Lush Company Case Study

actions, which goes against one of the four basic rights of consumers proposed by President Kennedy: the right to be informed.

Human Resource Management

“At Lush, we believe in happy people making happy soap”. This is one of the statements that best represents the vision Lush aims to convey. As previously discussed, Lush indeed focuses on producing solely organic products, which would explain why the company is said to produce “happy soap”. However, this statement also raises a different question: What is so significant about the company’s human resource management that would make the employees the happy people of Lush?

Human resource management (HRM) includes recruiting, selecting and motivating employees among the other HRM-related tasks

A part of Lush’s human resource management is that all employees truly believe in the values that the company stands for. “We pride ourselves on ethics,” says Mark Wolverton, Lush North America President & CEO. Lush aims to stay in business in an environmentally conscious manner. The products have remained fresh and handmade from the day it was founded as a small business. Adding to the values that the brand aims to uphold, these values need to be communicated to the customers, through various platforms, like the company’s Facebook page. Lush has however not limited itself to the mainstream platforms. Since the launch of the Lush Times, the company has moved onto a more transparent way of production. The catalogue, that is published two to three times a year, gives the customer an insight on the products, but also the employees and the companies itself. This signifies that the company is still staying true to the original values and signifies that Lush recruits and motivates by means of mutual values.

Another significant move in the human resource department is the fact that Lush’s employees are truly involved in every facet of the business. Employees are given products to take home for personal use. Lush also trains its staff members to inform customers about numerous environmental concerns. This should give employees more knowledge of the products, which indirectly leads to a higher degree

Nevertheless, Lush lacks employee management and transparency. Lush’s proposed actions are not supported by substantial empirical evidence. Ergo, Lush is not completely transparent as to whether the eco-friendly and ethical actions it asserts are actually pursued.

As aforementioned, employees often have complained about high sales pressure and feel that there was insufficient catering into their personal values. As a brand that has a stable and slowly increasing marketing standing in the cosmetics market, Lush has to be able to realise its faults in order to become more credible and profitable while establishing a stronger market standing.

The future remaining uncertain, the question is whether Lush will stay loyal to its original values or capitulate to the relentless, profit-driven and harshly competitive business environment they are, and will continue to be, exposed