Is recruitment your biggest salon business headache?
Attracting new blood is getting harder. Over the last couple of years hiring seems to have become even more competitive with salons chasing a dwindling pool of talent and experience.
Yet the ultimate success and strength of your hair or beauty business depends very largely on your team, and your ability to recruit the best talent.
Is your salon recruitment campaign falling on deaf ears?
I’m guessing your competitors offer everything you do when recruiting. Great training, generous commission, fantastic career path and flexible working hours. And more.
So how do you make sure the best in the business choose your salon? Not your competitors.
Here’s how…
Imagine you’re a stylist or therapist dreaming about your next career move.
You flick through the staffroom copy of Hairdressers Journal or Professional Beauty while munching lunch.
Plenty of salons are hiring and all promising the world. You’re spoilt for choice.
Then one grabs your attention…
You whip out your phone and check the salon’s website, social media and reviews. All look exciting, inspiring and professional.
You pick up the phone, call and fix a date to meet.
But what is it that caught your eye about this salon? What made you reach for your phone when you read they were recruiting?
Answer: Their brand.
You love it. You want to be part of it. You want a slice of the action.
It’s no coincidence that those salon businesses with a reputation for recruiting and retaining the best teams usually have a strong brand.
Think about it. Your salon branding doesn’t just attract clients, it also strongly influences who wants to work in your business.
Strong salon brands attract talented stylists and therapists
Wear a certain fashion label (brand) and you’re part of the in-crowd. A proud member of an elite club.
In the same way, your recruitment advert is an invitation to join an exclusive club, AKA your salon.
Remember the Rush Hair recruitment adverts which called on applicants to join the ‘Rush Revolution’?
Rush is a powerful, well-known, respected brand and stylists want to be part of this select club.
But unfortunately it works the other way too.
When candidates read your advert do they think, “What? Work for that lot? No way!”
Ask yourself: Is our branding and image letting us down when it comes to hiring new employees?
BRAND: Every time someone sees your salon website, speaks to your receptionist, visits your Facebook or sees your advertisement they get an impression or image of your salon. It’s this image which is your brand.
And whether or not they receive the image you want them to, depends on how effective your salon marketing is.
Hire the best employees in town
If you want a steady stream of talent beating a path to your salon door then work on your brand.
People long to work with hair and beauty businesses with strong reputations and powerful brands. Businesses that are respected locally, nationally and within the industry.
A strong, sizzling brand will sell your salon to the top-quality applicants you want to attract. Who wouldn’t love the chance to join an award-winning team that’s known as the best in town?
Don’t pay over the odds to recruit new salon talent
A strong brand will help your recruitment drive in other ways too:
1. Save on salary costs
Why enter into a salary war with your competitors to sign up the best employees?
Does Apple have to pay over the odds for the world’s best programmers? Does Sam Pearce at the Potting Shed Spa or Jamie Stevens hair salons pay more than other employers?
Probably not.
Yet gifted employees are queuing up to join them.
2. Reduce your salon recruitment costs
If your brand is attractive and respected, you’ll almost certainly save on your recruitment costs which, with adverts and agencies, soon mount up.
If you’ve the best salon brand in your area then local hair stylists and beauty therapists will regularly be doing a sweep of your website and social media.
Use this flow of online traffic to hire top quality candidates. Create a career/opportunities section on your salon website and link to it from Facebook and other social media. Not only will you reduce your recruitment advertising costs, you’ll also help your Google ranking by keeping your website fresh and up to date.
Turn new recruits into brand ambassadors
Having been attracted to join by your brand, some months later your new recruit, realising the brand really is living up to its promises, will become a fully-fledged advocate for your salon.
They will tell their friends, spread the word on social and motivate other like-minded recruits to join your business. It’s like a Recommend a Friend scheme for finding new employees.
And all of a sudden that salon recruitment headache has got an awful lot better…