Axed after maternity leave, another Mecca employee lays bare how she was shown the door

Another Mecca worker tells of being axed after maternity leave as details of an egg-freezing seminar for staff emerge.

Cosmetics giant Mecca is already defending itself against one fair work claim.

Another ex-Mecca staff member has spoken out after returning from maternity leave during the pandemic to part-time work at head office, only to have her position made redundant months later.

The former employee, who asked to remain anonymous, is the second person in a week to allege the popular Australian cosmetics company breached its fair work obligations. Last Thursday, head of brand Alethea Larkin launched an urgent fair work case under similar circumstances in order to stop the company from making her position redundant before she returns from maternity leave.

Responding to questions from The Weekend Australian, a Mecca spokeswoman said some allegations raised “relate to the claims that are part of the current legal proceedings involving Mecca”.

“As such it is inappropriate for any of the parties involved to be publicly commenting on those matters, other than to say Mecca categorically denies the claims made,” she said.

Head of brand Alethea Larkin. Picture: Glenn Ferguson

Notice of termination

In an email issued to the ex-staff member and seen by The Australian, Mecca alerted her to a “notice of termination of your employment by reason of redundancy” and explained that following a restructure, her position would be merged with another.

She received the email in July 2020 after being stood down, and said the alert came through a few months after she returned from maternity leave – when she was working four days per week.

Although she was invited to apply for her job in the marketing team, she was unsuccessful.

The successful candidate was the woman she helped select to backfill her position.

“I was at home with a baby obviously going stir crazy and I was on job keeper. I said to my boss, ‘is there any work I can do’,” she said.

“There was no update about what was going to happen to me. This went on for months.

“I knew it was coming but it was (a) really horrifically drawn-out process. I really struggled during this period, the deliberate isolation.

“Getting messages from the girls and the team being like, ‘we don’t understand there is so much work’.”

She said “the anger is never going to go away”.

“Can you imagine being a new mum with a baby in Covid and having to reinterview for a job you have had for years,” she said. “I have never felt so demoralised in my entire life.”

A Mecca spokeswoman told The Weekend Australian 58 roles have been made redundant in the past four years, amounting to 0.2 per cent of Mecca’s workforce. Of those redundancies, five were team members on parental leave.

“A person’s leave status (parental or otherwise) is not relevant when considering redundancy,” she said.

Further, she said since 2020, there have been 484 team members who have taken parental leave, including women in senior leadership roles within the Support Centre team.

“Of the 156 Support Centre team members who have taken parental leave since 2020, 18 were promoted upon their return,” she said.

“Anecdotally, three team members in Support Centre have been recently hired while pregnant and with Mecca’s full knowledge and support of their pregnancy.”

The spokeswoman said the company has a gender-neutral parental leave policy and it pays superannuation during paid and unpaid parental leave periods.

Egg freezing seminar and the “Mecca way”

In her statement of claim, obtained by The Australian from the Federal Court, Ms Larkin outlined a high-pressure workplace which required her to work “extremely long hours” and manage a “high workload.”

The ex-staff member and another former employee, a senior HR manager who worked at the company in recent years, similarly agreed Mecca’s workplace culture was demanding.

But an anecdote stuck out that the former employees recalled to The Weekend Australian – an egg-freezing seminar the company hosted for its staff in about 2017. A third ex-employee, who did not want to participate in the story, also raised the seminar.

When asked about the seminar, the ex-staff member who was made redundant said she declined to participate, and that it “plays into this whole conversation about working longer”.

“They want to have a young workforce,” she said.

The former senior HR manager, who decided to leave the company when she wanted to start a family, told The Weekend Australian staff were “strongly encouraged” to attend.

“It was positioned as taking charge of your career,” she said. “I think it was pretty clear it was really about … your career at Mecca.”

As well, the former HR manager said the leadership communication style was “very hierarchical” and alleged that staff “would be talked down to in big forums if someone senior didn’t like your idea”.

“They want people to be moulded to do things their way. If it’s not the Mecca way, it's not the way,” she said.

A Mecca spokeswoman said the egg-freezing seminar was held more than seven years ago, after a team member requested an information session on fertility health, including IVF and freezing of eggs.

“Support Centre team members were invited to an optional ‘Lunch and Learn’ information session on fertility health, which was hosted by a doctor who specialises in fertility treatment,” she said.

On workplace culture, she said: “We have a high-performance, customer-orientated work culture.”

“Our team members are aware of the requirements of these roles prior to starting with MECCA,” she said.

“We have five values at MECCA, of which one is to ‘do whatever it takes’, which is unrelated to work hours.”

Originally published as Axed after maternity leave, another Mecca employee lays bare how she was shown the door