Paving a path to staffing excellence at Sephora.
Challenge
As a global beauty giant with over 2,700 stores in 35 countries and a top-tier e-commerce platform, Sephora's scale presented some unique staffing challenges. Specifically, Sephora's internal teams were strained by seasonal peaks like Black Friday and post-holiday sales. At the same time, producing the volume and variety of marketing assets needed for its thousands of stores made it difficult to efficiently onboard new hires in critical content creation and marketing roles. One of Sephora's key strengths is its dedication to diversity and inclusion. Remarkably, 80% of Sephora's global leaders and managers are women. This commitment, however, also presents unique staffing challenges, as the company experiences a higher-than-average number of maternity leaves that require swift placement of top talent. Additionally, Sephora's ambitious diversity hiring goals add further complexity to its workforce planning.
Solution
Aquent Talent addressed Sephora's challenges with a multi-pronged strategy, providing specialized talent for content creation, scalable staffing for peak seasons, and seamless onboarding for international hires.
- A relationship-focused approach: We prioritized building a strong, transparent, and trustworthy relationship with Sephora's internal teams. By maintaining continuity in staffing and ensuring fast, responsive communication, we became a reliable partner for Sephora's ongoing and evolving talent needs.
- Industry expertise and flexibility: Aquent Talent's deep understanding of the retail and beauty industries enabled us to anticipate and adapt to Sephora's specific business cycles and challenges. This knowledge of industry peaks and flows, combined with quick response times and transparency in managing rates and expectations, helped Sephora operate smoothly, particularly during periods of intense demand.
- Specialized talent for content creation: We supplied specialized talent to meet Sephora's high-volume content production needs, generating and managing customized marketing assets related to various beauty products (e.g., skin care, hair care) for use across Sephora's stores and online platforms. In addition, we supported Sephora's Los Angeles photo studio by providing on-site staff for photography and visual content production, ensuring the studio met content creation goals.
- Scaling for seasonal demands and long-term needs: During high-demand periods, such as seasonal promotions, Sephora needed to quickly scale its workforce. We provided seasonal production and marketing staff to support Sephora's expanded needs, ensuring they could meet the surge in customer demand and marketing efforts without overburdening their internal teams.
- Facilitating global talent acquisition and onboarding: To support Sephora's international growth and manage the complexities of its global footprint, we provided and managed global talent. This included onboarding international hires in Canada who worked on projects for both U.S. and Canadian operations. We manage all aspects of payroll, conversions, and global onboarding logistics, which Sephora appreciates, given its headquarters in France.
Results
The partnership between Sephora and Aquent Talent has resulted in the successful placement of over 100 roles, including specialized positions like Content Producers, Designers, and Project Managers, supporting key departments such as marketing and production. Our ability to scale staffing for seasonal peaks and manage global onboarding, particularly in Canada, has allowed Sephora to tap into international markets while ensuring seamless integration of global talent during fluctuating demands.
Over 15 years of collaboration, Aquent Talent has consistently delivered high-quality talent with minimal turnover. This long-term partnership, built on trust and responsiveness, has expanded across multiple departments within Sephora. Our proactive approach, responsiveness, and deep industry knowledge have made Aquent Talent a critical partner in Sephora's continued success.
