The Perfume Shop, the UK’s largest fragrance retailer, has successfully secured accreditation with the Living Wage Foundation.
The Perfume Shop has paid real Living Wage pay rates since January 2023 signalling their commitment to ensuring all staff are paid fairly, feel rewarded and valued. Beyond the real Living Wage pay rate, Store teams are also able to earn commission in key trading periods, with Managers participating in an annual bonus scheme to ensure that performance is rewarded.
In addition to a real Living Wage pay rate, The Perfume Shop is committed to employee development, offering widespread opportunity for people to develop their career through apprenticeships, internal management training programmes as well as access to vocational learning through the British Retail Consortium and the Fragrance Foundation qualification programme.
Gill Smith, Managing Director said “Our Perfume People are at the heart of our business and critical to our success. Everyday our store teams showcase their expertise to our customers, helping them make confident perfume choices and making sure they feel special and valued. We wanted to implement the real living wage to recognise the value of our store teams to the business. Formal accreditation by the real Living Wage Foundation has been a long-held ambition of ours. It helps us attract and retain some of the best talent, passion and spark on the High Street (or shopping centre or retail park) and demonstrates our commitment to, and care for, our teams at a time of unprecedented ‘cost of living’ pressures and it was the right thing to do.”
In 2022, The Perfume Shop recognised that the Cost of Living crisis was impacting their Perfume People significantly, therefore the decision was made to align themselves with the Real Living Wage from January 2023. Not only has The Perfume Shop ensured that it’s paid to their own teams, but they have been working with key suppliers to ensure that they are also committed to paying their employees a real living wage.
Alongside their generous staff discount, The Perfume Shop also help their staff to make their money go a bit further through their ‘TPS Perks’ scheme which offers discounts on other High Street retailers to support with the Cost of Living crisis. 2023 has also seen the launch of the new Aviva Digicare+ Workplace benefit for all staff which offers a virtual GP service, mental health support and lifestyle advice, recognising the importance of supporting the wellbeing of their employees.
Michelle Fellows, people & development director also commented: “We’re proud to be a real Living Wage employer. We believe that these pay rates, plus all our other benefits and our brilliant culture create some of the very best jobs in retail. As we start to think about increasing our workforce through temporary Christmas Sales Advisors positions we’re confident that we have a compelling offer for anyone looking to work in retail on a temporary or permanent basis. Retail offers a range of fantastic career opportunities and we continue to be very proud of the number of Perfume People we promote internally every year.”
