Skill Shortages & Colour Education

By Kristie Kesic

It’s about time we sat down and had an honest conversation about skill shortages and colour education. Any salon owner will tell you for years now we’ve been struggling with staff shortages, but what I really struggle with is why there is such a skill shortage amongst the hairdressers we do have!

Why can I employ a colourist that does an amazing balayage but cannot and does not want to do a full head of foils? Why can colourists do a freehand colour flawlessly, but they can’t apply a regrowth tint without overlapping onto the previous colour?

There is so much education out there and in fact 2022 saw the most amount of independent education launched, (which is amazing for our industry) so again, why do we have such a skill shortage?

That’s when I realised…. It’s all the same! All colour education seems to be covering the same thing. Lived in blondes. Now don’t get me wrong I love this, we need this education, I educate this in my own classes and there are some incredible educators out there, but the market is so saturated with it, the other skill set of colouring is being forgotten. Lived in blondes have been the trending colour over the past few years. It’s the colours people want to be doing, so it’s the education people are drawn to and paying the money to go and see.

As someone who invests a lot of time and energy into the belief of you need to learn the fundamentals first to know the rules and techniques to know how to then push boundaries and break them, it really hits home when a colourist applies at my salon and my apprentices have more colour skills then them. I had a new senior last year not be able to do a certain colour because I quote, “I have never been taught that”.

HOW… how did their boss let them go through a whole apprenticeship without training them in a basic skill and furthermore how did they get signed off if they can’t do these colours. I’ll tell you how, it’s because owners want to keep staff happy. It’s becoming a mentality of, I need to keep staff so I will let them do the colours they only want to do, or I need people on the floor I’ll just sign them off and let them do the colours they only can do.

It’s because staff only want to be doing these lived-in colours, owners are focusing all the time on this one skill. I know people who have left salons to go to others because they only want to do lived-in blondes. It’s this trend that’s dropping the skill set of our industry.

Owners are extremely time poor trying to catch up from previous years, so they are having to send staff to education outside of salon hours and their options are lived in blondes or tafe and product companies. They are relying on tafe to teach their staff the fundamental colour skills such as foils.

This is a very basic level, and it’s what’s needed to get them signed off, and for some, that’s enough. Get them signed off so they can be on the floor. Some have the mindset of its ok if the foils bleed or aren’t close to the root because I’m going to cover it with a root stretch, regrowth applications are seen as, oh anyone can apply a regrowth colour you just slap it on, and the skill of creative colour placement and application is being completely overlooked.

I’m all for specialists, I am a colour specialist for 15 years, I am a blonde specialist, but that means every type of blonde, and yes FOILS! But I’m also a creative specialist, a colour correction specialist, in fact you put any colour in front of me and I’ll be able to do it, and so will all my staff. WHY…. Because my trainers believed in variety. They invested time in me, I invested time in myself, and I wasn’t content in being placed in a very small skillset box.

For any colourist reading this that is only confident in one style of colour, or any owner that is only supplying one style of education, let me ask you this.

“What happens if you leave that one salon”?

“What happens if your staff leave staff leave and they go to another salon that requires them to have a broad skill set”?

“What happens if lived in isn’t such a huge thing in the future”?

“How employable are you”?

I completely support specialties and appreciate you can’t be good at everything and there’s a salon for everyone, I’m not expecting everyone to be at the level of Australia’s best colourists, but if we don’t change the way we view colour as a whole and educate colour, we are going to become an industry of very skilled one hit wonders. Lived in blondes.

I’m so passionate about raising our skill set for the longevity of our industry and I respect this topic can get very heated (it’s probably a great topic for a podcast) because I have been having these conversations among the industry for a good while now and brain storming ideas for 2023. So, to help me out I’ve called upon 2 owners and creatives who have a passion and purpose to elevate our industry.

Brodie Lee Tsknaris

Sandy Chong

Brodie Lee Tsknaris. Owner of Rokstar one of Australia’s most successful salons, educator, brand ambassador, winner of more awards than you can name but most importantly one of the biggest supporters of education and supporting growth of her salon team I have ever known.

Sandy Chong. Owner of Suki, AHC CEO and let’s be honest, the most important, influential, and supportive person in our industry.

I asked them the following two questions.

In ordered to elevate the colour skill set in our industry, as an owner, and one of the industries most respected what do you want to see more of when it comes to colour education in 2023?

SANDY: The focus of the AHC Industry Day this June was on what does the best learning experience look like for an Apprentice. The attendees were salon owners, product supplier educators, teachers and RTOs and independent educators. Apprentices joined the conversation via prerecorded video stating what training is important to them.

The outcome of the day was the need to collaborate and recognise all stakeholder’s contribution to training. Now training and education is fragmented. Most salon owners train when there is time versus scheduling weekly. Lack of communication between a salon owner, apprentice and college means skills are missed. And then we rely on the colour companies to also train our apprentices.

BRODIE: To elevate our industry skills that I believe strong foundation education for all essential colour is vital, I personally would love to see the art of foiling and not overlapping come back, seamless hairlines and no breakage I think is something that is getting skipped a bit too often in our education portfolio.

Do you have any advice for salon owners when it comes to what part they can play in making sure their staff have a strong all rounded skill set right from the start of their apprenticeship?

SANDY: Collaborating together with all stakeholders ensures quality training and better skills. A planned training schedule that captures core skills but covers all skills and experience needed for a salon’s clientele and brand. Our industry is so diverse and has so many layers to it.

Let’s make sure we exposure our hairdressers to as many skills as possible from the very start of their apprenticeship. Let’s make our apprentices appreciate the skill of foiling and not allow them to become reliant on a root stretch to cover a bad foil job.

Let’s help our hairdressers harness their talent and eye for creative colour, let’s make hairdressers appreciate it’s not just a matter of slapping on a regrowth colour and in fact a regrowth colour client in every 4 weeks is just as valuable as a lived-in blonde in every 12 weeks. If we do all this and collaborate with staff, independents, tafe and product companies we will have a strong colour skill set again among our industry.

BRODIE: Start at the beginning right from basics colour fundamentals the how the why and the most important. I feel that what happens when balayage goes away and blondes come back to bright and to the root? Empower our younger hairdressers so they know the basics to break the rules and the why behind everything.

Be sure to look out for more on this topic and a variety of education and collaboration in 2023.