Summary: - Marketing turnover is concerning. - Franchisees have said racist and fat phobic comments and will at most receive a slap on the wrist. At minimum nothing is said to them. - The future of the business is concerning. - There is no direct guideline concerning remote work abroad. - I was guilt tripped for taking PTO hours that I had (they said it wouldn’t look good on my career), and then laid off two days after returning. I was going to a family graduation. It wasn’t just a vacation. The marketing team turnover has been concerning. Within one year of working the marketing team lost three senior leadership and creative employees. The year before that I was told there were more. No other team in the company has this type of turnover. There were also significant layoffs for which my role was eliminated. The spending on creative agencies did not make sense for the work that was created. The marketing team desperately needs a project manager, creative director, multiple copywriters, and multiple marketing coordinators in order to function. They have filled a handful of roles but not the creative director and project management roles. The marketing strategy could also be more adventurous and fun, however this is at the mercy of the Franchisee Action Committee. Some of the franchisees hated the emails I created because they had diverse models. The franchisees were pretty concerning at times in there blatant racist remarks calling one of the models “Pedro” because he was LatinX. That was not his name mind you. He was told this was inappropriate behavior and the email was sent as his, however this is who you are creating messaging for. I was also told that in one of the meetings with the Franchisee Action Committee, that one of the franchisees said that none of our models were beautiful, especially referring to the curvy models. There really was no way to combat this abhorrent behavior by the franchisees. What they say goes. In my opinion it is dragging the company down. As for the business as a whole, I believe the trajectory of EWC’s pricing is concerning. I said multiple times to Leadership that in my pricing research, EWC was far too expensive for what the customer is getting. Which is temporary hair removal. The prices customers are paying for a Brazilian and Eyebrow wax are getting very close to what you would pay for a monthly payment for Laser hair removal. Why would a customer choose a temporary hair removal option that is just as expensive as laser when laser has more permanent results? My advice and analysis was to lower waxing costs to make it unbeatable compared to laser. What did they do? They’re adding laser. They announced they’re looking for laser hair removal experts. Which is a TERRIBLE business decision when spas and hair removal franchises like Milan Laser are doing it far better. It will take years for EWC to add that equipment in their centers. It will take years to hire everyone. By that point waxing will likely suffer and make no sense to provide at EWC centers. Not to mention this is a very expensive decision. All this because EWC is set up to be at the mercy of the franchisees pricing increases. Last but not least, there needs to be clearer guidelines on remote work. If it’s a policy that you can’t work abroad that needs to be in the employee handbook. Shockingly it’s not. I worked from Europe with no problem in the winter. Then in the summer it was suddenly a prohibited because my team “didn’t want to set a bad precedent.” Which is crazy because I even offered to work Central Time. This policy has been used by other people in other teams. It was just a problem with my team. But the real upsetting thing that was told to me is that it would look bad on my career if I took all the time off that I had stored up for PTO. And I had the time. So it was a catch 22. I was wrong if I offered to work remotely while abroad, but I was also wrong if I took the PTO that I had. So be warned you may have PTO but they will make you feel horrible and at risk of losing your job if you take it. Low and behold two days after my vacation I was let go. Take that as you will. These are my thoughts. For legal purposes none of this information is private. The laser announcement was posted on LinkedIn and my research analysis results were my own and not at the request of EWC. All my research can be googled and compiled through public domain. I did that on my own time. As for my experience with the concerning comments from franchisees, there was no request that I keep those comments private and I signed no NDA. As for my projection on the trajectory of the business, it is based on my own research and my opinion.
