Hunting Heads By Keira Maloney

As an industry recruiter, I can’t believe the conversations I’m having with candidates lately. At HeadHunter, we are spending a lot of time speaking to business owners about the challenges of our current candidate market. But more importantly, we are also speaking to candidates and employees about their own experiences in the industry, and truthfully, things are seeming a tad grim.

I’ve always had a little waiting pool of hairdressers and therapists that I keep in touch with. Usually, our conversations consist of idle chit chat, the promise that they are happy where they are, and always a request for insight into what is happening out in the market at the time. Occasionally, they’ll get in touch with me if they’re ready to move on to a new opportunity, or sometimes moving interstate and are looking for contacts to network with.

Lately though, several of them have been letting me know that they’re leaving the industry all together.

Hairdressers moving into home salons or real estate; beauty therapists moving into nursing; even dermal therapists moving into senior administration positions. I’ve been working in the industry for more than six years, and never have I seen so many people losing their sense of connection to what they were once so passionate about.

So how do we counter these losses, with the demand for quality staff higher than ever before? Some businesses have put it down to money, promising hefty sign-on bonuses and even offering up to $10 per hour more than they normally would, just to attract attention.

But interestingly, when I dug deeper into why several of my contacts were leaving the industry, it was everything BUT money that was the driving factor.

The sentiments from my conversations were quite similar, from the new mums or women ready to start settling down:

“Working late hours and weekends is hard, especially when you don’t have a support system to facilitate pickups and weekend babysitting.”

“There’s the promise of flexibility, but there’s still the pressure to contribute equally to the team by working evenings and weekends.”

“I don’t want to have to miss out on bath time, or the option to spontaneously go to the zoo as a family on a Saturday.”

But equally, there are challenges our industry people are facing, even if they aren’t at that stage of their life.

“The physical strain on my body just isn’t worth it anymore, both physically and mentally. I was taking clients problems home with me, and it can be heavy.” from home and future proof my income should we ever experience lockdowns again.”

“The pressure to sell and hit targets each week/ month outweighed the benefits of actually hitting them.”

After six months of consistently having these conversations, I had to ask myself, has our industry officially become a place where our people will only spend a fleeting part of their working lives, rather than a permanent and longterm career? How can we turn that around?

Our industry landscape is changing drastically, and quickly. So, whilst we may not have all the answers now, we need to start considering what needs to change and how we can start contributing to our industry not losing people at such a rapid rate.

1. Reconsidering your hours – Are your hours more accommodating to clients, or your staff?

As our industry workforce is becoming less and less keen to work evenings and weekends, do we need to provide working hours that are conducive with the lifestyle they’re ultimately looking for? At HeadHunter, we are seeing more traction on job advertisements where the advertiser is offering strictly Monday to

Friday working hours. While it’s not ideal and is a stark change from what we’re used to, the alternative is worse – more people leaving the industry.

2. Are you transparent about what it costs to run your salon?

As more and more of our workforce are opting to go out on their own, would it be beneficial for employees to have more visibility over what it means to run a business? It can be easy for team members to see what they make the salon every day, without any consideration for the outgoings. Sharing the ins and outs of your business may not be a bad thing if you trust your team.

3. Do you provide adequate treatment time and rest breaks that allow your team to recharge and remain mindful in the work they’re doing?

Whilst the skills shortage is of course impacting our booking availability, squeezing in clients can negatively impact a team member, both physically and mentally. Being familiar with legally required rest breaks is important, but also consider if your bookings are making your team member feel like they’re a conveyor belt. Avoid burning out employees at all costs.

4. Do you create a safe space for sick leave?

One of the most confronting complaints I’ve received is how a team member was so burned out by the fast pace of the salon she was working in. When she ultimately ended up suffering a complete burn out and called in sick for the sake of her mental health, she was met with no empathy - in fact she felt more pressure than she would on a fully booked

Saturday. Should we be asking employees if there’s anything we can do to help them maintain a healthy mental and physical state of mind? Does our behaviour reflect care and empathy for our people?

As previously outlined, we don’t have all the answers, but we’re determined to start working through finding them. The AHC, ABIC and HeadHunter Recruitment are collectively working hard to better understand these shifts and how we can all advocate for a positive industry future with an abundance of passionate individuals.

www.headhunter.org.au