Amy Lyons: They come to us because they like our values and then they help us kind of strengthen those values. We've seen a huge benefit in the way that EBT can help staff's voices be heard literally at every level. It reminds me of that quote, right? Be curious, not judgmental. And I think that's actually a great quote for any leader.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Every week, Nathan Bush from E Suite and an e commerce industry expert will share the news, research and insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course, keep your customers Adding to Cart.
Nathan Bush: Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and director at e commerce talent agency eSweet. I met today's guest at the Mi Academy Hack Games special shout out to our leader Nat and the crew. And that was back in March this year we were assigned to be in the same team and tasked with the problem of solving mental burnout in the workplace.
Nathan Bush: Pretty easy thing to solve in a
Nathan Bush: couple of days when you're fully remote new team and you're feeling a bit burnt out. Was easy. But even though she didn't specialize in e commerce, I I was so engrossed in her views around how to look after and empower a large team, I had to ask her to come and share them with you. So our guest today is Amy Lyons and she's the people support manager at Lush Cosmetics, AKA the smelly soap shop. Lush has been selling those amazingly fragrant products for almost 30 years now and they have 923 Lush shops in 52 countries worldwide, including 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, New Zealand and ranging from retail to manufacturing to support office. Today, Amy and I dive into how having strong values in an organization is not only essential for attracting customers, but also attracting and engaging your team. We also discuss some of Lush's unique team benefits, including fair pay bonuses for everyone. Seems pretty reasonable so far. 50% off products, that's good. Getting your birthday off, that's very cool. And the amazing employee benefits Trust where employees actually own 10% of the company to ensure that decisions are always made
Nathan Bush: for the right reasons. So cool.
Nathan Bush: And we also get into techniques for managing mental health, tips for recruitment and
Nathan Bush: how to get regular feedback from your team.
Nathan Bush: See, you haven't even met her yet, but you know, she's going to be incredible. So, thanks to our partners, Shopify plus and Paclio. Here's our conversation with Amy Lines, people support manager at Lush Cosmetics. Amy, thank you for joining us on Add to Cart.
Amy Lyons: Thank you for having me.
Nathan Bush: Now, people might be looking at this
Nathan Bush: going, we're talking about people on Add to Cart. We're not talking about marketing or tech, but we were actually working together.
Nathan Bush: Well, playing together, I suppose, in the
Nathan Bush: MI Hack Academy games. And that's. That's where we met, but we'll get to that. But I suppose Nothing sums up 2022 than our journey to get to this podcast where we had to reschedule because of sickness and other things. But that's kind of the way we are at the moment, isn't it?
Amy Lyons: That's right, 2020. Well, the last. I was going to say 2022, but really maybe it's the last two years have been the years of adapting and overcoming, you know.
Nathan Bush: Yes, absolutely.
Nathan Bush: So you're the people support manager at
Nathan Bush: Lush and I loved meeting you during the Hack games and you're actually our champion who sold our problem to the world, which was fantastic. But for people who may not know what a people Support manager does, can you share what you do and what a typical day looks like for you?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, definitely I can. People Support Manager is a bit of an unusual title, I think, but really just think HR manager. So anything when it comes to people and the way we treat our people in the organization, that falls in my team. I quite like People Support as a name in that, you know, I think it better references what we do. Like our whole idea is that we are there to support and enable the people in our business. So we really think of ourselves as a service team. You know, we are there to help each different area of the business achieve their goals. So it's all about listening to them and what they need at the time and then thinking about how can we help enable that. So, yeah, I basically deal with all aspects of hr, really. Workplace, health and safety. I deal with any kind of general hr, actually. Learning and communications is in my team as well. Recruitment has been a very big one this year. So, yeah, anything in the general HR space is under my remit. And it's interesting, I was thinking about a typical day for me and I think if there's any people that are listening to your podcast that are HR people or it's part of their role, they will probably agree that there's no such thing as a typical day when hr, because, you know, you're the team that's normally dealing with a lot of other people's number one priorities. You know, people tend to call HR when it's something they need it quite quickly or it's urgent or it's time sensitive or it's a safety matter which always comes to the top of the pile. So I think the only thing I can say is typical about my day is that I'll have to be adaptable and I have to respond to whatever the priorities that day are. And there's definitely a plan, but it's always a movable feast and we just see what the day of the week brings.
Nathan Bush: That makes a lot of sense. And obviously we're here because we love Lush from a retail perspective and you have a brilliant E commerce presence, but
Nathan Bush: you've got such a, I could imagine
Nathan Bush: such a wide and diverse team. Can you tell us about the Lush team and how it's set up and the types of people that you're interacting with with every day?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, you're right. It is a really diverse team. And so we work across Australia and New Zealand and we work across both retail and manufacturing because obviously Lush is an Australian manufacturer as well and we do actually have a small manufacturing facility in New Zealand too. So obviously a seasonal business as well. We can be anywhere from kind of 600 to 800 employees. And the demographics are quite different in the different areas of the business. So our retail business, you know, quite young staff on average, our average age is quite young in our retail business and generally quite values driven. Like we find a lot of people are attracted to it, working with us because they share the values that we have, which is obviously fantastic. And then in our manufacturing business, we have a really diverse range of backgrounds in our manufacturing business. So lots of people coming from lots of different places around the world. And yeah, what I guess they have in common is that they generally enjoy Lush the brand, they generally enjoy the product, but they need quite different things. So in terms of when we're thinking about how we respond to people, we really try and bear in mind, like what do our retail staff need and what's the best way of communicating with them? And that might be quite different to what our manufacturing staff need and how we can best communicate with them. And then our support team as well, that's the people who are based in the office. So what they need again is going to be a little different and the avenues of communication are going to be different.
Nathan Bush: And when you talk about a values based business, what do you mean by that?
Amy Lyons: Do you know what's interesting, I hear a lot of brands talk about like their EVP and I guess the way they work internally. And I think what's interesting about Lush is that the values we talk about, they're quite well known, you know, like we have a lot of external values, I suppose, that people really respond well to and people really know us for. And I remember I started 12 years ago at Lush. I've been around for a while and I remember when I started I was at the shop, I used to work in the shop and people would often come in and say, oh yeah, you're those guys who do so. Right. Like that's what we're known for. You're the smelly soap shop, aren't you? And then I feel like that message has changed over the years and now people really know us for things like campaigning or, you know, for the kind of charities that we support or. Yeah. The causes that we've stood up for or things like, you know, being against animal testing and all of those kind of values are quite well known now by our customers. And I think definitely something that we hear from our staff, they are very great at telling us, hey, you should campaign on this, or this is an issue that Lush haven't considered, or this is an issue that Lush should take a stand on. So I guess there's quite a good feedback loop there, right. Like they come to us because they like our values and then they help us kind of strengthen those values and they help us think about how we can live those values better or what kind of things we can campaign on. So it works really well both ways.
Nathan Bush: What I love about Lush is that you don't kind of just have these values and you've put them on a wall outside of the HR department for when people walk past and then they go, oh, we have values. This is great. You're actually really proud and loud about your values, which I could imagine would have been a risk at some points because they're not kind of fence sitting values, they're very strong in what you believe in. How do you decide what values you talked about? Staff feedback Is there ultimately someone who says, no, this is what we'll make a stand on and this is what we won't.
Amy Lyons: So we campaign sometimes locally and sometimes globally. So when there's an issue where it's a real global push for something, then that would be our founders in the UK and there's a team of people there who work on campaigns. So sometimes that's how we end up getting involved. In a campaign and then sometimes it's going to be a local issue. And I think that's actually really important. There are things that are global issues, but then there are things that are very specific. Like we've campaigned. Actually our most recent campaign in Australia was Raise the Age. And it's basically a campaign to do with raising the age of criminal responsibility. So, you know, in Australia, age between 10 and 13, you can be tried as an adult, which seems wild to me. And we know that overrepresented in the groups of people that are getting prosecuted, especially at that young age, are Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander Australians. So I think that was a really important one for us. It's a very pertinent local issue. That's not something that's the same everywhere around the world, but it was something that we really felt like we could lend our voice to and we could help amplify the message of. And it really always is not about us coming in and saying, hey, people should do this, but it's about us using our stores and using our digital platforms to really elevate the experts in that area. So Raise the Age Australia was our campaign partner and it's about how do we kind of give over our shop fronts and give over our website to be able to push their message and their call to action?
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Oh, it's brilliant. I love that stance and a lot of times you see those publicly and go, well, this is great because it's going to attract like minded customers and, you know, really strengthen that customer affinity with a brand. But on the other side, I can imagine that from a team perspective, the value that you've gone from being that smelly soap shop to a brand that has really strong social values helps attract the right people. Do you think it, it makes recruitment and team building a lot easier by being so out and loud about those values?
Amy Lyons: I definitely think it does. I think a people generally know that that's going to be part of the experience of Lush. So I think it helps, you know, some of the time with a lot of companies. I think it's quite difficult when you recruit to get people to really understand who you are as a business, what you do so that they know when they're applying. Is this business the right business for me? I actually don't think we have that problem so much at Lush, because people generally know, oh yes, you are the people who come and I know that social justice is important to you and I know that, you know, they know what they're going to get a little Bit more, which I think allows people to choose that that's a company that they want to work for. And look, definitely, like you said, not all of our campaigns are super popular campaigns. There are people who probably are against raising the age of criminal responsibility and that's fine. But it's, you know, it's about us standing up for what we believe in and us being able to push that message. And I was just thinking about, we had a campaign, Gosh, it would have been a while ago now, actually, it would have been a few years ago. And it was really to do with one of the things about our not necessarily ethical campaigns, but our window campaigns that go in our shops and on our website that we use staff. So the people that you see in those would be staff. And there was one campaign, it was to do with naked packaging. So we always talk about that's one of the values. And they are outside hr, actually on a wall, as well as being everywhere else. But, yeah, it's to do with wherever we can, if we cannot package something. Really. That's the best kind of packaging, right, in terms of the environment. So the image was four people who were facing away from the camera and they were naked. And I remember really vividly that it was a very popular campaign. It got some really great media coverage. And that was quite important because we also pay for advertising. So, you know, that was a way of getting the word out there. But we did get one really angry person who complained. And I think we actually had to take it down in one shopping center because of the complaint. And it was the best thing that could have ever happened because we got so much publicity for having to take an advert down because it featured diverse body types, it wasn't photoshopped and it wasn't airbrushed. It was just a really diverse range of people. So, yes, not always popular with everybody, but sometimes that's not a bad thing.
Nathan Bush: If you're listening to this at your desk, take a moment to assess. Am I really comfortable? This was the problem that the team
Nathan Bush: over at Desky was solving with the
Nathan Bush: launch of their ergonomic standing desks and office equipment. But here's the twist. It was actually Desky that weren't comfortable
Nathan Bush: with launching their business on anything else but Shopify Plus.
Nathan Bush: That is with. With the huge work from home spike in 2020, Desky gave themselves six months to launch with Shopify Plus. And they did it in three. They achieved an increase of revenue up to 1000% and an increased conversion rate of 187%. No word on whether they did all of this standing up the whole time. Very impressive.
Nathan Bush: If that's the case.
Nathan Bush: To read more of Desky's story and see other case studies, visit the customer section on shopify.com.
Nathan Bush: You mentioned that you don't pay for advertising like that and the ability to generate publicity. It cast my mind back to recently that. Am I right in saying that Lush no longer has social media presence because of the stance that you took against some of the big players there?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, you're right. Yep. So just recognizing, I guess, that we know the harmful impacts of social media. Like, there's plenty of information out there to say that it's not good for us. So it was a decision that we made and have come off. So there are social accounts, we don't post on Facebook or Instagram, those type of accounts. So, yeah, again, like a pretty bold stance. And I don't think there's a lot of companies, especially when the aim of the game is really getting your brand out there and really, you know, using those avenues to try and put yourself in front of more people. I think that was an incredibly bold move. And again, a lot of people praised that stance and a lot of people really felt that that was a good thing and we just have to look at other avenues to reach customers.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And it was a great timing thing because by memory, it was around Black Friday time as well, leading into Christmas, where social channels could have been useful, but at the same time, it kind of helped you stand out of that Black Friday crowd.
Amy Lyons: Yeah, that's right. And that's always been a bit of a challenge, I think, you know, we want to encourage. I think about Black Friday a lot. And we obviously, we want to encourage sales.
Nathan Bush: Right.
Amy Lyons: Like, we are a business and we need people to come and visit us and buy from us, but also we want people to love the products. And what we don't want is people just stockpiling loads of our stuff because it's on sale and they're never using it, and then thinking, like, you know, how does that impact them as an ongoing lifetime customer? Are they then going to think, I'm not going to buy from them because I actually never use that stuff? I'd rather a customer gets a great experience. It's really personalized. And then they're able to use a product that is right for them and that they love and then they're going to come back, you know, they're going to know, like, oh, yeah, wow, I really enjoyed that cleanser or whatever it was. And Kind of become a customer for life. So I think all of that is part of that broader kind of how do we see our customers? Like, we don't see them as just quick, get your dollars in the door. We see them as actually like, we want to build a lifelong relationship. It's not a one night stand. Right. It's going to be a lifelong relationship.
Nathan Bush: I love it. And it's proven. Your model's proven right because you've been in business for a long time and you've shown that that does work with such passionate fans. Can I go back to what we were talking about before? You talked about your team giving you feedback around some of your values. But I'm assuming that it goes beyond this even into operational practices and everything from values to operations.
Nathan Bush: Can you tell us about some of
Nathan Bush: those mechanisms to get feedback from all your different teams located in all different places? How do you bring that together?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, such a good question. I think it's such a valuable part of what we do because really you can't get better, right, if you don't have feedback. So I think we use all the normal avenues. You know, there are things like appraisals, but we do one thing that we're still really in the infancy with. We've only done it for a few years, but it's really exciting for us is that we do use pcon, the online engagement tool. That's been great because not only does it allow people to give very anonymized feedback, which I think is quite important to us, I think it helps staff feel like they can be really, really honest about what they're experiencing. So we've used that. But it also gives you quite good insights. So I think pcon, one of the things I like about it is when you've used it for a certain amount of time and you have a lot more data. So once you have data of, let's say Amy doing a survey in year one and a survey in year two, and then maybe Amy leaves the organization in year three, she's done two or three sets of surveys. It can start to predict for you things like how long in someone's tenure is it until they start thinking about looking for another job. And those insights, I think are very valuable in terms of people's strategy. Being able to say otherwise. You think you know what's happening, but you don't. Right. So being able to say like, actually we found that people, their engagement with the business actually dropped off a little towards the beginning of their employment. And it was a really Good insight. Because we thought, okay, well, we need to look at two things, I think. How do we recruit? And is, you know, are we really explaining the reality of the job when we're in the recruitment process? And then on the other side of things, how are we inducting people into the business? Is there an issue there with, like, their induction's not quite right and that. Actually, we've done a lot of work on trying to standardize inductions and get people the information they really need in those first couple of weeks. So, yeah, then we can see, obviously, that trend level off and people feel like they know what they're getting before they come in. Then they get it. They're kind of onboarded in a better way. So, yeah, online tools like that are really important.
Nathan Bush: And just on the online tools, is it a case that you need to make it structured, that it's kind of a form, that it's a formal thing that you need to do every month, every quarter, every year? Or is it also a voluntary thing where people can put feedback in at any time?
Amy Lyons: We do a yearly survey. I think we'd quite like to move to every six months. I think that would give us just a bit more ability to react quicker. But we also. And something we haven't done yet, but we're just starting this year, is to use the same platform to do these, you know, like pulse monitoring, to be able to do just quick surveys of a certain percentage of the workforce. And I like that because it's targeted so we can ask maybe the same three questions at the top, but then the next two questions, if we were going for five total, the next two questions would be perhaps targeted at a very recent initiative. And again, I think it's just about trying. For me, it's about trying to get a bit. A bit more immediate feedback because the yearly surveys are great. They really do give us comprehensive feedback, but it tends to take people quite a while to fill them out. And obviously, if we did it in June, but there was a problem the previous, I don't know, November, like, I'd like to know about it in November or December, ideally, so that we can do something about it then rather than have something. Something just kind of fester, you know,
Nathan Bush: and there's something about capturing the emotion and the insights in the moment that the team's going through it rather than going, getting the survey in June and going, oh, how was I feeling back in November when it happened to me?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, that's right, that's right. You do need that. And I think capturing the emotion is quite important and we try and do that in a few different ways. I think exit interviews for us are really important because, let's face it, you're never going to get more honest feedback than an exit interview. Somebody's leaving, so they don't really have any need to kind of sugarcoat anything for you. They're going to tell you how they really feel. So that's very valuable feedback. You can really get a good idea of ways to improve from that. But I think, I know for us, one thing that we're trying to focus really heavily on is actually getting in front of people a little bit and getting their feedback that way, because we've as a HR team, so we're obviously remote from a lot of us, the staff. And even when we're in the office, you know, we have people. Our offices are in the same place as our manufacturing facility, so we have our manufacturing staff there on site. But we don't always have a lot of crossover unless we go to meetings together. And I think when it comes to hr, if you've got a separate HR department, you've got a whole department of people. I think it can be quite scary contacting a HR person that you've never met, that you don't know, you haven't got a relationship with, and you're probably coming to them with something that's either quite personal or it's quite a big issue for you. So I think we really want to try and make our presence a little more normal and to be able to open up as many avenues as we can for people delivering feedback. So, you know, going out to our shops and just. Even just sitting in on staff meetings and talking about this is what we do as a team. One thing we're starting this month, actually, that I'm really excited about is we already do, like, town hall meetings in manufacturing where, you know, the senior leaders of the business are there and people can ask lots of questions and we can present on things if people would like us to present on something. And we're doing that for our retail business as well. So we've just. We did a survey, a lot of surveys. We did a survey asking for feedback on what kind of things would people like to see. And we've got some really great ideas. So then, brilliant. Let's just do something once a month where people can hop on a zoom link and we can have a bit of a chat about whatever that particular month's topic is. People can ask whatever questions that they want. I think that Kind of feedback is going to be a really important tool going forward, and especially now, especially as we're in a bit of a remote hybrid world, still putting a human face on it. I think that's really important.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I agree. What kind of issues are you seeing come out that probably aren't specific to the Lush team, But from a retail perspective, what are the biggest challenges that you see keeping a retail team together and happy and focused at the moment?
Amy Lyons: I definitely think the things that we're seeing from talking to other colleagues who work in HR are really similar to. To what most people are seeing, I think, for our retail store staff that are obviously customer facing. We have had a difficult year when it comes to enforcing things like. And I know I've spoken to a lot of retailers at the same, enforcing the COVID vaccination certificates, that kind of thing. Across the retail industry, there's been an increase in customer aggression and violence. And so we actually work quite closely with the National Retail association and we're looking at how can we roll out some more training for our staff on how to deal with that, but also actually how do we address that as a bigger, broader issue? Because obviously we can train staff in how to deal with something like that, but we'd like to stop that problem from occurring in the first place. So that's been a really big one for the last year or so. Workplace health and safety for us is kind of always top of the list. So we're always looking at what kind of safety initiatives can we put in place. Are there any new policies that are needed or procedures or are there injuries in certain areas? And I think we know that we're likely to see increases in psychological injuries over the years ahead. That seems to be a big trend in general. So, yeah, we're looking at what kind of things can we put in place, and that's across the whole business. I think in manufacturing, obviously, we've always got to focus on workplace health and safety and injuries because it's a more manual job. And yeah, in retail the same, but also in our support teams as well. You know, we know that workplace burnout is on the rise. We know that hybrid and remote models can really feed into that. So how are we looking at support teams? How are we supporting them and making sure that they've still got a decent balance as well. So I think wellness and mental health is going to be a big one.
Nathan Bush: I think you're. Yeah, absolutely. And we talked a lot about this in the hack games as well, didn't we?
Amy Lyons: We did.
Nathan Bush: But how do you.
Nathan Bush: Because it's a very different type of illness or injury or however you want to put it. Because it's not like a sudden onset of something usually. Often it can build up over time. Is there any way from a HR perspective that you feel like retailers can do a better job of getting ahead of the game in kind of being proactive around mental health?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, right? It is about being proactive because you're right, psychological injuries and psychological illnesses, they normally take a while to kind of develop. But also once they're there, it takes a very long time for somebody to generally recover from an injury like that. And that recovery is also not linear. So like for that person it's a really significant impact. So I think proactivity is absolutely the key. And it's interesting because obviously it's what we talked about at hack games. I thought it was really interesting to see how many solutions were really trying to address it proactively. It did feel like, well, I think all the teams actually had come up with things that weren't just to do with, okay, that person's not well now how do we help them? It was to do with, right. How do we create cultures that are going to kind of stop those problems from developing in the first place. And I think we're in a lucky time now in that a lot of organizations have tried a lot of things, so there's quite a lot out there to steal. You know, there's quite a lot of ideas out there that you can take and offer us. I was actually just talking to my team about this the other day and one of the things we were saying that had really helped us was just having Those really quick 15 minute catch ups in the morning that aren't really, they can be work related but they're not usually, they're normally just, how was your weekend and what have you got on today? And it's just replacing those kind of conversations that you would have otherwise had when you're in an office together or in a kind of shared space. So we've really tried to, yeah, replace those little moments. But I think it's also a time for leaders to really step up because you have to be able to observe your people and you have to know them well enough to know like, oh, I don't know if Nathan's okay. Like I noticed that he was sending a lot of emails quite late last night. Maybe he's having trouble switching off. And I think, you know, having those conversations which can be a bit tricky, but also modeling that behavior yourself, like, like, I'm sure you're the same. Sometimes it's easy to say all that stuff and then still be the one who's doing late night emails. Right. So I think it's about modeling that kind of behavior as a leader, because people are going to look at you and think, well, if Nathan's up doing his emails, then I better be up doing my emails too, because that's what he's expecting from me. So I was chatting to the team about I have Calm. You know, the Calm app? My mom got me onto it, actually. She really loves it. So I have that app and I. I use it a lot for work music. They've got like a good little music section and I like to work with just a bit of background noise but not talking. And they have a whole section that's got meditations. And I was noticing for myself, I was really struggling towards the end of the day to draw a line, right. And I know I've had a lot of people say their commute is normally their time, where that's the bridge, right, between work and home and not having that. I was feeling really like, just still check that email. Or my laptop was still right there, so it was too easy to just quickly hop on and reply to that email that I saw pop up or whatever. And so, yeah, calm. I've got a great kind of wind down the day. And I think it's about substituting the things in your work life that are very useful in terms of getting a balance. How do you find an equivalent to that when you're in this new normal world of potentially fully remote or a hybrid kind of working environment? How do you, I guess, how do you do those swaps? Think of it like the, you know, they sometimes do, like healthy eating swaps. You know, if you like a team tan, try this. You know, it's a bit like that. How do you do a mentally healthy swap for something that you used to.
Nathan Bush: If you're having a bad day, Instead of putting Rage against the Machine on, try the Calm music.
Amy Lyons: Yeah, exactly. And I know you and I were talking about podcasts and I've said to you in the past that I on my way to the office, because I have a nice long commute. So on my way to the office, I might listen to some work podcasts, but on the way home I might listen to, you know, might be true crime or something totally different. That just gets me out of my work headspace.
Nathan Bush: How do you approach the Mental health
Nathan Bush: scenario where you can put practices in place to help and you can have a great management team, but there is also personal responsibility to look after your mental health because it is this great blend of personal bleeds into work and it all contributes to mental health.
Nathan Bush: How do you help people who may
Nathan Bush: not be doing the best things to help themselves to find mental wellness?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, that's probably the trickiest thing. Right. And actually it's the same when it comes to physical injuries too. Right. You can definitely have the same situation where people, you know, know what they should do for their injury rehab, but they're maybe not doing it for whatever reason. And I think for us it's about eight. I think eight's about setting up a really, and this comes before the injury, but setting up a really kind of honest and trusting environment. You know, like, I definitely think you want people to be able to tell you what's going on even if they know that you're not going to like what you hear. You know, you need to set that up as a bit of a, not a non judgmental space. You still need to be able to be honest about the fact that something's not acceptable. But just having those conversations be not personal, be really honest, allow people to be really vulnerable. And I think that's the work of way before an injury ever happens. Right. Like that takes a while to step up. But then, yeah, if an injury does occur, I think it's about being quite brave. You know, it's very easy to see somebody not quite doing the right thing or to suspect it and not be too sure what's going on. Especially when it comes to psychological health, you know, it's hard to know. But actually just sitting down and having those conversations I think are the most important things. And setting the expectations, you can still, you know, set expectations about what you think should happen or what the next step is for somebody. And I actually think people really appreciate that long term. You know, when somebody's not doing well, just ignoring that or just hoping like that they'll get better. It's not usually. I certainly haven't seen it be the best outcome. That's when things can spiral. So even though it's uncomfortable sometimes I think it is about sitting down and having those conversations and just being really honest about what you're seeing, but being really open to hearing something that is different from what you think is going on. Because that's the thing about psychological injuries, right? You never truly know unless you have a good relationship that you've built up and you can sit down and come at that place of, I'm coming from a perspective where I want you to do well and I want the company to succeed as well. So let's talk about what's going on.
Nathan Bush: I love that advice around. You shouldn't be hesitant to kind of go, this is what I'm seeing and this is what I'm observing, and this is the impact that I see that is having on the team, the company, yourself, but not jumping to conclusions on the cause of why that observations are happening. You've kind of got to open the door to get to the cause.
Amy Lyons: Yeah. And you worded it perfectly. Right. Like, you can't be wrong if you're just explaining what you're seeing. You know, this is what I'm seeing. This is what I've observed. And then getting their side of the story. I think that really, that really is the right way to come at it because that lets people know you're not saying, hey, Nathan, you're clearly not invested in your work and you're not engaged. You know, like, you're letting them come at you with actually what you saw was right or what you saw was a result of XYZ that you don't know about yet. So it's about. I don't know if you watch Ted Lasso, but I am, like, obsessed with Ted Lasso. It's my favorite thing. It reminds me of that quote, right. Be curious, not judgmental. And I think that's actually a great quote for any leader to think of, is if you come at it from a place of being curious and genuinely wanting the best outcome, you're probably going to do the right thing.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Are we going to see that as one of Lush's values very soon?
Amy Lyons: Oh, my God, I would love that. Any Ted Lassoisms that I can get into Lush, I would be happy with.
Nathan Bush: I tell you what, though. I'm watching Severance at the moment, and
Amy Lyons: I don't know if you say it's
Nathan Bush: on Apple tv, but the concept is that it's one of the big pharmaceutical companies and they insert a chip into your head to basically separate your work and your home life. So when you're at work, you can't remember anything about who you are on the outside. They call it the outside. And then when you're at home, you don't remember anything about the inside.
Amy Lyons: Well, there you go. That's one way to get work life balance.
Nathan Bush: Exactly. It's not working out too well so far. I'm only three episodes in, but don't recommend so far.
Amy Lyons: Okay. All right. No, no. It's a head chips.
Nathan Bush: You've refreshed your website. The new range is about to drop. You've never had more customer service options. Hey, but take a look over there at that boring pile of packaging boxes.
Nathan Bush: Ugh, ugly.
Nathan Bush: Time to give that some love. Luckily Paclio is here to bring some joy to your customers delivery and unboxing experience. It's been ignored for way too long. With vibrant colors, cool designs and eco friendly credentials. There are no more excuses for boring boxes. Even better, Paclio is Australian owned and operated with same day dispatch and 14 day returns. There's nothing boring about that. Check out the Paclio range of E commerce packaging options@paclio.com that's Paclio P A C K L E O Paclio. So I want to move towards.
Nathan Bush: You constantly are making headlines for obviously your values but in terms of putting them into place around unique policies or workforce behaviors that you have at lush, is there anything that stands out that you've done recently to kind of help us work in a different, more fair manner?
Amy Lyons: Good question. Yes, there's a few benefits and perks that we've had for a long time that are I guess a bit more not so much focused on the way we work but the things that you get 50% discount, that's pretty good. Yeah, a lot of us make use of that. Things like, you know, I love if you would normally be working and it's your birthday, then you get the day off.
Nathan Bush: Oh, that's cool.
Amy Lyons: Stuff like that is lovely. Right. Paid birthday leave. Although my birthday fell on I think a Saturday or a Sunday last year. I think it's next year that I've got my birthday day off. So I'll be looking forward to that.
Nathan Bush: Wouldn't want to be born on a leap year.
Amy Lyons: Yeah, well we have a mechanism in place for leap year babies because that's a bit harsh on them, isn't it? They can pick an alternative birthday. We have, you know, I guess broader things like the fact that everyone has to be able to access a bonus scheme so that we obviously we're committed to paying fair wages in all the countries that we operate. And one of our, and I'm sure we'll talk about our Employee Benefit Trust but one of the charters of our Employee Benefit Trust is one of the key principles is that we exceed the government minimum rates of pay in every country that we operate in. So fair wages is a really important thing and having access to a bonus scheme is a part of that. So Everybody who works for Lush has got to have access to a bonus scheme. And then we have a lot of things that I think are quite standard across other organisations, like access to an eap. So free counseling sessions through an eap, which actually I think if companies don't have that, they should really look at that because I've seen a real. Our partnership with our EAP is excellent and I've seen a real increase in uptake in using the eap. But B, just what they can provide us with more broadly. And looking at like proactive, again, proactive sessions and not just call the EAP if you've got an issue, but having an EAP where we get a free legal session and a free financial session and nutrition, that kind of thing.
Nathan Bush: I think for those who haven't used an EAP before. Can you explain. I don't even know what EAP stands for, actually.
Amy Lyons: It's an employee assistance program that makes
Nathan Bush: a lot of sense.
Amy Lyons: Yeah. And so essentially it's a third party provider and there's lots of different types of EAP that you can access. For ours, you have a certain number of free sessions with a trained counsellor and essentially they are. The idea is that it's short term solutions, focused counselling. So, you know, we've had. You absolutely can contact the EAP if, you know. I know one of our top access reasons in the last quarter was to do with grief. So like if you've lost somebody, obviously you can access them and once it's not just kind of once you receive your free sessions, then you're done. You know, they can also refer you if there's longer term sessions, but you can also do. I know I've used IEP for really proactive things as well. Like if you think, oh, you know what I'm feeling. I know in the lead up to my maternity leave because I'm only just back from maternity leave, but in the lead up to my maternity leave I was feeling a bit just general stress and I could see that there were things that I was doing that weren't really helpful in terms of the way I was working. I was a bit scattered and I was struggling to focus and I thought, oh, as soon as I noticed that I was like, I bet the EAP could come up with a few kind of tips or tricks or changes to the way I work to try and help me manage that and stay more focused. So they're really good, I think, at doing. Whether it's your personal life or whether it's your work life, they're really good at helping you kind of. Yeah. Just address a few things proactively or reactively. And for us, our EAP also your family can access.
Nathan Bush: That's cool. And I love those examples of being able to use an EAP for the small stuff or the proactive stuff because often you see the EAP wheeled out when there's, you know, big organizational restructures or there's big global events or there's kind of big stuff happening and it's seen as this, oh, well, I can only talk to them when it's dire straits. But I love the examples you've given that it's their day to day to help people through whatever they're going through.
Amy Lyons: Yeah. And do you know what's interesting about our EAP too? So firstly, I think I know some organizations struggle with staff accessing the EAP because they're not too sure how anonymous it is. I think our staff are really confident in the anonymity and that's so important. We get very little information and we certainly don't get any identifying information from our eap. But they do talk to us about trends that they see that are quite helpful or that help point us in the right direction of, hey, you might want to look at this or you might want to see if, you know, you can use your notice boards more to push your eap, for example. And what they've told us is that it's normal for organizations that the primary way that people have heard about the EAP is from hr. And actually in our organization it's not the case for us, it's through managers, a person's direct manager, which I just think is so great. So it means that. But yeah, it's normalized in the organization and people feel really comfortable saying, oh, well, why don't you. Yeah, maybe you should call the EAP about that. And I think that that's really, that's really excellent, that it's a primary driver is people's direct managers.
Nathan Bush: That's so good. I love normalising the EAP and the assistance that's available there. Now, you talked about the Employment Benefit Trust and I love this idea. Can you tell everyone how that works? Because from. I think it's pretty unique to Lush.
Amy Lyons: So, yeah, the Employee Benefit Trust basically is. I think the easiest way to explain it is that 10% of the shares of LUSH were gifted to the EBT in 2017. So essentially what it means is that all Lush staff who are owned by the Lush Group, owned. The staff aren't owned All Lush staff who work for the companies that are owned by Lush are essentially beneficiaries of the employee benefit trust. So really the whole reason behind the EBT existing is that enshrines Lush's ethics and it means that the business can't be sold to any external organizations if that were to ever happen in the future without the majority of the staff actually voting for it. So I think it really importantly protects the things that we believe in. And we spoke earlier on, right. About how staff are really drawn to us for our ethics and our values. And I think this is a really important part of making sure that the company doesn't stray from those. You know, like it means that the employees all have a voice, it means that we really ensure independent ownership of the business and it's definitely a forum for communication and we've seen a huge benefit in the way that EBT can help staff's voices be heard literally at every level. So I've been on calls where the founders of the company have spoken about something that's come through the ebt. So I think it's a really important communication avenue for staff and it's very representative. So if you can imagine every shop and every manufacturing room has a rep and EBT rep, so they vote for and you can opt out of being eligible for being an EBT rep, but for everyone eligible, your teammates will vote. And then that one person represents that room or that store. And then at the next level we have kind of of all the EBT reps, one person is voted for us, a manufacturing rep and a retail rep and a support team rep. So you've got all of your business units being represented and then from those people one person is going to be a country rep. And that means that, you know, when we're having our more global EBT meetings, all the countries are representing all of their employees voices. And I just think that formalization of that I think is a real, real positive.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. So is that the process then that that EBT rep is involved in board meetings and when big decisions are being made to make sure that that 10% stake is represented adequately in the decision making process?
Amy Lyons: Yeah, so those voices, they're heard through a few different ways. And actually I think one of the really interesting things and one of again I think is a positive is that the trustees, so we also have five trustees, so one independent trustee, two who are business trustees and two who are staff trustees and they look after the EBT and they can also convene. So we have something called the Ethical charter. And that is a lot of different principles that essentially we're committed to as a business. So that is things that a lot of people who know Lush would recognize about our values. So things like against animal testing, you know, that we won't buy from any suppliers who test anything they produce on animals and that we'll actively campaign against animal testing. Things like being a vegetarian company, you know, those are some really core values. But to be honest, there's also some things in there that I think people might not always realize. Like we committed to paying fair tax in every country that we operate in. So we've got a fair tax policy. Things like all are welcome. Always one of our diversity and inclusion initiatives. So yeah, the things that people might not be as aware of, but with all those principles that EBT can basically convene a committee if it feels like any of the Lush businesses have kind of breached any of those principles. And then there's like a, I guess an internal committee hearing. So not only does it have these principles and that's easy to do in a way, right. Have principles and say, right, we stand for these. And tell us if you think, you know, we could do better. But having an actual committee that can be convened, if a staff member in one shop decides that something's gone awry and we're not doing something correctly, then they're able to pass that up the chain and then it can really get addressed. And it's almost like that feedback loop again, I think is so important that a staff member's voice can be heard. Action can actually be taken. And it's not just feedback that goes nowhere. Action can be taken. And then one of the things that we're really focused on this year is like communicating that action back so that then more people want to give feedback. Right? More people want to use that abt because they can say, oh, if I do that, it's going to work.
Nathan Bush: That's a great level of accountability and transparency as well. So great initiative.
Nathan Bush: Now we've got to wrap up, but
Nathan Bush: one thing that I know we'll be going through a lot of our listeners who are in the digital and e commerce world is how hard it is to higher at the moment, especially in those skill sets. You talked before about your onboarding process and some of the changes you've had to make there. Do you have any tips to people who are going through a recruitment process at the moment, finding it really tough going? Any tips that you found throughout your career that you go, hey, I've found if you do this, you get a bit of cut through.
Amy Lyons: I don't know one organization that's probably not having talent management challenges, let's say, right. It's a bit of a wild time and I haven't certainly I haven't seen a market like it is at the moment, but. So I don't know if I've got any secrets that people don't know about yet. But I think things that we have found important at the moment are definitely working at speed. We're finding great candidates are not hanging around long. It used to previously take us a little while to screen roles and now we have to screen the roles while they're still open. We would maybe we schedule ourselves some time once they're all closed, then we'll screen our applications. You can't do that now. You have to be daily screening and getting contact. I think long term when it comes to recruitment processes, we're definitely conscious of how we build those relationships, probably especially with candidates that aren't successful because A, they're still customers and B, you never know, they're just maybe not the right person for that role. But we have absolutely had people who've applied for other roles with us in the past and then have come back maybe a year later, applied for a slightly different role and have been really successful. So I think your process basically not being off putting is really important and getting back to everybody is really important. Now we've got a recruitment platform that helps us do that. But you know, I think just keeping that communication has been pretty vital. And then to be honest, we're looking at like, why not change the way you do things? If you're finding that maybe you're not getting the skill set that you need, or if you find that you're not getting enough applications, well, why not try something different? So for us in manufacturing, last year was very tough because we obviously have a big seasonal peak to manufacture our Christmas products and not having the borders open was just a huge challenge. And so one of the things that we've been, well, we've been looking at a lot this year, but things like, can you change your process? Does it have to be. Is a group interview going to work for you or does it have to be very long? Could it be a 10 minute conversation and then you decide that you're going to give that person a trial or you're, you know, I think. And that works across any role. Right. Does it have to be the same process? Can it be something different? And I definitely think that we've had in terms of our support roles, so our head office based roles, I think it's not about settling for sure. I don't think you should make a hire out of desperation. I think it's important to come up with a sustainable system to cover the roles that you're recruiting for while you're recruiting so that you aren't panic hiring because that's just going to make things worse, cost you more money, cost you more time. But we've been really focused on having conversations with our hiring managers to talk about what do you really, really need. Because there's no such thing as a perfect person. But a lot of the time people expect a perfect candidate. So how do we talk about and having that conversation before we even put an ad up? What are your essential things that you need? What are your just quite nice to have things and I guess really questioning some of the things that people think they need. Like do you really need somebody to have five years experience in the thing that you're hiring for? Maybe they've learned it all in one. Especially in the last two years. I feel like that is 10 years worth of experience for anyone. The last two years you've learned a lot. So yeah, just questioning that and thinking, well, what qualities have you had in the past in that role that have been really important and what qualities haven't and what could you actually just train on? What is a skill set that you could just train on? Because it's really more about the behavior and the will than anything else I think at the moment.
Nathan Bush: Some great tips in there. I love the one at the end around what do you really need? We ask in our briefing sessions. Tell us the three non negotiables that you won't let go of and I don't want to hear about the rest. What are the three non negotiables? And we can get into the rest later. But right now, because you're not going to find your perfect person, unicorns don't exist and don't come with this pre defined image of hey, I want Bob Smith or Jane Doe because I want someone like that because I heard them on a podcast or I saw them over here and that would be perfect for us because then you're cognitively skewed towards if that person doesn't look or sound or act like this person even though they could have all the attributes that you want.
Amy Lyons: 100%. Yeah, it's about, well what is it about obsmidth that you liked? What qualities do you need? Yeah, I really agree and it's about managing expectations. You're right that you we're not unicorns. A perfect person doesn't exist, but you can get a candidate that will be great. You might just have to do a bit of training or you might they might not have XY skill set, but somebody else in your organization has that anyway, so it's okay.
Nathan Bush: Or they might bring something totally different that you weren't looking for, but is 100% better than what you were looking for, if you're open to it.
Amy Lyons: I agree. And you know what? I think a lot of what good HR practitioners can help you do is kind of challenge some of the thoughts that maybe I hear things like, oh, they're just too experienced for this role. You know, that always is. We hear that a lot. We know that ageism is a real bias as well. In Australia especially, it's one of the highest reported discrimination claims to do with ageism. So I think when I hear something like that, it's a great opportunity to just challenge that thought process and say, well, actually what we know from statistics is that people who are generally considered overqualified are probably going to make you a lot more efficient. They're not less likely to leave because that's what people are worried about, right? Like they'll get bored of this job because they're too experienced. We don't know why they've chosen to go for a more junior role. So we can't guess what their intentions are. And actually we know they're more likely to job craft, so they're probably going to bring extra skills that you need that you don't know about yet. So, yeah, it's nice to be able to kind of just challenge those thought processes a little.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely.
Nathan Bush: And the other tip that I would
Nathan Bush: say that you've been doing this whole time is to really tell the story of a brand and the people within your brand because people work for people. People work for values. And I think if you're a retailer who puts a lot of effort into getting out and telling why you exist and showcasing some of your people and
Nathan Bush: the energy and the passion that attracts
Nathan Bush: people with similar energy and passion as well.
Nathan Bush: So thank you for coming on today.
Nathan Bush: Amy really loved our conversation and everything you've shared about what you're doing at Lush.
Amy Lyons: Thank you for having me.
Nathan Bush: Look, if nothing else, take this episode as your permission to go and watch a few episodes of TED Lasso as research. Of course, Amy said. So here are my top three takeaways from our conversation with Amy Lyons, people support Manager at Lush Cosmetics Number one Structured Team listening tools. You can't rely on gut feel for whether your team is happy, especially when they're remote and all over the country, you've got to come create systems which allow for regular and anonymized feedback. Amy talked about how Lush uses Workday's peak on tool to gather annual feedback and even she admits that that's not enough. I love the idea of pulse check surveys which are short surveys to gauge a team's mood. Think those little emoji buttons as you come out of airports you can always dive in deeper, but those regular check ins are laid down to get involved at the right time and then go deeper if you need to. Number two Proactive Mental Health I love Damie's recommendations for how to approach mental health challenges with your team. Rather than coming out and saying I think you're distracted or I don't think your head's in it, open with your observations in terms of behaviors and changes that you're seeing and talk about their impact. That then opens the door to them to discuss the causes behind the behavior. Don't assume you know what's caused the change and be open to having an open, honest conversation that might be needed. Number three Brave and Bold Values I'm not a lush customer, it's just not my style. But I do love their approach to retail, especially their unapologetic conviction to their values. Even if they're not embraced by all, they not backwards about creating the world that they want to be a part of and by doing so they attract customers and team that want to be
Nathan Bush: part of the world that they are working towards and that's invaluable.
Nathan Bush: To get the highlights of today's episode, head on over to add to cart.com and sign up for our free newsletter each Tuesday. We will send Monday's episode summary and links and discount codes for you to go next level on. And if you're looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, come and visit us at E Suite. We're a dedicated e Commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands in Australia. Head on over to esweettalent.com where you can download the free E Commerce Salary Guide and sign up to our weekly e Commerce Jobing emails. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep those customers adding to card.
