The Hidden Realities of Our Luxury Spa Break

Struggling to stop my mouth yawning and my head sagging; my shoulders are burning right between the blades, the aching heat forcing its way into my neck and scalp. I’m so tired I actually feel sick, it’s been six hours since I was last able to use the bathroom, the urge to go is making my stomach cramp and yet my mouth is drier than the Sahara and I’m utterly dehydrated. My client smiles up at me from the massage couch “you must have such a lovely relaxing job,” she beams, I smile back as my knuckles and wrists audibly crack from massaging her upper arms, I just can’t bring myself to respond.

£3,500 I spent on my initial training and I’ve spent significantly more since. As a highly qualified and insured professional, I was earning minimum wage and having to work long hours without being given the time in a working day to either hydrate or take a bathroom break. I was working 8hours a day in an airless, windowless room that stank of nail polish remover, only having a half hour lunch break and seeing up to fifteen clients a day for less money than I had working part time in a superstore. No wonder the majority of the beauty therapists coming straight from college work for an average of 9 months then completely change their career. Absences due to repetitive strain injury are so high that many spas are understaffed yet overbooked. Most risk assessments state no more than five hours of massage work should be given to any therapist in a day but this is often ignored, the demand for massage just being too high.

Working for an agency was not much better, the person at the top often taking more than 50% of

the money I was bringing in and leaving me to deal with problems; such as not always being qualified to meet each particular spa’s needs, thus causing problems for both the spa itself who have booked specific treatments and now cannot deliver and to myself the therapist who then has to overstretch her abilities; not informing me or paying me for any changes that have been made to a shift at the last minute, causing me to lose both time and money.

SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE!

I set up my own agency to make sure that the therapists are getting the wages, the care and the appreciation that they deserve. My aim is to change the industry completely. To get the care and respect for such a highly skilled and physically demanding job. In twenty years time, if I have succeeded in my mission, then my business will be completely redundant; spa staff will be getting paid a fairer wage, there will be stricter guidelines on massage limits and breaks that a therapist must have per day and the quality of massage treatments that spa guests are receiving will be much higher and performed in a manner that puts less stress on the therapist thus eliminating RSI and exhaustion and giving the client an overall higher quality experience.

This is from my own personal experience and from my discussions with other spa therapists, this is not indicative of every spa out there but it does appear to be far too commonplace in this industry, however in the relatively short amount of time that this agency has been running, we have already seen positive progress.

Kayleigh Purser www.kayleighpurser.wix.com/therapies