Developing Your Junior Stylist Program
Written by Jon on October 22, 2009 – 11:14 am -There is a tremendous need for an on-the-job apprenticeship training program for new hairdressers after graduating from beauty school. Unfortunately, lack of hands-on experience is a major challenge facing employers when adding new members to your team, Despite this need, salon owners are struggling to find well trained professionals who are capable of meeting and exceeding higher levels of excellence in meeting high job market and consumer demands without compromising their client retention efforts.
Allowing hairdressers to gain valuable hands-on experience by trial and error in today’s fragile economy is just too costly. Even worse is the negative word of mouth publicity affects not only your salon’s bottom line but also the livelihoods of your other staff members as well. Losing just one customer and their family will compromise your client retention efforts, especially when you want to train and develop new young talent out of beauty school. Negative word of mouth publicity is the worst kind of advertising.
The growing need for more training in the areas of people skills development, customer service guidelines, client retention, improved people and communication skills , basic precision hair cutting skills, hands-on experience, better work habits, personal growth and development guidelines and much more, are essential to achieving higher levels of excellence. Hairdresser Career Development Systems was created to fill this educational void.
Do Beauty schools adequately prepare young people to compete in a competitive job market?
It is important to note that beauty schools and their curriculum are primarily designed to prepare students to pass the state board exams, and to protect the public health and safety of the consumer. In fairness to our beauty schools, nine months is just not enough time to teach young talent all the skills that will be necessary in meeting high job market and consumer demands, especially if they want to work in an upscale salon with upscale prices. Allowing young talent to learn on paying customers with little or no hands-on experience is just unacceptable.
Grow and Develop Your Own Apprenticeship Training Program
Due to an absence of an apprenticeship or internship educational system, you will have to develop your own apprenticeship program that fits your own quality control standards. Hairdresser Career Development Systems is your partner in helping you design your own apprenticeship program that will take your business and staff to a higher level. I urge all salon owners to develop your own training program using my concepts as a guide that shares your high quality control standards.
Set High Hiring Standards when adding a new member to your team.
Develop your own staff development program. Be very careful on who you add to your team. Please make sure who ever you hire share your goals and vision and are willing to adapt to your high quality control guidelines making sure they are compatible with your other staff members. A willingness to learn is a key prerequisite when adding a new member to my team. Team work is essential in growing any business, especially if you want to establish a positive and professional salon team environment. Please refer to my book creating Your Salon. It is essential that you hire people who share your vision and goals.
Your Employee Handbook:
Once you make your hiring decision, your employee handbook should be the foundation to training and developing new talent. Review your terms of employment making sure they toughly understand what you expect as the newest member to your team… How can you expect your staff to perform if they do not know what is expected and how those expectations will be measured? Refer to my book creating Your Salon. Read my chapter on Staff Development as a guide. I suggest you place your new member of your team on a 6 month probationary period to make sure they are compatible with your vision and are willing to adapt to your training and education guidelines.
Assisting:
The next step after you make your decision to hire your new staff member is to provide the tools. It is critical that you develop and educate your new team member by giving them the educational guidance and tools to perform. In essence, clone yourself by teaching them all you know as their mentor.
Your first two weeks should focus on orientation procedures, such as customer handling procedures, telephone answering guideline, draping, reviewing Jon’s educational programs, customer communication, observations, shampooing, artistic guidelines etc. I urge you to review my educational programs and quiz them on the meaning of these programs. They are designed to help you establish strong work habits and positive attitudes that should be the foundation to employee training and development. My book A Hairdresser’s guide to Success Personally, Professionally, and financially then quiz them on the contents and meaning of the book. It is designed to help your new member of your staff to establish strong work habits and positive attitudes that are essential if you are going to grow your team and business. This book can easily be used as your operations manual. This procedure should require about two weeks at about 20 hours per week.
Gradually let them either assist you or your other staff members, so they can gradually get the feel of your salons quality control systems. Eventually they can do your shampoos, blow drying etc.
When they are not busy they can practice their perm wraps, sectioning and partings, and weaving techniques on doll heads. Once you feel comfortable with their development, you can elevate them to a junior stylist at reduced prices under the supervision of the owner, master stylist, or your director of education. A junior stylist program will allow you to gradually monitor your new staff member to make sure they understand your high quality control efforts with out compromising your client retention efforts.
Junior Stylist
When you feel they are ready to work on their own customers (at reduced prices under the supervision of the owner, master stylist, or director of education), elevate them to junior stylist status. In effect you’re creating your own school within your salon.
As an example, consider placing a sign at the front desk that states “junior stylist available on Wednesdays only.” As they gain experience you can add more days.
What you are doing is allowing your junior stylist to gain self confidence, and gain valuable hands-on experience at reduced prices, without compromising your high quality control standards or client retention guidelines.
When you feel your new junior stylist clearly understands your high quality control program and are prepared to service regular customers at regular prices, I suggest you let them work at regular prices periodically to see how well they are performing. Once you feel comfortable, you can reward them by elevating them to master stylist status at regular prices.
The money they bring in as a junior stylist allows you to recover your training wages and more. Please review my educational programs for more information on this very important part of your employee training program.
Additional tips and resources for building a successful salon staff are available in the Complete HCDS Owners & Hairdressers Educational System.
Until next time,
Jon
Tags: hairdressers, salon employee training, Salon owners
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