L'oreal - The History of Success

Investigation of the L'Oreal case

L’Oreal, the small company established in 1909 by Eugène Schueller has become the top cosmetic group in the world. L'Oréal is all inclusive the biggest cosmetic brand and is anticipated to show constant business growth as customers look for higher quality and more inventive cosmetic product. In the given case, Elysa Yanowitz was regional sales manager in San Jose and her performance was above expectation each year.

During the visit of Yanowitz’s General manager, John wiswall, ordered to fire a sales associate because she was bad looking enough. Wiswall likewise advised Yanowitz to get him "someone hot" who suit for the job. Willwall came to know that the employee was not discharged by Yanowitz. Yanowitz revealed to Wiswall she would not terminate the female employee except if he gave sufficient legitimization to the decision.

The issue became big because Wiswall never gave the avocation, and Yanowitz never completed the request. Richard Roderick who was immediate supervisor of Yanowitz and Willwall began a campaign to terminate Yanowitz. They started collecting negative feedback from Yanowitz’s subordinate, they blamed her for dictatorial management style and finally she was forced to leave job. The case shows that L’Oreal wrongfully counterattack against Yanowitz for contradicting sex discrimination by the manager.

In 1999 Yanowitz filed a suit stating her manager breach California fair work law. Case Analysis The manager command to terminate a female representative for neglecting to meet his own models of sexual appeal established sex discrimination. Yanowitz claim that her manager was ordering to involve in illegal activity of sex discrimination in work place. This case was controversial because Yanowitz deny to follow manager discriminatory order on the other hand many people argue that employee who fails to obey manager decision should be punished.

The California lower court stated that there was no Violation of fair employment law because physical appearance of any person in not protected category. When Yanowitz appeal for the case, the court present different view on the case. The court state that there was violation of fair employment law because L’Oreal manager apply different standard for emergence standard for men and women. Employer should not hire their employees base on the physical appearance only. Take for an instance of 1981 case of Wilson VS southwest company, Southwest policy was to hire only attractive ladies for ticket agent and flight attendants. Southwest justified it polices as female has bona fide occupational qualification for this job but its was rejected by court.

Case solution

Through the case, we came to know that L’Oreal lost its image in public when case was in court and media. Employer should not make employment decision only base on physical appearance. Physical appearance does not reflect job performance of employees. If there is genuine reason of physical appearance in work place, it should uniformly apply to women and men. In the case, instead of firing decision to sales women, the manager could order to change job position for her. Before taking decision like recruitment, promotion, transfer, employer must consider factors that affect Employment law and human rights.

L’Oreal performed undesirable management role by incorrectly retaliated against Yanowitz because she denied to discharged sales representative. This lead L’Oreal to lost the case in court. Poor and discriminatory management impact on operation of the company and decrease morale of employees. Sometime a single bad decision is enough to ruin the company. It is responsibility of management to create sound work environment.

References

1. KM&M news (august 31, 2005), Refusal to Terminate an Employee Base on Her Looks Support Retaliation claim Under California law. Retrieved on 09/25/2018 From https://www.kmm.com/articles-345.html
2. Carolyn G. Burnette (July 2 2003), Is instruction to fire employee because she is not “Hot Enough” Sex discrimination? Retrieved on 09/25/2018 From https://www.jacksonlewis.com/resources
3. Harriet Agnew (June 29,2017) L’Oreal success story goes deep below the skin Retrieved on 09/25/2018 from https://www.ft.com/content/ad0ed0ca-5cae-11e7-9bc8-8055f264aa8b