The U.S has been experiencing what’s been dubbed ‘The Great Resignation’, where a record number of people have resigned from their workplaces. The trend began in 2020, but even as recently as June 2022, more than 4.2 million people quit their jobs. This has become the single biggest business challenge to salons and spas. As an owner or manager, you may have already seen staff leave or worry about them leaving – and potentially taking their clients with them.  

Managing staff attrition can be difficult and time-consuming. Tasks such as amending bookings, adjusting schedules, and recruiting for a replacement suddenly land on your to-do list. With one stylist or provider departing, your remaining staff may start to question their roles, too.

It’s often said that people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers. In other words, if you maintain good, beneficial relationships with your staff, they are more likely to remain satisfied and loyal to the business.

How do you make every staff member feel engaged and valued? As the business and people leader, you can introduce new processes that can improve staff satisfaction and still have time to successfully manage the rest of your business.  

Create more earning opportunities

Ultimately, people work to make money. In the beauty and wellness industry, there are ample, often untapped methods for helping providers earn more while adding to your bottom line.  

Commissions via upselling and cross-selling

There are a variety of ways to increase guest spending, which can be utilized regularly: upselling to a premium service, recommending an add-on retail product, or converting a treatment into a package deal. Each of these strategies presents an opportunity for stylists and staff to earn more money, via tips and commissions. Support your providers with training on which services have the best potential for upselling, and with best practices for how to sell with confidence. Maintain a clear commissions structure that rewards staff for their additional sales.  

To encourage participation, demonstrate that while a small add-on service might only add a few dollars to an invoice, those additions can result in a significant revenue impact over time.

Higher tips

Guests reward great service with substantial tips. When considering an amount, guests will respond to stylists and providers who “make it personal,” whether that’s an extra touch during their service, or an enjoyable, engaging conversation.

Providers can offer more personalized service if they can easily access guest history and preferences ahead of appointments. Use a business management software that records and maintains comprehensive guest profiles, including everything from health conditions and their favorite treatment, to how they like their coffee. Tip for your providers: For additional personalization, take note of the last conversation topics with a guest. Then, use those as a jumping-off point for a chat during the guest’s next visit.  

Another strategy to increase tips is to simplify the tipping process for guests. With Zenoti, guests can pay and add tips via an app, rather than at the front desk – or, in some cases, in front of the provider. This digital enablement removes any awkward situation, lets guests add tips with ease, and recommends tip amounts – all make for convenient, smooth check-out experience.

Acknowledge and reward effort

Positive reinforcement is a powerful strategy to keep performance and morale high. Organizations with a recognition programme see 14% higher employee engagement, productivity, and performance than those who don’t. When you show appreciation for hard work or a job well done, the acknowledged staff members will feel motivated to maintain that high output.  

Track staff performance

Salon or spa management software can be an invaluable asset for understanding and communicating staff performance. For instance, Zenoti provides quick-read dashboards that feature insights into various aspects of provider performance. Owners and managers can track metrics such as individual staff revenue, rates of retail sales, guest feedback, and rebooking rates.

With information like that at hand, you can schedule regular one-on-one meetings with staff to discuss their performance, areas of strength, and opportunities for improvement. After you start providing regular feedback using key metrics, you can reinforce positive efforts by demonstrating how each provider’s actions impact performance and store success over time.

Consider your commissions structure

Great performance should generate more than just praise. Use staff performance metrics to dictate commissions and bonuses. This is a hallmark of great leadership: removing areas of bias when it comes to pay, and rewarding staff in a way that is fair, transparent, and consistent. Be sure to give staff access to their numbers, and those of their peers. Keep engagement high by communicating clearly how high performance leads to career and salary progression.  

Tracking and discussing performance metrics can also help you build a stronger team. Let top performers support their colleagues in improving their craft, and inspire laggards to step up their efforts. Remember that keying in on one specific area to improve – like retail sales – often feels more achievable to staff than general goals such as “increase revenue”.

Involve staff in business performance

To keep staff interested and invested, help them understand how their efforts impact not just their own results, but the entire business. This is especially important in uncertain times as the industry has seen in the aftermath of the pandemic and amid looming economic uncertainty.  

Regular business insights

Any worthwhile business management software should have an integrated view of your brand’s performance, across a number of key performance indicators (KPIs). Get a snapshot of the data points most important to you; such as store revenue, utilization, gift card sales, and online bookings. Track progress over time and share your findings with staff to achieve two things:  

1. Boost engagement as staff gains appreciation for how their work and skills can help the business grow – and how they can grow with it.

2. Foster investment in your brand with regular reports on the health of the business. This can open conversations that help you connect with staff and keep concerns about job security at bay.

Zenoti takes the power of performance data even further with our Zenoti benchmarking tool. Owners and managers can compare their business performance to similar businesses to see how they stack up against the rest of the industry.  

Data-driven decisions

Beyond using real-time performance data to track weekly and quarterly metrics, you can also use it to create a vision for the future of your business. Which strategies can you implement to increase revenue? Do you need to hire more staff? Has your growth supported opening a new location?

Boost staff engagement by sharing your aspirations as well as your plan to get there. Ask staff for feedback to make them feel involved in the business’ future. Track business data continuously and provide regular updates to your team on how you’re progressing towards your goal.  

Make it happen

Business management software can give you the tools to improve staff retention with regular touchpoints for inspiration and engagement.  

With the Zenoti complete software platform, you can help staff increase their earnings, delight their guests, and understand how their role is important to the business. Interested to learn more? Talk to a consultant today.