Sente Bella Med Spa Deceptive Business Practice San Diego California

Word to the wise: I suggest you do your research before working at Sente Bella Med Spa. So if  you're the following: Massage Therapist, Aesthetician, Nail Tech, Cosmetologist and Front Desk Coordinator, please find some other place to work.

Sente Bella Med Spa has a reputation for high turnover of staff and inexperience managenment. As of current, there has been a great deal of low morale in that spa and one would think the owners would put an end to it. Frankly that is not the case. The owners have hired a Spa Director Anne Benedito for spa operations overseer. For the past year, she uses coercive and position power to intimadate, bully, harass and terminate specific individuals on the job. Though she has no expereince in the Spa industry, the owners decided to hire Anne anyway given the risks that has already occured. Anne would make threats to the front desk staff if they did not sale more product and would constructively have them discharged from their place of employment.  She would create an hostile work environment by using abusive langugage, repremanding employees in front of guest and making them humiliated. This was brought to the owners attention on numerous occasions, but they dismissed it as a personality conflict. They even wrongfully terminated a Massage Therapist that has heavy documentation of the past incidents with Anne Benedito. Basically the owners decided to terminate the whistle blower (which is illegal in the state of California) and she is a third party witness to the harassment by the way. What was odd before her termination, Anne pulled her outside and tried to question her about a former employee's departure from the spa (Anne is responsible her abrupt  two weeks notice). Anne accused her of showing a text message between Anne and the former front desk employee (this employee would not have any record nor knowledge of that) and furthering accusing her of gossiping about the situation. To Anne's dismay, she realized she exposed herself and I needed to use the Massage Therapist  as a scapegoat to cover up her deception to the owners.

So the following week later, one of the owners decided to terminate the Massage Therapist because she  is not the "right fit", "clashing" and "policy issues". The owner did not have a third party witness when terminating her, did not explain the policy issues, and did not explain in full detail of the termination. Anne and the owners retailiaed against the Massage Therapist.  This is not the first time this happened, Anne had caused problems with a former front desk employee by witholding her from spa meetings and trainings and eventually having her fired as well.  Anne has made slanderous remarks about Sente Bella Med Spa employees to the owners  and several spa vendors. If this has happened to you, please contact the labor Commisioner's Office and file a compliant with Department of Fair Employment and Housing (dfeh.ca.gov). You have 180 days to file the compliant or you can file with Employee Law lawyer.

Another isssue is that the owners do not pay employees for training, and marketing events. They expect employees to devote four hours a week for marketing the spa, but they don't pay you. Even Anne Benedito admitted in the department meeting that we are not to get paid for marketing. They won't even pay for milage! Anne made an Aesthecian to  get trained in Los Angeles and Anne never paid her for gas/ milage (mind you, the Aesthetician had to drive Anne to L.A. along with her). They even refuse to pay for overtime especially when you have to do company events for them. 

Frankly, the owners need a crash course on how to run a business point, blank, period. If anything, they should aways check for employee references and criminal background checks for any job candidates. Side note: they need to really look into Anne Benedito's employee record and criminal record, because there are some interesting details.........