Helping Your Salon Team Grow

To prevent your salon from stagnating it is crucial to ensure that your salon team develops and grows while working at your salon. The progression of your team can ensure your salon grows as well.

The cuts and haircare fashions that come into style are constantly evolving, and it is important that your salon helps your stylists to evolve by training them in different techniques to develop their craft. From pastel pink and blonde pixie cuts to creating a box fringe, often the styles that are popular even six months beforehand quickly go out of fashion and are replaced with other styles. While the classics never seem to be out of vogue and a good foundation is essential to build on, in order to avoid stagnation, it is important to learn how to help your team diversify their skill set so they can offer a wide range of treatments for your clients.

From training days to booking courses for your stylists to complete it is important to maintain your growth as a team.

Recruitment Procedures

In order to create a dream team that can build and expand on their skills it is important to recruit the right people; whether they are a stylist still learning the trade or an experienced team member it is important to ensure they are a good fit for your salon. Both of these have positives and negatives. If you are recruiting someone new to the industry you can train them to your own specifications in order to suit your salon. If you are recruiting an experienced stylist they may need less direction and help, but they may have a different way of doing things that they need to unlearn. In order to ensure you recruit team members who will fit in with the wider team and contribute well, it is important to streamline your recruitment process.

For example, here is a list of steps to take when recruiting a new salon team member:

• Advertise – In order to gain interest and applications for the role you are advertising, websites such as indeed can gain you a lot of applications. In order to get recommendations, advertising the job through contacts you have in the industry can gain you possible team members with more experience.
• Applications – Go through the applications with a fine-tooth comb. What you are looking for in a new team member, and whether each individual would fit what you are looking for, are important questions to ask yourself.
• Telephone interviews – Salons are built on social connections and the ability to communicate with clients. A phone conversation can give you a good idea of the applicant’s social skills and confidence. If someone is a little lacking skills-wise you can often teach them, but confidence can be hard to develop.
• Face-to-face meetings – If you are unsure about an applicant, having a face-to-face meeting can allow you to get a far better sense of who they are and what they can offer your salon.
• Competency test – Asking them to perform a few cuts and styles while supervised can give you an idea of their skill level. The test should be designed to stretch their skills, although the extent of the test should vary depending on the position you are seeking to fill. For example, the level of finesse you would expect from a new salon manager would be far more than your expectations for a junior stylist.
• Make an offer – Out of the applicants you have spoken to, offer the job to the applicant who best fits the team and your requirements. Deciding can be quite difficult, but when in doubt you can always do a final phone interview to decide who will fit the team best.
• Training day – Once you have recruited your new staff member, conducting a training day to help them settle into the team can help your them settle in. There are often a lot of salon-specific rules and regulations, and making sure your new member gets a thorough and helpful explanation right off the bat can save you from having to explain it later.

Salon Changes  

As your salon and goals change over the years, you will likely bring in new types of software and different décor to prevent it from stagnating. It is important that, whenever you make an update or bring in a new type of social media to improve your services, you ensure all your staff are trained to deal with the changes. Have a staff meeting or even send out a salon-wide email detailing the changes and what your team needs to know in order to ensure that the transition goes smoothly. Even for small changes such as brining in a new product or brand of dye colour, it is important to discuss what it is used for and what to be vigilant about – for example if a new lightening dye can take on an orange tone when used on dark hair.

When you discuss these changes in protocol as a team, as well as what your team members can do to help you to expand the business, they often end up learning new skills such as how to operate a new software system. While this can seem like slow progress, these gradual changes can do a lot to ensure your salon remains fresh and relevant.

Training Days

To develop your stylist skills further, it is important for them to have a goal in mind. For example, if your salon is orientated towards cutting women’s hair, then barber skills may not be something they have learned. Organising a training day for them to learn the basics of how to do a proper shave and masculine cut is a great way to start before moving on to practical applications on clients.

• Team building – Completing team building exercises and activities to build good business relationships between members of the team can help to ensure that there is good team communication and that each team member is motivated to give their all.
• Salon Changes – If you are making significant changes to how your salon is run or the salon software that you are using, it is important to ensure that everyone understands the changes and knows how they work. For instance, if you are bringing in a new employee, giving a brief introduction through a training day so they can get a feel for how the team works should help integrate them into the salon.
• Learning technical skills – Having training days to teach your team technical skills is especially important if you are hiring junior stylists or students who are working on their hair styling qualifications; some technical skills can take longer to grasp than others. Having a training day for the new team member to practise their skillset can be a great way to boost their confidence and help them to learn.

If you are interested in salon software from SalonIQ, then please contact us here. We offer our clients salon software with a wide variety of functions for you to explore.

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