8 minute read
A Post Pandemic Recruitment Crisis By Brigitte Benge
When you ask any beauty salon, skin clinic or medspa owner what their biggest business challenge is, 9 out of 10 times, it has something to do with employees. Nothing new. A problem that has been burdening the beauty business owner for decades.
As we start the journey of re-emerging from the debacle the pandemic presented small businesses with, this problem has accelerated to new heights.
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MASSIVE SHORTAGE OF BEAUTY THERAPISTS
Before the pandemic, it was all about a shortage of ‘great’ beauty therapists. Today, it seems like a shortage of ‘any’ beauty therapist. One would have thought that the supply would have increased with many businesses shutting down permanently, but this has not been the case.
There’s been a massive exodus of beauty therapists from the industry. Why is that?
(1) The Rise of the Home Salon
From fear of losing their job to believing that they’ll make more money and have greater flexibility, many therapists have opted to start their own home salons. Not just an Australian trend but one that is happening all over the world as a result of the pandemic.
(2) Career Shift
Truth is, the beauty industry is not as glamorous as so many think or in the case of beauty therapists, as so many believed when entering the industry. With the need for late nights and Saturday work and the lack of flexibility, it impedes on their family and social lives. Gen Y and Gen Z are simply not happy about this and unlike the Gen X and Baby Boomers, they’re not prepared to accept that it’s part of the job spec, so many have left the industry altogether for ‘better working conditions’.
In addition, the skill and knowledge requirements of the beauty or skin therapist of today is far greater than it has ever been. There’s so much more equipment technology to learn, more sophisticated cosmeceutical ranges to master. The pressure to perform is high. For many it’s just too much for a perceived low pay and many have opted to leave the industry altogether. Sadly, it’s the experienced therapists that are opting to leave. A great loss and cost to the industry.
(3) Lack of Quality Graduates from Beauty Schools
The quality of graduates of the beauty schools over the last two years has been very low, thanks to the pandemic. Learning a hands-on skill off campus does not make for a strong graduate. Couple that with the drop in government funding, potential future beauty therapists have been turned off the industry because their career path now includes massive student loans.
WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE?
Well you need to do a 180 on your thinking about employees, training them and meeting them where they’re at. Chances are a lot has changed since you were a beauty graduate or even employee. Enough with the ‘When I was an employee…’. That’s not going to get you anywhere. Do some deliberate soul searching and answer these 3 questions for yourself.
- Who do I really want to work for me? - What do I need to do to bring them up to the standards I need? - What will I need to do to retain them in my business?
(1) Who do I really want to work for me?
I mean who do you REALLY want to work for you? Understanding this is not as easy as it sounds. It must start with the culture of your business. The ideal employee must fit in with the existing culture of your business. Bring the wrong person in and the threat of your team and culture being dismantled is very real.
Great therapists are made not found. Stop looking for a ready-made great therapist. She doesn’t exist and if she did, she’s happy where she is and the chances of YOU luring her away are minimal. Start looking for a great person
to work for you who has the qualifications but needs YOUR training to get them to the level of productivity you want.
When I say, ‘great person’, I mean someone with the right attitude, passion, drive, ambition and willingness to learn. Which skills are not negotiable, and which are? The hands-on stuff is easy to train in, but you can’t train the personality and character traits of a great employee. If you want a therapist who will sell programmes of skin treatments and full retail home regimes, then she better be passionate about skin. But REALLY passionate. Passion will drive and speed up their learning curve. No passion will at best produce a mediocre therapist who chugs along, sometimes meets their target, often doesn’t. And as for their learning curve? It’s loooong and never ending. They’re the ones that are trained over and over on the same thing, the ones you send to product school and their product knowledge has barely shifted on their return so you send them again…. and again….and again. You know what I’m talking about.
(2) What do I need to do to bring them up to the standards I need?
Here’s lies the problem. Many don’t have a comprehensive training plan or even new employee induction plan. Have you ever taken the time to write down EVERYTHING an employee needs to know, be skilled at and capable of? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants, throw them in the deep end and train haphazardly whenever you have time?
Have you created your training library of videos, lessons, tests, quizzes? Have you planned out exactly what you want them to role play with you upon their return from product school? Do you schedule in the trainings and measure their progress until they’re ready to be unleashed on to your precious clients? No? Then you need to do this very important work. You know it takes only one negative experience for a valued client to leave your business, never to return. You should NOT be willing for that to happen. Ever. A lost valuable client costs you a few thousands of dollars a year. Invest that time and money into your therapists so that this is avoided at all costs.
(3) What will I need to do to retain them in my business?
The pandemic has had a HUGE effect on employees. So many have re-evaluated their lives, really thinking about what’s important to them and they’ve come back from lockdown with new wants….some, new demands. · Work less hours · Not work evenings · Not work Saturdays · Switch to casual employment · More money for less hours · More life/work balance · More flexibility
So you also have to do a 180 about meeting THEIR expectations. Now I don’t mean pander to their every whim REGARDLESS. No. I mean you need meet THE RIGHT THERAPIST halfway because giving the right therapist what she wants will give you tenfold what you need. So what do I mean by that? Well you should only settle with having the RIGHT therapist in your employ. Remember? The one with the right attitude, passion, drive, ambition, and willingness to learn. The one that has it in them to be a high performer. The one that will not only meet their targets but exceed them. Often. That’s what you need right?
When the right therapist gets what she wants, like greater flexibility in working hours, alternate Saturdays off, working only one evening, a greater life/work balance and earning more money, you’ll get what you need.
But what comes first? Meeting your expectations with high productivity or meeting their expectations with a better work/life/money balance? The elusive chicken or the egg paradox.
Ahhh, that’s the tricky bit hey? The answer is a stepped give and take. You need to create milestones for employees to reach in order to receive certain privileges whether it’s alternate Saturdays, less nights etc. How about a milestone for no Saturdays, late nights etc.? As for more money working less hours? Well that’s about creating a generous incentive programme that is generous to the employee and very affordable to the employer. One that is based solely on NUMBERS.
Tell me this. If one of your employees produced in excess of $7,000 a week, had an 85% rebooking rate with a 90% retention rate and asked to never work Saturdays again, would you say no? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d say yes and then come up with a way to have your Saturdays covered.
But here’s the real skill in it all. Learning to stop wasting your time. You have to be willing to part ways with employees who are not playing or willing to play the give-and-take game EARLY. When a new employee comes on board, that probationary period is critical. Too many let the time pass by without measuring the viability of the employee and before you know it, she stays, mediocre, you resent every ounce of training, money and patience you invested in her. And then…she leaves and you’re even more resentful, so much so that you’re unwilling to give as much as you did to the next prospect. Wrong. Give it your all. The time, the money, the patience but monitor it all and if it’s not happening, move on, rinse and repeat. Until it does.
