What does success mean to your team?
Thursday 1st September 2022
Everyone who joins the beauty industry wants to succeed in their role, but not everyone’s idea of success is the same.
As a senior salon professional it is easy to assume that all younger, or less experienced employees in your charge will have the same aspirations of climbing the through the ranks, securing promotion and earning more money along the way, but this may be a false assumption.
Not all therapists want to become managers. Many of your team may possess the intelligence, common sense, training and leadership to progress into management but their passions lie in helping clients to feel better about themselves through the therapies and treatments they deliver – not in managing the P&L or dealing with employment contracts and the myriad other responsibilities of running a successful salon business.
Not all salon therapists want to become managers
Success can have many faces and as a manager, it is your responsibility to identify what success looks like for your employees and how to manage their progress to help them achieve this success?
This was the dilemma facing the Champneys Group and one initiative they implemented to address the challenge was to create a scheme they called The Pathway.
This scheme was designed to take all therapists through the basic groundwork for six months, to assess standards and keep them at the level expected at the Resorts. Following this they then progress to senior therapist training and better pay.
It’s about offering the right person the right career path ... and the right success for them
Next, if a therapist wants to progress further, there are two options – or pathways available for them; if their skills are more the hands-on type, they could train to be a highly valued (and well-paid) VIP therapist for the Resort’s important guests.
Alternatively, if they excel at organising, rotas and schedules, they can follow a management career. It’s about offering the right person the right career path and the right pay and the right success for them.
In the words of Dorothy Purdue OBE, owner of Champneys Resorts: “I can’t think of anything more shocking than the most beautifully skilled, hands-on therapist, being reluctantly promoted into a manager’s role”.