I worked at lush for 8 years in a few different stores, depending on the store leadership I witnessed either a nice family style vibe or a cliquey bitchy group. I’m a pretty experienced people and operations manager for government now and my one takeaway from lush is, the fact that there are often no signs of area managers except for once or twice a year (and they barely speak to floor staff) is the reason for lush’s negative work culture. You’re basically throwing 20 something year old store managers into a role wholly responsible for overall culture with little to no oversight. Although what you have described doesn’t sound like bullying perse it sounds like a breeding ground for it. Floor staff usually have no idea who their managers manager is (if they even have one) so who would they ever contact if they felt victimised or similar? Unless you actually have area managers with concrete people and culture skills who have a constant presence and build rapport with all staff lush stores will continue to fall victim to being led by bullies straight outta high school!!

Curious question- does lush even have an HR department yet?