“Time spent hiring peak performers will be a great investment and time well spent.” – Jon Gonzales
Finding and keeping top talent is a key component to building and keeping your championship team. As I travel throughout the United States and Canada presenting my business seminars to salon owners and managers, one of the top questions I am asked over and over by salon owners; how do I find quality hairdressers? Why is it so difficult to find talent who truly have a passion about maximizing their full learning and earning potential?
There are many reasons why this is such a challenge for salon owners, I will list a few :
- Low standards for enrolling at beauty school — we are no attracting quality people into our profession failing to articulate the benefits of our profession.
- Outdated curriculum at our many of our beauty schools. — Beauty school is designed to teach basics,and protect the public health and safety,lack of hands on training, are not responding to consumer and job market demands. We need a better partnership between school owners and employers.
- Failure to adapt to change — in identifying and finding solutions to the many challenges occurring within the profession.
- Lack of job training, apprenticeship, or intern programs. Salon owners are not united in demanding an apprenticeship or intern program.
- Salon Owners — salon owners would have tremendous power to make this industry more responsive to our business and educational needs, sadly we are not united and have no voice
- Lack of an apprenticeship or intern program — develop your own apprenticeship program or follow mine.
- Many salon owners also share some of the blame for not speaking out for change and working hard enough at building and leading their championship team; surprisingly, many have no staff development programs,employee handbook, or leadership training in place whatsoever.
I suppose many salon owners find it easier to hire people with a clientele. While this may help with your immediate needs, long term results can be a disadvantage. They may not share your vision, goals, and quality control standards. If they are bringing a clientele from another salon, will they do the same thing to you when a better offer comes along? It’s not just about getting all star talent in your salon, it’s about keeping them there as well.
I will be releasing a blog on staff retention soon.
Here are a Few Hiring tips:
Before you make your hiring decision, ask yourself, will your new worker share your vision, goals, and quality control standards?
Will they be compatible with your other staff members?
Will they follow your salon’s quality control standards?
Will they abide by your terms of employment in your employee handbook.
Failure to build your team culture can also affect the stability and growth of your business as well as as well as undermine your efforts in developing your younger hairdressers.
Finding your diamond in the rough will require hard work, perseverance and patience.
The good news is there are plenty of potential young talent available,your challenge is to find them.
I will be releasing 10 ways to attract top talent at my 2 day business seminar in Las Vegas May 15-16. Click here. What you should be looking for is potential future talent who are willing to share your vision, your goals, and your quality control standards. It’s difficult to change habits of experienced hairdressers, so the benefit to starting with fresh talent is an opportunity to help them to succeed and avoid developing bad habits along the way. Read my report on apprenticeship and employee training
The danger in experienced hairdressers is that they’re usually set in their ways, and can undermine your efforts in developing your young talent as well as undermine your efforts in building your team culture. You want people who’ll help build the team up, not tear ’em down!
In my 45 years of experience as a salon owner of one of the top salons in southern California, I found it was much easier to train and educate young talent simply because they hadn’t formed too many poor work habits.
Let me be clear, don’t dismiss adding an experienced hairdresser as long as they’re willing to respect and accept your quality control standard and be willing to share your vision, goals, and educational concepts, as well as contribute to your team culture.
Here are a few guidelines to look for when adding a new member to your team:
Positive Attitude — Always looking for the good in people and in their jobs. Look for people that want to be there for more than just a paycheck.
Professional Appearance — If they can’t make themselves look good, how can they make your customers look good?
Dynamic Personality — They uplift the lives of everyone around them; they’re a joy to be around.
Willingness to Learn — They believe in your educational concepts and have an open mind to adapting.
Job Stability — A history of changing jobs should always be a red flag.
Without these foundations you will certainly not be able to implement your artistic and quality control standards. Choosing the right people is the first step to taking your business to a higher level in the beauty industry I will be presenting my all day personal development success seminar for stylists Monday August 14 in Las Vegas
For complete information and educational resources about developing and maintaining your salon, click here.