Don’t Let Your Past, Cloud Your Vision of A Great Future By Clive Allwright

Happy New Year and let’s kick off 2022 with a fresh renewed attitude of achieving some big personal and professional goals. The past 2 years have certainly been challenging for us all, however, don’t let your past cloud your vison of the future, it’s what made you who you are today.

Maybe some of us will start 2022 with some New Year’s resolutions? Some of us might be attempting to do more exercise, move into a bigger new space, not drink so much, or save money for a holiday, government lockdowns are no holiday!

In late November 2021, I was fortunate to coach a group of young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds into becoming new Piloroo salon assistants, enabling salons to have help throughout the busy periods into Christmas. So many salons contacted Piloroo in search of more assistants after the lockdowns in Sydney, we needed to find and train more assistants fast, in order to help these salons.

Over the past 2 years we have worked with an amazing organisation helping disadvantaged young adults get back into the workplace, the organisation is called “The Sticking Together Project” They do some incredible work finding suitable candidates to work with us as salon assistants.

We also reached out to Rita Marcon GM of Kao Corporation Australia & NZ, we asked if we could utilize the sparkling new Kao Salon Academy in Sydney’s CBD, Rita kindly jumped at the opportunity to assist us. We would like to say a massive “Thank You” to Rita and all the Kao crew who helped us during the training, especially Academy Manager Madeline Weightman, you were brilliant.

During day 1 of the training, we asked a young gentleman called Aaron to join us, Aaron had completed the Piloroo training program back in Feb 2021. We asked Aaron to share his own story with the group, of how he was once in a similar position to those on the course 9 months earlier. Since completing his Piloroo training we helped Aaron find a fulltime apprenticeship at The Barbershop in Sydney. As I write this article, Aaron is currently moving into his own apartment today. For the first time in a long time, Aaron finally has a place to call home for Christmas. Some of the toughest moments for me was hearing some of the personal stories. Like the story of being homeless and living in a train station for over a year, or coming to Australia in a boat with their family at the age of 3 as a refugee, or born into a family with parents addicted to drugs and being placed in care from a young age. After hearing all these stories, I went home later that night and hugged my family a little tighter. Once again, I felt so much gratitude for the life I have today.

Despite all their stories of hardship and sometimes tragedy, everyone turned up with a smile, some obviously a little shy on day one, but they were all super keen to try and attempt to make a brighter future for themselves. On the second day they all showed up with so much more confidence and pride, they were excited about the possibility of the new adventures about to happen in their lives.

We had an amazing few days educating these great people on what it takes to become the best salon assistant. After the course we sent them off for additional mentoring at one of our Piloroo partner salons, this particular class went to Murphy Gozzard and Valonz. They helped us mentor all the new assistant’s “Thank you so much to everyone involved”

Piloroo assistants have worked in so many different salons such as E Salon, Stevie English, The Fox & the Hair, Tognini’s, Frank Provost, Valonz, Murphy Gozzard, Fuchs Hair and Premal by Oscar Oscar, and Suki just to name a few. You can imagine for many people these new work opportunities would be like winning the lottery, especially for those who were once sleeping rough or living in temporary accommodation. These young assistants never gave up on their dreams, despite all the odds stacked against them. They turned the tables of fortune just by showing up with a smile and willing to put the effort in to have a brighter start to 2022.

If your salon is in Sydney and you would like to have one of our assistants help out in your salon for the day, simply post a shift when you need them on piloroo.com

Our mission for 2022 is to grow this program to be more accessible to more salons across Australia. Helping more young adults find a career in hairdressing, maybe some didn’t think it was even possible. This program can only grow with help from our hairdressing community, salons and stylists who are willing to help us mentor these candidates. It costs nothing to mentor assistants, just your time. We hope by mentoring someone you might just find your next apprentice. Hopefully they will find a salon they love and see a bright new future being a full-time team member just like Aaron.

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to pay it forward to someone, I am sure your heart will thank you for it.

We are looking for more salons to help mentor more assistants and additional venues to hold further trainings throughout 2022

If this sounds like something you would like to be involved in? Please contact clive@piloroo.com or kelly@piloroo.com