The human side of change: 6 expert lessons for leading salon teams through transformation

Flexible schedules. Weekly team meetings. AI receptionists. Salon owners are being asked to change how their teams work, and the team doesn’t always want to. How do you lead people through change that’s good for the business but uncomfortable for them?

At Innergize 2026, Zenoti’s annual industry conference, four members of Intercoiffure America/Canada (ICA), an exclusive professional association of salon owners, took on that question in a panel session named “Transformation: The Human Side of Change.”

Their answer? Technology may enable change, but as ICA President Scott Buchanan put it, “it’s the people in our organizations that make it possible.”

The experts:

• Vivian Yeh, Owner, Josephine’s Day Spa & Salon. Yeh began by helping run daily operations at the original seven-chair Josephine’s in Houston’s Memorial area. Yeh later opened two more Josephine’s locations (Pearland and Rice Village) and launched POSH, a new salon brand in the Galleria area.
  
• Scott Buchanan, President, Intercoiffure America/Canada, and Founder, Scott J Aveda Salons. Buchanan leads ICA’s mission to connect and elevate the professional beauty industry, and built two Manhattan salons with a team of 90+ professionals over more than four decades in the business.
  
• Andreas Zafiriadis, Founder & Owner, Salon Buzz. A master hairdresser with more than 40 years in luxury hairdressing, Zafiriadis founded Chicago’s award-winning Salon Buzz and has trained countless professionals who went on to thriving careers.
  
• Avin Stevens, Director of Operations, Cole Stevens Salon. Stevens runs operations at Cole Stevens Salon, one of Washington, D.C.’s premier destinations for natural hair care and specialized services for Black hair. The salon’s mission centers on luxury and innovation in color and shape, holistic wellness and inclusivity.

Buchanan moderated the panel and shared his own experience along the way. Here are the six lessons that came out of it.

1. A crisis can show you the change you couldn’t start

For most of the panel, the turning point was forced. Andreas Zafiriadis had strong managers running Salon Buzz until COVID pulled him back into the finances, the reopening mandates, client communication and, most of all, the team’s confidence that they would be okay. His takeaway: “Your business doesn’t always need the same version of you.”

Vivian Yeh’s moment came earlier, with Hurricane Harvey, the Category 4 storm that dumped record rainfall on Houston in August 2017 and flooded her salon. It let her “see the impossible that is actually possible.”

Avin Stevens described about 90 days of fear when everything shut down, and leaning on family and leadership to stay aligned. Buchanan had known for years that he needed to change, but with five locations and 240 employees he couldn’t see how to stop the wheel. COVID stopped it for him.

2. Explain the why, and treat resistance as information

After Hurricane Harvey flooded her salon, Yeh moved the whole team into 10 or 11 rented suite rooms, so the business was down for only four days even though the salon itself stayed closed for eight months. Her team saw the work behind it. Since then, she says, “I always tell them the reason and why,” and she has not met resistance to changes like new software or product lines.

Zafiriadis picked up a rule early from a longtime ICA member: weigh every change as a “triple win” for the salon, the employee and the client. For Buchanan, he turns the question on himself. When his team pushes back, he asks, “Is my why not clear enough?” And when the answer is no, he says so and explains why, so nobody is left wondering.

“When you have resistance, look at it as information. And sometimes when there is resistance, either you haven’t communicated the why correctly to people or they’re seeing something that you haven’t seen.
— Andreas Zafiriadis, Founder & Owner, Salon Buzz”

Andreas Zafiriadis, Founder and Owner of Salon Buzz was one of the panelists on stage at Innergize 2026

3. Protect your culture first; revenue is easier to rebuild

Some of Zafiriadis’s boldest decisions were letting go of people who didn’t fit, even at a financial cost. His conclusion: “financials are easier to recoup than redoing your culture.” At Salon Buzz, education is the constant. The salon hires graduates from beauty schools and trains them in-house, so the training keeps changing with fashion and products while the values stay put. “Your methods should be challenged,” he said.

Yeh builds the Joesphine's culture on honesty, flexibility and treating people like family, and several of her stylists have stayed 15 or 25 years. Stevens pairs a steady rhythm of leadership and staff meetings with written systems, so everyone feels heard.

Buchanan’s rule is “lead people, manage systems.” When a routine like answering the phone is written down step by step, a manager can point to a missed step instead of criticizing the person, so feedback doesn’t feel personal.

4. Be flexible on how people work, not on your standards

The workforce has changed, and the panelists changed with it. Yeh now lets team members work as few as 10 hours a week when their circumstances call for it, rather than holding everyone to 40. Zafiriadis called himself “a 40 hour week type of a leader” before, and credits a more flexible Salon Buzz with keeping the team intact.

Stevens had to learn what a “mental health day” meant to Gen Z and decided it was a real thing they should start implementing at Cole Stevens Salon.

Asked which transformation salons must make over the next three to five years, the panelists kept coming back to what employees get out of the job.

Zafiriadis said owners should stop asking how to keep people from leaving and start asking what value an employee receives from staying, including why a salon career can beat going out on their own. Buchanan admitted he used to think, “Why do you need praise? I pay you.” Now he calls that old thinking and says owners need to show people the opportunity ahead of them in every role. Some of his salon care team members, the people who clean and care for the salon, have grown into assistant managers.

“Nothing is black and white. Find your gray area and then make sure that you stay true… I am very flexible, but I do not negotiate. That’s what I tell my staff. — Vivian Yeh, Josephine’s Day Spa & Salon”

Vivian Yeh, Owner of Josephine's Day Spa & Salon shared her lessons on stage at Innergize 26

5. Build community inside and outside your salon

Zafiriadis, an ICA member for more than 25 years, said that even with 100 employees around, “it still feels lonely sometimes.” Peers who face the same problems make it real. Yeh, who is not a licensed hairdresser, said ICA gave her salon the credibility to recruit, and described regional events where owners open every drawer and even the electrical panel to show their systems. Buchanan bet that if every owner in the room listed their top five problems, the lists would look alike.

The local community matters just as much. Yeh volunteers at area schools and, instead of discounting, gives 10% of service sales from partner-school families back to that school’s parent-teacher organization. When Hurricane Harvey and COVID hit, those families fundraised for the salon.

Stevens’ team from Cole Stevens Salon shows up each year at D.C.’s 8th Street Festival, where about 10,000 people come out.

“We’re having an issue right now in D.C., where we have a minimum wage of $18.40. I’m like, how do you handle this, Scott? How do we stay in business?… For me, it’s the network being able to pick up a phone call, just being able to call anybody on this panel.
— Avin Stevens, Cole Stevens Salon”

Innergize 26 panelist Avin Stevens of Cole Stevens Salon

6. Let AI handle the transactions so people can handle the human part

The panelists framed AI as a back-office tool, not a replacement for stylists. Zafiriadis said Salon Buzz found 70% of its clients want to book after hours, so an AI receptionist now fills the book overnight. He added that when a stylist is out sick, one message now reaches every affected client right away, instead of two hours of calls before opening.

Yeh’s managers use AI to help script difficult HR conversations, which once meant paying a lawyer $350 for 30 minutes. Buchanan runs basic coaching forms through AI but still pays an attorney $300 to $400 for real policy. Stevens uploads P&L statements to ChatGPT to have sharper conversations with accountants, after redacting names.

The payoff is face time. With phones and bookings handled, the salon's front desk can have a client’s preferred drink ready, ask about the vacation and walk guests to their cars with an umbrella.

“When you tell a woman she has beautiful cheekbones and she hasn’t been told that ever, and you see her well up, that’s what moves me. That’s what propels me to love the craft that I do behind the chair.
— Scott Buchanan, Intercoiffure America/Canada”

Innergize 26 speaker Scott Buchanan of Intercoiffure America/Canada, and Scott J Aveda Salons.

Conclusion

Across four very different salons, the advice converged: Explain the why, protect your culture, stay flexible without lowering standards, and let technology free your people for the human work.

To hear more from operators like these, explore Innergize.