New fresh year, new fresh goals…
This is the perfect time to get motivated to push your business even more, but also to motivate and push your salon teams. So what’s the best way to do this?
If you have a team, you want to know what motivates them and makes them tick. It’s important to recognize that this might be different for each member, so a one size fits all approach won’t necessarily work. A lot of the time we assume it’s money, as for a lot of us in business, that’s our motivation. Just because that is possibly our motivation as salon owners, it doesn’t mean that it’s our teams’ motivation as well. Look at how many people have given up full time following the pandemic to find a better balance. Everyone has their own individual personality and you, as a boss or manager, need to sit down with your team and find out exactly what it is that pushes them to book more appointments or make extra sales. What makes them push themselves within your company? The perfect time to do this is January.
In your next 1-2-1s, find out this information and then reward your team members according to their needs. If you put this into action effectively, you’ll find your staff turnover won’t be so high. This is really precious right now as recruitment is tough at present. You want to keep hold of your diamonds!
Top 4 motivation points for employees:
Money
Many people’s motivation point is money. If this is the case for any of your employees, you know that yearly pay rises, a good commission structure and bonuses will work really well with them. If you don’t offer these with a good salary, they will possibly carry on looking for other work to fulfil their needs and expectations.
Flexible working/less hours
Many want to work around their families and lifestyles. A good motivation is extra days for birthdays or extra Saturdays off. Working around school hours is also important; make sure you accept holidays within half terms and school holidays. This will be a make or break for some people and you need to know how important this is for your team as for some people, this will come before money.
Progression
Others love learning and have a real passion for the industry and the company they work within. Can you offer training opportunities to regularly keep their skills updated and learn new treatments? Can an employee grow within the business? Could they perhaps progress to become a salon manager or maybe you have a training academy and they could have the option to also become a trainer. Think about the opportunities you could offer within your business and to your team as you grow and develop. For many people, their passion is their career, so they would fit into this category.
Recognition
People love praise, to be told they have done well. Sometimes as salon owners or managers, we are so busy that we forget to give praise. If a staff member doesn’t feel valued, they probably won’t feel motivated to work hard for you. Identify those in your business that love the recognition, praise and pick me ups and really make sure you give them the time they require to feel valued. For example, you might be giving a team member all these opportunities to learn and develop themselves and they might still not be 100% happy, or they leave in a few months. As a boss you won’t understand. You feel you have given that employee so much to grow and excel but they have left! Why? Because progression probably wasn’t what motivated them most of all – it was one of the other points.
I really urge you to sit down with your teams and see what fires them up, what makes them tick. You’ll find you have a really happy salon team when you figure this out.
Katie Godfrey
www.kgbusinessmentor.com
@kg_katiegodfrey
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