Your employee handbook is an open letter to your employees. Let them know exactly what you expect from them each day in the salon. The key to employee training begins with your employee handbook. As our economy struggles, salon/spa owners are being stymied by government regulations that make it difficult and challenging to own a small and profitable business.

Compounding the many challenges salon owners face is how to avoid turnover and improving staff performance and productivity. You can avoid a lot of hardship and protect your rights as an employer, as well as protecting the rights of your employees, by drafting a well thought-out employee handbook.  How can you expect your staff to perform if they do not know what is expected, and how those expectations will be measured?  Your employee handbook should serve as the foundation to employee training and development. For your salon to succeed, you should make this a high priority. It’s time to craft your own employee handbook. Once you finish, make sure you have a labor law attorney who protects the rights of employers review it.

Ensure You Have the Following Detailed in Your Employee Handbook:

Terms of Employment — you have every right to protect your business interests and protect the job stability of your other staff members in the event of disputes and turnover. It is essential that you clearly define your vision, goals, and job expectations before you make the decision to hire this prospect.

Job Descriptions — such as work schedules, quality control guidelines, provide designated services to salon clients, salon cleanliness and more should all be detailed out in your employee handbook.

Disclaimers — you reserve the right to make changes to all stated policies and procedures at your discretion. Example: “This is not a contract for employment.” Disclaimers are crucial, and you want to make sure you research them well before you put anything on paper.

You are an “At-Will Employer” — make sure you state that your employment is “At Will” in your employee handbook. This means employees have the right to quit at any time during their employment and you as an employer have the right to dismiss an employee at any time for any reason.

All this information can be found in my book Creating your Salon.

Employee Training Fee — you always want to put a training fee on your employee training and education in your employee handbook. Be sure to add a waiver clause if they stay employed with you over a certain period of time, or if they leave on good terms.

Customer Confidentiality Clause – be sure to state that all phone numbers and addresses are the intellectual property of your salon in your employee handbook. Any attempt to take phone numbers or addresses of salon customers without the permission of you the salon owner will be cause for immediate dismissal or legal action.  You have every right to protect your customer list.

When customers gives your salon their information, you are legally liable to protect this information given to your salon.

Your employee handbook will be invaluable in helping you improve staff performance and productivity. It will require you to state precisely what you expect from your team and lets your employees know exactly how your expectations will be measured. Your employee handbook will take all the guess work out of job performance and expectations. For more information on how to write an excellent employee handbook, view my  chapter on how to write your own employee handbook in Creating Your Salon.

This will also be one of my major topics that I’ll be addressing at my Las Vegas Business Seminar on July 9-10th, 2018. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to drastically improve your business skills and workplace environment.