Staffing our salon teams today is not as simple as it used to be.
Not only because we used to feel like hiring hairdressers was easy, but also because now we have teams who want more freedom and autonomy with their schedule than they ever have before.
A common conversation happening in Clubhouse rooms and at beauty industry conferences are the conversation around “unlimited time off”. For most salon leaders this is incredibly overwhelming to think about.
It might be so overwhelming that you feel tempted to respond in one of two ways.
- You just say yes
- You say no and decide to stick to your old ways
Both of these options will hurt your business.
Option 1, where you just say yes might feel like a good solution. You might feel a big “yes”- I am meeting a need and the team is happy. Until you realize that you are missing out on a production opportunity that you haven’t planned for. Once the team starts taking advantage of their unlimited time off you could find yourself without hairdressers on days that you really need them because the rest of the salon is booked. You’ll be frustrated.
Option 2 will leave your salon team feeling frustrated and potentially unappreciated. Today’s agent associates the freedom and autonomy they get from their boss as a measure of how much their boss cares about them and values them.
If we want to maximize our productivity and make/keep our staff happy then we have to run our business like a business but offer solutions that meet the staff’s needs.
Even if those solutions feel outside of the box.
The solution for the business is quite simple. Hire more people.
When you have the right amount of people on your team for your business demands and the needs of your employees you can feel confident that you are planning for productivity.
When you hold on to less staff and still try to offer them the perks they want, you will lose. When you hold on to less staff and don’t offer them the perks, then you lose here too, when they quit.
Old thinking will not serve you, but you can step into new thinking with a strategy.
Decide how many people you need on your team based on the real scenarios you are likely to encounter if you introduce a more flexible time-off policy. You can discover more about this by sitting down and having an open and honest conversation with your team.
Happy recruiting!
