Bush: It's the equivalent of the person who won't leave you alone is still going. Can I help you? Can I help you?
Amy Lynes: I'm just browsing.
Nathan Bush: Just browsing. All right, number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Amy Lynes: So a book that I haven't read yet, but I've ordered, and I can't wait for it to arrive because it's right up my alley is the Checklist Manifesto. I don't know if you've heard of it, but really it's basically singing the praises of checklists. And I think for anyone who works in a job where like, you have to follow a process and it's always got to be a certain way can be really important. So for certain HR things, I think it's going to be good. And I heard about it on a podcast called Caution Retail by Tim Hartford.
Nathan Bush: Cool.
Amy Lynes: I love that podcast. I mean, I love all podcasts really, but that one is all about basically learning from mistakes is effective learning, but it's easier and less painful if you learn from other people's mistakes. So every episode is like a really big mistake that somebody's made and what you can learn from it. And I think I've learned a lot about leadership stuff from that.
Nathan Bush: That's a great hook. I love that idea for podcasts.
Amy Lynes: Yeah, it's really good.
Nathan Bush: Do you use a checklist tool or what's your process for keeping a checklist of your to do's during a day?
Amy Lynes: Well, actually we use Asana, the project management software. So I love Asana and I really work well off that. And I like having to be honest. I like it because I can just look at today's tasks sometimes, otherwise it can be a bit overwhelming. Right. If you're looking at everything on the list. So that lets me hide a lot of stuff. But with checklists at work, a lot of the time it's just an Excel spreadsheet. But as long as you know, you just have to go through every single one of these things and then you will have done an effective risk assessment or, you know, a complaints procedure. I think. Yeah, it can be quite simple.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. All right, last question. I've got for you, Amy, finish this sentence. The future of retail is bright.
Amy Lynes: I think the future of retail is bright. You know, we are emerging from COVID slowly but surely, and I think things are on the up for retail.
Nathan Bush: What are you most excited about from a people perspective?
Amy Lynes: Oh, gosh. Great question. What am I most excited about from a people perspective? Do you know what? Everything people excites me. But I just think we're entering a bit more of a balanced era with people where I think the relationship between employer and employee is very important. And I think there's going to be a lot of really great kind of open dialogue and a lot of things that make businesses ultimately better. So yeah, I'm excited about this kind of new era of things being a little more balanced and a bit more give and take and people really working together to achieve good outcomes. That's what I think the future is going to look like.
Nathan Bush: I love that. That excites me too. So well done, Amy. Thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Amy Lynes: Thanks
Nathan Bush: to hear more from Amy. Jump back into episode 189 where Amy shares how having strong values in an organization is not only essential for attracting like minded customers, but also attracting and engaging team members. We discussed some of Lush's unique team benefits including fair pay bonuses for everyone, 50% off product, getting your birthday off, and the very cool Employee Benefits Trust where employees actually own 10% of the company to make sure that decisions are always made for the right reason.
Amy Lynes: Very cool.
Nathan Bush: And we also discuss techniques for managing mental health, tips for recruitment, and how to get regular feedback from your team. So much in there when it comes to people. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
