Visit to Natura!

Today I visited Natura. Natura is a Brazilian cosmetics company. It sells a variety of "natural" make-ups, lotions, and other similar items. It gives the appeal of offering its clients a variety of very natural, environmentally friendly products.



The tour was awesome! We were first lead through the perfume plant where their perfumes are made. If I remember correctly, they sell about 200,000 perfumes a month! Here is a picture:



Then, we saw their storage warehouse. It works exactly like the warehouse in Monsters Inc where the computer sends up a signal and a machine grabs the correct box from thousands of other boxes. This warehouse was for the raw products. There is another warehouse for the finished products.



Next, we saw where the company packages all the boxes of items. The system is perfect. The boxes move perfectly and the items for each individual order enter exactly as requested. Technology is certainly incredible these days! The only human hands touching the items as they are packed are the people at the end who double-check the orders to ensure quality and the correct order.



Then we saw the training building. The picture below is a gold wall in the building for people who have worked selling Natura products (because Natura is sold like Avon, there are not many Natura stores). Each person working 15 years of more selling Natura products receives a gold ball and they choose where to put it on the wall. The wall is absolutely beautiful.



Natura is interesting because it is focused on the well-being of its employees. The quote on the main entrance of the factory shown in the picture below means "Our reason for being is to create and commercialize products and services that promote well-being and being well."



And the company tries to live up to that by encouraging their employees to have good health. At the start of every shift, employees must do 10 minutes of exercise and another 10 at the end of each shift. During their lunch breaks, there is a gym for them to use and they are welcome to use it on the weekends and holidays too, along with their families. There is a daycare on the premises so that mothers can come visit their children during the day. Transportation to and from the buildings is either by electric car or bike, depending on the worker's choice. And the factory is outside of Sao Paulo in a forested area. Natura seemed to be truly living up to it's "natural" ambiance.

And the company is great. I really loved learning about the operations, the company's growth and its anticipated expansion into the U.S. in the next couple of years. While the tour guide was NOT at all helpful when I asked about international relations jobs, I think Natura would be a very interesting job opportunity for me, especially as the company looks to expand into the U.S. in 2012. I'm going to do more research and see what I find...!