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In this salon leadership training video, we’re covering the most important skill when managing a salon business or spa: Salon staff management and motivation. This is not about salon etiquette for the staff or salon rules for employees but rather how you get your team motivated to perform at their peak.
When you run a salon, the most significant part of your income or your product that you sell is your team, so it’s super important that they stay super motivated and that they like to work together and are a strong team.
1. Adapt to Each Person on Your Staff
It is essential when building a motivated team to make sure that you adapt to the different persons in the group. As a leader, you need to adjust your leadership style depending on who you’re talking to.
For example, if you have a member of your team who’s more junior who doesn’t know how all things work, you will need to stay closer to that person and give them a lot of guidance.
But if you have someone in your team who has more experience and knows how things work and applies the same approach, that would be demotivating having someone trying to give them detailed guidance on how to do something when they are competent themselves.
There are other personality differences that you will have in the team and but I want to still bring this up as point number one because you know out of all the things that we’re going to talk through. You still need to use your head and adapt what you’re doing to motivate and lead each person as an individual.
2. Get the Salon Team Involved
The second tip would be to get the team involved in the salon to make them feel that it is their salon as well. Maybe have an idea box, we have one at my salon where the team can always share things they have thought about, and then we will bring it up in a meeting.
Then we can all discuss it. It won’t be just something they say to me, and I forget about it, and they feel like. Okay, I say things, but my boss never takes it up, so it’s not helpful for me to bring it up. So make sure that the team feels involved.
Also, make sure that your staff can choose where things should stand in the salon because they are the people working there, so it’s for them that it’s supposed to work, so I think that is a perfect way to keep the team motivated.
3. Work on Your Salons Culture and Values
Tip number three would be to work on your culture and values, and I have a separate video where I talk more about that.
Essentially what I mean is making sure that everyone who’s working at this salon is, going in the right direction or following the same values for how to treat each other and how we want things to work around here.
Have the culture and values evident in your head, and that makes it so much easier when you recruit people into the business. But also to know what type of behaviors you want to see and to make sure that the way you manage your team aligns with them, so you know that’s an important one.
4. Celebrate Your Salons Accomplishments
My next piece of advice will be to celebrate achievements and reach all the little goals you make for yourself. You can have a countdown board in your staff room for things that you want to accomplish. For example, if you reach 5 000 followers on Instagram, have a big celebration. Like with any sports team, when you celebrate together, it becomes that much stronger, and you get a feeling like it’s us against the world with the team.
Also, if you have any critique for any of your employees, be sure to take it on the side, not in front of everybody. That’s a big no-no.
5. Use On-on-One Meetings With Your Salon Staff
Another tip is to use one-on-one meetings: That’s a tool that I’ve been using a lot that I think is working very well.
Set some time aside for each member of your team where you’re just talking about what’s going on with that person. It can be things going on in that person’s life to get a complete picture of things.
The meeting could be once a week or once a month or whatever, depending on the person and where that person is and what you think is needed.
6. Develop a Career Path for Your Team Members
My next tip for you is to create career paths that suit your salon and what kind of a team atmosphere you want, what is essential for your salon so that each individual also has something to work for, whether it’s just a salary grounded or career-related, like maybe becoming a senior stylist or a manager.
For example, in my salon, we have a social media manager. That is also a career path, so I think you can work with that much more than you think. And it doesn’t have to be like a senior stylist or salon manager.
I think today, in the salon, there are a lot of areas that need a manager. Ensuring the best talent can be used in the right way is essential. Making sure that information is flowing in a good way so that people are up to date on what’s happening and they’re kept in the loop so that there’s transparent and open communication.
So that was the seven tips that we had to share today. I hope you found it helpful.
