Five ways to motivate your salon staff

While salon management might be made significantly easier if you have specialist salon management software in place, salon managers will know that there’s more to running a successful salon than software alone. Your stylists may be suffering early year blues and might need a little more encouragement than usual to make sales or persuade new clients to book another appointment.

Of course, not all team members are motivated in the same way. While money might be a great incentive for some of your employees, others might hold greater value in a straightforward acknowledgement of their achievements. 

If you’re trying to work out the best way to motivate your team, the best place to start is to collect or analyse data on their performance. For salons that are already using salon management software, this will be a relatively straightforward process. Sales records will be easily obtainable, as will many other performance metrics that you could use as a starting point for setting targets or finding areas that need improvement. We’ve put together five ways of motivating your salon staff; experiment with these to see which delivers the best results for you and your team.

#1: Positive feedback from supervisors/managers

Many team members thrive on positive feedback. If a member of your team has had a particularly great day or week, whether they’ve performed exceptionally or mastered a new treatment, let them know they’ve done well. A quick, heartfelt ïthank you’ or an acknowledgement of their work will ensure that they feel appreciated and will motivate them to perform well in the future.

#2: The chance to have their say

The traditional corporate structure doesn’t always give much opportunity for staff at the lower end of the ladder to contribute to decision-making in the company. This can make team members feel stranded and unimportant. In the salon business, where employee retention is particularly essential, take steps to allow your stylists to influence the business _ even if it’s just in a small way. Give your team regular opportunities to comment on what they like and don’t like about working for your salon. Ask them if there are any new treatments they’d like to explore. You don’t have to give the go-ahead to all of their ideas, but give them your reasoning for your decision and it’ll be appreciated. Above all, listen to what they have to say; if they’re in the salon every day when you can’t be, they may be better placed to make observations that could improve their working practices.

#3: Offer training opportunities

Giving your stylists the chance to expand their skillsets will mean that they don’t become bored of offering the same treatments again and again. It’ll also show that you’re interested in their personal development and want them to succeed. Make your team aware of the various courses available to them; give them a training budget for the year and let them choose for themselves what they’d like to learn. Making sure that your staff members have the right skills to do their jobs well in the first place is essential. A stylist who feels out of their depth will dread coming to work and is likely to be unmotivated.

#4: Set targets

Set targets for your employees using the statistics and metrics generated by salon management software. These targets should be realistic and should be broken down into short time periods _ no longer than a month. That means that the figures will be tangible to your stylists, giving them a clear idea of the sales they’ll need to make each day to reach the target. Additionally, setting targets for stylists to book repeat customers may help to remind them to invite people back to visit your salon again soon.

#5: Use incentives

When you have sensible targets in place, it’s important to give your stylists appropriate incentives for reaching them. Whether it’s a monetary incentive, the chance to receive some more training or the choice of where to go on the next team outing, every staff member should have something they genuinely want to strive for.

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