Picture this, it’s 7:30pm and you’re sweeping up hair getting ready to do your last client.
Or maybe this; It’s 9:30pm, you’re sitting on the couch ‘watching a boxset’ with your partner, but you are either messaging clients back…or asleep.
Shall we do one more? Ok…It’s Thursday night, you feel guilty because you’re not home yet, but Janet forgot to book the last time she was in and now can’t get an appointment. So you said you would stay late.
Feel familiar? The recent survey from Salon Gold tells us it definitely is familiar.
Almost 50% of the hairdressers surveyed said work/life balance was their biggest challenge… and I for one am not surprised. Let me tell you why…
Our industry loves wearing the busy badge of honour with pride. We were always told busy = successful. But I think this has developed into a culture where overworking has become normalised, even praised. And this is a problem for us.
I’m a former hairdresser of 30 years turned psychotherapist, and now I coach hairdressers out of burnout.
I’ve lived this, the overworking, and so has every hairdresser I’ve ever known.
So no, this survey does not surprise me, and I bet it doesn’t surprise you.
To be honest, I’m just happy this is being talked about more openly.
When I started my business ‘The Resilient Hairdresser’ 7 years ago, it felt like there was only me shouting about this.
I was watching more responsibility being put on hairdressers. I saw client expectations go through the roof. And all education seemed to be around how hairdressers could look after their clients ‘even more’. And I thought to myself, “Who’s looking after the hairdressers? Who’s making sure they have the time and energy to do all this?”
With my lived experience as a hairdresser and my psychology knowledge, I made it my mission to do something about this. So, I started talking about hairdresser burnout to anyone who would listen. Because that’s where this goes. When there is no work/life balance, this becomes burnout.
The big question is, ‘How do we get work/life balance as hairdressers?’.
The answer is boundaries. I know, I know, easier said than done…
I always say, “Boundaries protect what matters to you”. And for most people this is things like time with your loved ones, your money and your peace of mind. And these three things play into our work/life balance issues.
When we discount our clients because they’re having a tough time, this means we need to work longer hours to make the money we need. When we’re stressed because our regular clients can’t get in with us because we’re too busy, we stay late because we feel bad.
And before you know it, you’ve created a business that is unmanageable and you have no idea where your personal life disappeared to.
So, boundaries are your lifeline to work/life balance. Here’s where I would start…
1.Commit to sticking to your working hours, no more squeezing people in starting today.
2.You know all those clients whose prices you haven’t put up with your price increases the past few years? Let’s level those up first.
If you’re squirming with horror at the thought of this, I bet it’s because most of your clients are delightful and feel like friends. And nobody likes saying no to their friends or asking them for more money do they?
And this is where a lot of my coaching clients feel stuck when they come to me. I believe this is the conundrum at the heart of work/life balance issues. And it’s where some reflection and mindset shifts need to happen.
What I know as a mental health professional is this; for things to change, we first have to accept that there is a problem. So I for one welcome these surveys in our industry. Let’s keep these conversations about burnout and work/life balance out in the open, because this is the first step we need to make real change.
If this feature resonates, check out Hayley’s signature course for getting hairdressers out of burnout for good, ‘Burnout & Boundaries’
