The year after Sephora debuted its 2019 manifesto, “We Belong to Something Beautiful,” the North American prestige beauty retailer launched its first comprehensive DE&I strategy, Sephora DE&I Heart Journey. This work focuses on three pillars: the company’s employees, its consumers, and the communities it serves. It stands out in the way it develops both employees and future employees through scholarships, training, and mentorship programs; builds DE&I goals into performance indicators; and prioritizes its offerings from brands owned by Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color. As Sephora itself says, “We believe that beauty thrives in diversity and discovery.”
The DE&I Heart Journey aimed to identify gaps in leadership, and Sephora found that Black and Latine employees were largely underrepresented, especially in the San Francisco headquarters. The company’s DE&I team and 11 Task Forces also conducted listening sessions—including 800 Black employees—and brainstorming sessions—including 500 employees—to share experiences across stores, distribution centers, and offices.
Sephora’s DE&I team, a part of the HR business area, leads the direction of the initiative. George-Axelle Broussillon Matschinga, VP, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, heads the team and works directly with Sephora leadership to align and inform their ongoing strategies.
Eleven DE&I Task Forces execute the strategy, each of which supports one aspect of the initiative. Sephora’s ERGs, called INCommunities, provide feedback to leadership and across the organization to share ideas and spur new initiatives.
Highlights of Sephora’s Initiative:
- Sephora Scholarship, an annual six-month-long program launched in 2021, provides participants from underrepresented races and ethnicities with tuition for cosmetology and esthetician school, a paid internship at Sephora, firsthand industry experience, mentorship, and access to open roles following graduation. To date, 217 scholars (75% people of color) have participated in the program.
- All Abilities Hiring is a nine-week structured training program within distribution centers that includes five days in the classroom and eight weeks on the job. After successfully completing the training, graduates receive an offer to join Sephora. As a result of the program, the company hired 317 participants with disabilities. The program’s goal is to expand so that 30% of all distribution center employees are people with disabilities, up from 10% to date.
- Sephora Talent Incubator Program (STIP) is a six-month development program focused on underrepresented talent with three areas of focus: 1) group coaching (bringing mentors and mentees together on specific topics to build leadership activities); 2) mentorship by leaders based on competencies; and 3) culturally oriented individual coaching (including a 360 assessment). Since the program’s launch in 2021, 200 mentees and 110 mentors have participated and 50% of the mentees were promoted to next-level roles.
- The Accelerate program is Sephora’s long-standing brand incubator program, which shifted priorities to focus exclusively on BIPOC beauty founders in 2021. Sephora was also the first major retailer to sign the Fifteen Percent Pledge in 2020, which signifies its commitment to dedicating 15% of its assortment to prestige Black-owned brands. Sephora has doubled its overall brand offering since signing and has already achieved 15% in the haircare category.
- DE&I accountability is built into KPIs. Every employee at Sephora, from the C-Suite to the front line, is held accountable to four goals per year. One of these goals must be a DE&I-related goal, thus building in DE&I success as at least 25% of every employee’s KPIs.
Since the launch of the initiative, the representation of women of color has increased across every band at the organization:
- Band 1 (VPs and above): from 20% to 33% (13 percentage points)
- Band 2 (Manager and Director): from 30% to 39% (9 percentage points)
- Band 3 (Individual Contributors): from 53% to 60% (7 percentage points)
These gains were most pronounced for Latine and Black women via increased hires and promotions.
About Sephora
Since its debut in North America 25 years ago, Sephora has been a leader in prestige omni-retail with the mission of creating an inviting beauty shopping experience and inspiring fearlessness in our community. With the goal of delivering unbiased shopping support and a personalized experience, Sephora invites clients to discover thousands of products from more than 360 carefully curated brands, explore online and through our mobile app, enjoy services at the Beauty Studio and engage with expertly trained Beauty Advisors in more than 600 stores across the Americas. And with its long-term strategic partnerships with Kohl’s, customers can now shop a fully immersive, premium beauty destination, with over 850 locations nationwide. Clients can access the free-to-join Beauty Insider program and digital community, which together enhance the experience of Sephora’s passionate clients.
Sephora has been an industry-leading champion of diversity, inclusivity, and empowerment, guided by our longstanding company values. In 2019, Sephora announced a new tagline and manifesto, “We Belong to Something Beautiful,” to reinforce its dedication to fostering belonging amongst all clients and employees and to publicly strive for a more inclusive vision for retail in the Americas. Sephora continues to give back to our communities and advance inclusion in our industry through its social impact and equity programming, called the Sephora DE&I Heart Journey.
For more information, visit: https://www.sephora.com/about-us and @Sephora on social media. For media inquiries, please visit our Sephora Newsroom or email [email protected].