Every salon business owner faces an uphill battle for survival. The trends in fashion and styling are constantly changing, client’s’ expectations continue to upsurge, and market competition and price wars undoubtedly continue to increase.
Aside from those given encounters, according to a survey conducted by Phorest Salon Software, most salon owners face common struggles – Staff, Getting new clients, and Retention – they unanimously consider these as their biggest challenges for survival. Of 250 salon owners surveyed, over 48% stated that managing and motivating staff is the most difficult aspect of running a salon, almost 32% stated that getting new clients is the most difficult aspect, and approximately 20% list that retaining existing clients was the biggest challenge.
To put that in context, managing and motivating staff is almost as challenging as getting new clients and retaining existing ones combined. And when asked about the specific challenges about staff management, the following emerged on-point:
1. Keeping salon staff happy and motivated
With this being a low-wage industry, there is a high turnover in staff which can make this industry an unattractive career option, resulting in younger and less-experienced staff being employed who are less motivated to strive high. Salon owners need to reverse this negative perception by improving working conditions to attract and retain seemly staff and by showing an interest in their well-being and professional development.
Consider giving incentives. Through these, salon staff will feel that they are taken care of and they will be happier, motivated and more inclined to stay with you through the good times as well as the bad.
2. Making staff more comfortable with selling
Motivating your employees to sell can be a challenge. They may view it as an additional workload at their own expense especially if your employees feel as if they should be pushy to sell. Thus, a compelling reason for your staff to be comfortable with selling must be offered.
3. Avoiding confrontation when dealing with issues
Most people do not like confrontations. Avoiding confrontations doesn’t reduce tension, if anything, it escalates it – issues become bigger, resentment grows, people become disengaged and feel powerless to solve their problems. And these are truly detrimental to business.
4. Ensuring high quality, consistent work from day-to-day
Salon as business basically falls under the service type industry. And everyone is expected to provide a consistently high standard of customer service EVERYDAY to ensure that clients will return to the salon. To make this possible, a set of ‘salon etiquette’ must be effected.
5. Dealing with absenteeism (holidays, sickness, pregnancy, etc.)
Absenteeism is an employee’s intentional or habitual absence from work. Though employers recognize that sometimes absences are inevitable, poor attendance by employees can still affect the bottom line by negatively affecting productivity, work quality, and customer service and satisfaction.
6. Use an effective method of employee management
There are many ways of effective employee management, and one technique involves the use of a POS system that will easily manage time in and out, shifts, training, aligning staffing with demands, and you can virtually manage them anywhere, even outside the salon. Nowadays, salon software systems aren’t only for conducting sales; there are various tools in the system such as employee and inventory management that can save you time and manage the staff efficiently.