Creating Your Apprenticeship Program

There is a real need for an apprenticeship program in the beauty profession. Unfortunately, not enough owners are aware of the numeral benefits of having such a program in their salon. Apprenticeship programs help combat the high dropout rate of young hairdressers, most of whom leave the profession due to lack of opportunity and experience. More importantly, having an apprenticeship program helps to upgrade the quality of education in your salon, equipping your team to better meet job market and consumer demands. As salon owners, you certainly have the incentive to educate your team; if you don’t teach them properly, you will probably go out of business.

The question is: Why are there no apprenticeship programs in the beauty profession?

Sadly, there’s a lack of unity among salon owners in addressing this challenge because of the division between booth rental owners and salary/commissioned owners. Many more salon owners are reluctant to train young people: they’re afraid of enabling them to establish a clientele,  only to lose them to a booth rental salon once they gain experience. Because of this broadly held reluctance, many gifted young people are missing on a great opportunity to develop the skills needed to establish a successful career in the beauty profession.

There is a tremendous gap between beauty school and a very competitive job market. When they don’t receive the proper mentoring and guidance, hairdressers easily become discouraged, unable to build a clientele and lack self confidence. Many more simply give up or jump from salon to salon, only to leave the profession after a few months, in utter frustration, forced to find another type of job.

In the absence of an overarching apprenticeship program, and until changes are made, each owner will have to develop their own apprenticeship and educational training program or follow my junior stylist program within their salon.

The following tips will help you develop a simplified apprenticeship or junior stylist program of your own, without compromising your client retention programs or losing customers due to the stylist’s inexperience and lack of confidence.

Follow these tips with an open mind:

Hire the Right People — develop a comprehensive staff development program and make sure you hire people that share your vision, goals, and quality control standards. After you make your selection, review terms of employment in your employee handbook. Clearly define your expectations and how those expectations will be measured.

Probation Period —I suggest a 3 or 6 month probationary period at the start of the apprenticeship. Make sure you include the following major provisions in your employee handbook:

1. Your employment is “at will,” which means that they can quit at any time during their probation, and you can let them go at any time during their probation period.

2. You reserve the right to amend or change your handbook or training program at any time. Make sure you state that hiring a new member to your team is not a contract for employment.

Define Quality Control Standards — after salon orientation, let your new staff member slowly perform assisting duties. Likewise, provide the chance for them to practice on doll heads when not busy under your supervision.

Assisting Program — after orientation—making sure they understand and follow your quality control system—you can then gradually let them assist you or one of your top hairdressers with shampooing, applying color, blow drying, etc. Demonstrate to them how to perform these tasks before they work on real customers.

Apprenticeship Graduation — after you feel they understand your quality control standards and you feel they ready to work on real customers, elevate them to junior stylist status at reduced prices under the supervision of either you the owner or one of your master stylists. Your promotion should say the following:

“All our junior stylists are licensed professionals, who have chosen to reach higher levels of excellence at reduced prices, under the supervision of our master stylist or director of education.”

Likewise, be sure to place a sign at the front desk stating “junior stylist available only on Tuesdays” or on a day you feel will allow time to evaluate their performance.

Master Stylist — once you feel comfortable with their work, you can gradually move them to master stylist at regular prices.

To many owners this process may seem like a lot of effort, but with practice this is a simple way to make sure your newcomer understands your quality control standards without losing customers. When your new stylist reaches your level of quality control guidelines, they will gain self confidence and dramatically improve your client retention efforts. No matter what, don’t miss out on the opportunity training your own team presents you. If you want your team to be the best in the business, you have to train them yourself.

For a copy of my apprenticeship and junior stylist program, click here.