2 years before my departure from the company they laid off the majority of the management in almost all the departments, many of which had 20+ years with the brand in a "restructure". with the restructure many new management positions were created, and i will say the new structuring of the departments made more sense. however instead of hiring from the talent within to fill these new roles they recruited all outside talent. this was disheartening as many of us had been waiting years for career advancement opportunities within our departments and when finally created we were skipped over. Don't start here is you plan on career advancement. Once the new management was in place there was no seeking to understand what we did or why we did it. it was simply "you will do this now" when we would try to share our thoughts or opinions we were silenced or ignored. the majority of the new management had no experience in our industry or understanding of the culture Horst created for the brand. they came in and simply wanted to apply all their strategies they used at previous companies like Pepsi and not all sales are equal. and those hard sales tactics are not what our accounts are used to nor do they appreciate it. gone were the days of leadership that had any desire to seek to understand, collaborate with their direct reports, or develop any interpersonal relations with employee, salons, or stylists. ultimately 2 years later roughly 75% of the field employees were laid off, eliminating the majority of those left with any longevity with the brand. and i assure you they are not done with lay offs. At the end of the day i loved my job, and i loved the brand Horst created, but this is no longer Horst Aveda. This is Estee Lauders Aveda.
