Pros
Free snacks for waxers and GSAs.
Cons
As a former employee of the european wax center at O’Fallon/Shiloh in Illinois I thought I would share my experience as well as the experience that many other employees have had. Starting off with our wax specialists. They are licensed estheticians who are paid below minimum wage, $10.00 an hour to be exact and are given 10% commission on products that they sell and 5% commission on services that they provide. With this being said, the owner can pay our wax specialist more as well as offer them more commission but he chooses not to. Wax specialists are obviously given tips as well. Those that are left on card are taxed and those that are given in cash are withheld from them until the end of the night when they clean their suite. The owner also requires that all wax specialists preform at an extremely fast pace, in order to cram more guests into an already busy schedule to make himself more money. Recently all waxers were forced to move up to orange or red level, which means preforming both bikini services and other additional services in under 15 minutes. With this already strenuous time limit, waxers are also expected to maintain a clean room, a full pot of wax, be personal with guests, and sell products, which also determines their hours and if they will stay employed. While waxing back to back, they often fall behind because of the unrealistic time limits that are placed on them and this often cuts into their breaks or they may not even get to have lunch. If wax specialists are unable to keep up with the waxing time expectations, their sales goals, or add on services the were fired (hence the overwhelming turnaround at the EWC). Next is guest service associates or GSA’s. I personally was a GSA and we also get paid below minimum wage, making $13.50 an hour with 2% commission on wax passes. With this, our hours and employment are entirely based off of how many passes we sell. It is an expectation that we maintain over a 10% sell rate during normal season and during special season (b9g3), a 20% sell rate. Though this does help guests save money, they are constantly badgered into purchasing one regardless of their income or financial ability since this is how GSA’s make money as well as stay employed. GSA’s were also responsible for keeping the entire building clean, sanitizing everything, and often had to stay past 8:30 to ensure the building was up to standards with the owners expectations. Having a clean environment is important, but scheduling employees until 8:00 should mean they are leaving at 8:00, not 8:30-9:00. For guests this often makes our employees come off as rude or unprofessional, but if we do not sell passes, products, add on services during your wax, or rebook you enough it will result in the loss of our jobs. All GSA’s and wax specialists are required to fill out sheets of paper for the amount of passes, products, and additional services that were added on. If your percents were good it was written in green ink with a smiley face and if it was bad you would get red ink saying “let’s do better”. I would also like to add that no one in the center is given any kind of benefits such as PTO, heathcare, dental care, etc. I would also like to add that the owner has made the work environment at the EWC unhealthy and stressful. Recently Zenoti, our booking website, shut down and he forced our center to stay open making the GSA’s ask each guest for all of their information as well as hand writing down their card numbers (which is illegal) to charge when Zenoti came back on. During this time one of our GSA’s told a guest this and she said that it was okay and she would come back a later day, after the guest left the owner screamed at her asking “What the f*** is wrong with you?” and chased the guest into the parking lot until they came back in to get serviced. Rather than closing the center, he chose to become verbally aggressive with several employees and forced everyone in the center to continue working. Though everyone in the center maintained a professional attitude, it is something that he has lacked. He would often speak ill about his wife to his employees as well as other acquaintances in his life. Recently, 2 GSA’s, our assistant manager, and our center manager all quit and I was asked by the manager at Sunset Hills EWC (other location owned by same person) if I was still working there. When I returned her call I said I would continue if I was going to be compensated more than I had been. I was then not contacted about my pay until the text messages that I have attached. After I was spoken to in a condescending and unprofessional manner I knew for certain that was the end of my time at the EWC. This manager has been employed by the owner for the past 6 years and sadly has not done anything to stand up for her employees, but has rather been complicit to him and his strenuous expectations. I hope that guests of the EWC realize that this is not the spa-like place it is made out to be. I also realize that the owner will do whatever he can to get this review removed, I plan on continuing to leave this review time and time again, he may have ignored our voices while we worked there but I speak for all employees when I say we deserve to be heard.