Top tips for recruiting staff in time for reopening
Published
05th Mar 2021
by laurahusband
As hair salons prepare for reopening, business consultant Phil Jackson shares his top tips for recruiting staff and new team members ahead of reopening.
If you want to grow your hair salon business in 2021, now is the time to consider whether you want to recruit new staff and team members ahead of reopening. Build Your Salon's Phil Jackson points out there are qualified teams looking for work and self-employed stylists who want to come back onto the payroll so it is an ideal opportunity to fill the positions in your business. Simply follow Phil's eight tips for recruiting staff and team members ahead of reopening.
Phil's eight tips for recruiting staff and team members ahead of reopening
1. Be flexible
Advertise for full-time and part-time team members. Personally, I love the flexibility of having part-timers and there is an inbuilt robustness to the business model when you have team members who can do a few extra hours to help cover short-term sickness, holidays or maternity leave. It is important to appreciate how priorities have changed for many over the last 12 months - though you may be desperate to get back to work full-time, that isn’t the case for everyone and potential candidates may be looking for a different work/life balance. On the flip-side, you may have a part-time vacancy in mind, but are you seriously telling me that if a perfect candidate came through the door with a great skillset and a batch of regular clients you wouldn’t make room? Really?
2. Don’t be cagey about pay
With Lidl paying around £10 an hour it’s time for us to shake off the poorly-paid image forever. Be bold with your pricing and targets to start moving your wages higher. Be up-front about wages and earning potential: it shouldn’t be an embarrassed section of the interview that nobody wants to broach. Make rates of pay clear in your job ads and job descriptions - if you’re embarrassed about what you pay it really is time to review the finances in your salon.
3. It’s less of a risk than you think
Often I’ll hit resistance around recruitment when salon owners think of a new team member as, for example, a £20k a year cost. If realistic but challenging expectations are in place and you’re marketing new team members aggressively, there is no reason for your new recruit to be a financial drain. In fact, if you pay monthly it isn’t unrealistic for a new stylist to cover their wage before their first pay cheque - they're literally giving you 30 days credit! Monitor performance closely and be brave about ending employment for those that just aren’t working out. As long as you’re the right side of the law (and legal advice is always money well spent) it is relatively easy to terminate employment in the first couple of years. This all reduces the financial risk of employing and should give you the confidence to take your growth plans forward.