What to include in your Salon Spa Policy & Procedure Manual

Here's a list of topics to cover when putting together your Salon Operations Manual

Customer Services Module

Position Descriptions 4

Training Module_ 4

Operations Module_ 4

Health & Safety Module_ 4

Team and Management Forms & Checklists 4

Salon Organisational Structure_ 5

Your vision_ 6

• Hire the right people…
• Team members are #1…
• Learning environment…
• Achieving excellence…

Career opportunity…_ 6

• What you can expect from «Your_Trading_Name» and what we expect from you…
• At «Your_Trading_Name» we expect the following standards from you;

Your Mission_ 8

Your Guarantee_ 8

Service Philosophy_ 9

Serve it up!   9

• Choose to be Happy...
• Anticipate…
• On the Move…
• Be Accountable…
• Stay Connected…

Fix it up! 10

• Listen…
• Empathise…
• Answer...
• Find...

The Learning Curve_ 11

Growing with «Your_Trading_Name»_ 11

• Initial Trial…
• Induction…
• Probationary Period….
• Daily Meetings…
• Weekly One to One’s...
• Weekly Management Meetings…
• Monthly Style Sessions...
• Quarterly Reviews...

Essential Information_ 14

Hours and Leave    14

• Opening Hours…
• Your Weekly Schedule…
• Breaks…
• Job Flexibility...
• Sick Days…
• Holidays...
• Maternity, Paternity or Adoption…
• Parental Leave…
• Compassionate Leave...

Administration of Payments and Deductions 19

• Payment...
• Over-payments...
• Income Tax and National Insurance...
• Overtime…

Conduct & Non Negotiable

• Harassment…
• Grievances…
• Serious Misconduct...
• Gross Misconduct...
• Disciplinary Action…
• Disciplinary Procedure…
• Disciplinary Authority...
• Disciplinary Appeal Procedure...

Cash Handling Procedures 24

The objectives of Cash Handling Procedures 24

• The responsibilities of Cash Handlers
• Issuing manual receipts
• Receipt of cheques
• Control of cash collected
• Security and Access to Safes and Locked Receptacles
• Access to Point of Sale and Cash Drawer
• Voiding or cancelling transactions
• No sales transactions
• Routine checks
• Cashing up
• Banking
• Petty Cash and Floats
• Reporting of Irregularities

Communications Policies 30

• Confidentiality…
• Copyright...
• Data Protection…
• Use of Computer Equipment...
• Procedures - Authorised Use...
• Virus Protection Procedures...
• Inventions and Discoveries...

Safeguards    34

• First aid...
• Safety Training…
• Play Safe…
• Nobody smokes here anymore…
• Fire…

Day to Day Running_ 36

Procedures and responsibilities 36

• The Reception…
• The Salon…
• The Treatment rooms...
• The Back room…
• Toilets…
• Communication board…
• Team suggestion program…
• Messages…
• Memos…
• Parking…
• Salon duties…

Appearance    40

• Your uniform is to consist of...
• Protective clothing...
• Personal hygiene…
• Equipment…
• Wastage...

The Good Stuff 42

Team perks and bonuses 42

• Looking and feeling great…
• Product benefits…
• Family discounts…
• Re-booking bonus…
• Happy birthday…
• Fighting fit…
• Super star…
• Education & excellence bonuses…
• Services bonuses…
• Recommend bonuses…
• Product bonuses…

If you'd like help to tailor these to your salon or spa situation, we can do it all for you... http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/Salon-Consulting-Services/Operations-Manual.aspx 

45

What is the most important part of your salon spa business?

Which order do you give the most importantance to in your salon business?

The salon. The stylist. The client. - The client. The salon. The stylist, or even The stylist. The client. The salon

I think each is of equal importance, because each are equally required for success.

The reason the order can be stated correctly any of these ways, is because I see the order not as a process with a start and end, but as a cycle that follows this order no matter where you start.

The only distinction I'd add to this cycle is to view the owner as another part to this cycle with different needs from the salon than the stylist has.

When the order is looked at as a cycle, the question of importance of which part should the focus begin with, becomes a simple answer of; whichever part you happen to be, the next one in the cycle should be of greatest importance to you.

So if you are the stylist, the client is most important. If you are the client, the salon should be most important to you. (Shock, not the stylist!) The salon should in turn be looking after the owner's needs and the owner in turn the stylist and so on.

When things go counter to, or short cut the order of this cycle, problems occur.

Owners who put clients before the stylist, undermine the team and allow skills to stagnate.

Clients who focus on the stylist loyalty instead of salon loyalty, forever get caught short when they are on holidays, maternity or leave all together.

Stylist who want more from the business in terms of perks, bonuses and flexibility, without first giving full professional consistent service to clients, make it impossible for owners to re-invest or reward them out of abundance and budget surplus. (I'm forever getting asked by salon owners what a budget is, but that's another topic.)

A salon that is setup to only focus on the client experience without providing career fulfillment or a platform for owners and their teams to progress in the industry will only at best be another mediocre statistic, rather than a recognised industry name.

For more benefits to understanding this process as a salon spa success cycle see this following page at http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/Targeted-Salon-Support.aspx

Turn slow salon days into profitable ones by asking.......

What type of clients would you like to fill those spaces? Where would you expect to find them? It's important to target to your desired audience.

If you are in the habit of recording good client information of each visitor you already have coming to the salon (and you should), then you may already have a good source of information ready to contact about referring friends, who are likely to be acquainted with more people just like them, so run some marketing reports from your salon software, (if you don't have a salon computer that can do this - its a likely cause for not being able to combat having slow unprofitable days), to find out who your best clients are and design a promotion for them to pass on to their friends by special invitation.

Otherwise you will need to go hunting outside the salon. Fitness Clubs, for example are full of potential clients, who are affluent enough to own a gym membership and body conscious enough to want to look their best - perfect salon clients! If your serious about filling your slow days, you can turn on the flow of these clients into your salon like a tap, by approaching the Fitness Club management to include a FREE service with your local salon in their New or Resigning Gym memberships - Let them word it as if they have arranged the free salon service with you on behalf on their joining gym members, or better still co-brand the offer as a cross promotion.

The only strings attached is to stipulate the days and times the free service may be redeemed. Avoid the temptation to heavily discount, as remember:

* You are targeting the perfect type of potential new client

* Its better for a team member you are paying anyway to work on a client, than have no client in at the time

* Discounting gives out the wrong perception and actually devalues your brand

* No strings attached offers have a higher redemption rate

* Once a client is in the salon you can value add, make further recommendations and have a chance to re-book the client. (It's actually essential that the team member actually asks the new client to participate in all these)

If you don't have time or confidence to hook up a branded Host Beneficiary (cross promotion) we can do it for you. 

How do I as a salon owner determine appropriate booth rental rates?

Do it by the numbers with your end goal in mind.

How much do you want to make clear in a year?
What percentage of turnover would that figure represent?

Lets say you wanted to make 45,000 in profit.

If all your expenses add up to 99% of your turnover, then for your 1% profit left over to be 45,000 you would have needed to turnover 4.5 Million, unlikely I know, but I'm just starting with big round numbers for the example.

Let's work that example the other way.

Lets say our salon turnover is a more realistic 300,000 annually.

If we wanted to clear our 45,000 profit out of this business, we would need to keep our expenses down to 85%, so that 45,000 is 15% profit.

To keep expenses in the region of 80 - 85% we will need to breakdown our expenses into benchmarks, or if you like give each area its own budget.

An example budget could be:

135,000 = 45% Cost of Team
 39,000 = 13% Operational expenses
 30,000 = 10% Stock
 30,000 = 10% Rent / Loan
 21,000 = 7% Marketing
 45,000 = 15% Profit


300,000 = 100% Turnover

Obviously you can massage these benchmarks to your circumstances, so if your stock and rent don't cost you this much per year, you can increase what you can afford to pay the team, without cutting into your goal profit or even achieve greater than 15% profits!

Generally the percentages for most healthy businesses will be within 5% of these benchmarks.

Try this exercise to determine what you can "profitably afford" to pay.

1. Go through your annual accounts and arrange your expenses into the broad categories of Operational, Stock, Rent, Marketing to calculate them as a percentage of your turnover, then add them up for a total percentage. Call this number (A).
2. Decide on your goal profit percentage for next year? Will it be between 5% & 15%? (If you haven't made a profit yet or for a couple of years, make it 1% or even 1/2%. Call this number (B).
3. Take your total turnover figure and minus (A) and (B) from it. Appropriate or not, this figure is all you can afford to pay the team without dipping into your profit goal or worse making a loss.
4. Take this figure and divide it by the number of team members working the booths. (If you employ dedicated receptionists not responsible for producing salon income, for this exercise you could add the cost of their wages to (A) first, by considering them an Operational expense).

You now should have an annual figure of what the current business turnover can afford to pay each booth worker.

If this isn't enough to provide an attractive or sustainable annual individual income and you can't reduce any overheads calculated in (A) and the profit goal you set yourself at (B) is reasonable for the business turnover, then your team is not productive enough (too many appointment spaces) and / or your prices are not set profitably (too low or too much discounting).

Hopefully this exercise has shown why is can be a mistake to set flat rates.

Even if you keep the other 4 expense categories at 5% less to release a further 20% towards paying the team a rate of 65% of turnover, what incentive is there to book in 7 clients over 5 clients for the day? Being 50% productive of available appointment times, might provide the booth renter a comfortable income, but cost you roughly the same expenses as if they had of been working closer to their full potential.

The only difference is it will affect your profit goal, or cost you money as a loss & wont have done any favours to the goodwill of the salon.

THE SOLUTION TO APPROPRIATE PAY RATES

Its better to reward teams on progressive scales, where the higher the target hit the higher percentage of turnover can be paid.

Here's a blog on best ways to compensate http://salon-management-nexus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/whats-best-compensation-model-for.html

Best way to attract team members http://salon-management-nexus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/what-is-best-way-to-attract-new-team.html

A Season for every Salon

What motivates people with their natural differences in thought, skill, passion to put their time and energies into the same enterprise at different stages of their life?

Amazingly I have come across some order to this constant cycle we all grow through. The natural flow of things like the seasons, Spring round through to Winter, before the new Spring again.

Understanding this flow can make unraveling our own paths at lot easier, because we can work with it instead of against it. We can actually understand were we are now in relation to what season whatever we are picking our way through is at, and we can even look ahead with relative certainty to the phase of the next season in cycle.

For example, everything starts with an Idea - The Spring Phase - this is the "What". In the salon industry the "What" might be the idea to have our own salon business. Spring energy is creative energy, so we form our idea around what kind of brand we would create our salon business to be. What will it look like, how will I furnish it, light it, theme it. What product ranges will I carry, what services will I offer, what will I call it.

Following Spring comes The Summer Phase - this is the "Who". This is the realisation that I cant turn my idea into a working success on my own. I need a team, I need partnerships. I need the differences others will bring. I need others to be attracted to my idea and help me take it to the next level. Of course I need clients, so who will they be? Who am I targeting my idea too?

Summer gives way to The Autumn Phase - this is the "When". Its all about the timing. Is it really the right time to set up my own shop? Did another chain just open in the same area? Are people moving out of my village at an unsustainable rate at present? Am I planning to extend the family in the near future? Is there too much of a shortage of qualified professionals to attract the size team I need? Is tax about to rise? Is my intended business partner about to go through a divorce? or could the timing not be better... Your current boss is offering you a stake in the business with the view of helping you into buying it out. The current owner wants to open a second location with you as a partner. The local council has begun a rejuvenation of the areas surrounding the high street, promising an increase of trade where you can pickup a good lease.

The Winter Phase - is about the "How". Its about proving the robustness of the business. Ensuring positive cash-flow that can weather any season. By this stage the business isn't just proof of concept, its matured into an operational system that can be consistently duplicated, tested, measured and improved further still, whilst taking advantage of each team members differences and strengths.

That's where Spring can shine through again, as fresh ideas are tried and implemented to allow a new growth phase. This may lead to a change in team roles and responsibilities (a new summer phase), which could lead to a time to expand or consolidate (the next autumn) and so on through the natural order of things.

Understanding this flow can help us not to work on unpicking to wrong knot for what stage we are actually in and save us a lot of wasted time and resource.

The WHY, WHAT, WHO, WHEN, HOW of Salon Spas

I see "What we do" in salon more of a by-product of "Why we do it" and so rank Why higher in importance. Also because our Why tends to change less often than What we do.

In our career our Why naturally must first meet our own hierarchy of needs. We start by  needing a job to pay the bills, but to stick at that job, our Why will soon grow, so that the job also needs to satisfy our interests, challenge our skills, fulfill our passions.

For many our Why evolves further still, to others; delighting clients and nurturing those in our circle of influence following the same career path.

For some the Why gets even bigger as what we accomplish in business allows us to give into more social projects, even as much as leaving a legacy others benefit from after we've gone.

It will be hard for your Why to grow to higher levels of meaning if you don't excel technically in "What you do", so for anyone starting out with whatever 'Why' that motivates you, a focus at being good at "What you do" should be where you begin. After all a qualification in What you do, is only just the beginning of your career.

As for "How we do it", I feel this becomes a lot easier, when we next think about "Who we do it for" followed by "When we do it".

In this often ego fed industry, pointing out that the 'Who' is not You, is not quickly received - because if you don't look after yourself, no-one else will, right? True, however, we have already got 'You' covered up to this point. You have taken action toward a career path to meet your current 'Why' and you have concentrated your attentions to become good and always getting better at "What you do". So You are covered enough at this point, for it to be OK for the rest of "Who we do it for" to not be about You - and that's where You can truly be rewarded. The Why - What -Who questions create a constant circle. It's in the circle of flow, that greater things come back to you.

As a skilled salon professional, the Who is now all about the client. When you don't have a client in front of you, make it about training others in your team, (unless you're still the least trained in the team, then learn from others) otherwise offer up spare time to work ON the business.

Remember I started by saying "What we do" is more of a by-product? This is really important when we focus on the "Who we do it for", because if What we do is, for example a haircut, then it goes without saying that the client should receive a great haircut - its what they are paying for, so the very least they should receive. However they can get a haircut from any salon, so what is their why for coming back to your salon?

The client must value the experience and to come again and again, they must trust the experience, hopefully enough to recommend it to their friends. Their experience is largely the responsibility of the team members performing the "What we do" in salon and so if the team is not constantly focused on this "Who we do it for", they are likely to miss out on their part of providing a delightful client experience.

"When we do it" is the easy part. Every visit, every time. Okay so maybe its not that easy to delight a client every time, but the important thing is for the entire team to be consistent in your intent to delight every time, which means not getting complacent with our most frequent clients by skipping on consultations to check we are providing full care solutions or recommendations to met their needs, or to know if they are ready for some new suggestions.

Which finally leads to "how we do it". Truth is How a salon chooses to do it, isn't important, so long as you can do it consistently, profitably and measurably to know its working or not. Efficient operations providing good work in 20mins without the need for an appointment can be just as successful as opulent establishments that allow an hour to deliver the same by-product, and everything in between, as there will always a customer for every place in the market.

What is the best way to attract new team members to my salon?

Salon Owners should see their own role, not of one that directly focuses on serving the Salon Client, but firstly to serve the Salon Team. (It's the Salon Team, which focuses on serving the Salon Client, the properly serviced Salon Client is then much more likely to serve the Salon Business with loyalty and then the Salon Business serves its purpose to the Salon Owner) - see http://salon-management-nexus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/is-your-salon-built-to-last.html for more on this.

This means for the Owner - its all about the Team. Its about creating a workplace internal structure that rewards better than they are likely to find anywhere else. And no, this doesn't mean just financially. Money will always be a strong motivator out of necessity, but there are plenty more needs a great job will provide, so the best internal workplace policies will include structured rewards for;

* A clear career path for promotion advancement
* Recognition for excellence
* Flexibility in rostering or ways to earn bonus time off
* Salon Perks - Service & Retail rates for the Team and or family
* Opportunities for Industry Awards
* Annual Events
* Training and Education
* Team Clubs / Points / Member of Month, Quarter, Year
* Partnership opportunities in existing or additional planned sites
* Long Service benefits
* and off course multiply forms of performance based bonuses and commissions

Be as creative as there is need to drive any area of the business forward that would benefit from factoring in an affordable and equitable way to cultivate additional buy-in from the team, so the more they put in the more they can share in the returns they are responsible for generating.

We encourage salon owners to take an in depth look at the numbers that make up the internal mechanics of the business, (or we do if for you) so that you can set out your Salon Progress Ladder - see http://salon-management-nexus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/whats-best-compensation-model-for.html and also document your own chosen mix of the above Team Perks into your Salon's Team Member Handbook - see http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/Less-Headache.aspx

This way when you are advertising positions vacate, your potential new team member can be shown in black and white (although we do customise Salon Manuals to your salons branding), exactly what is so attractive about being a member of your team.

Do you have salon managers that split their time between technical client services and business management functions?

How you need to allocate admin hours may vary week to week depending on the growth and needs of the salon.

If for example, the salon is currently recruiting, a manager may need to set service appointment time aside to interview, run trials, induct and even train new team members.

If the manager is responsible for stock control, then one week could include ordering or receiving, but not the next, then again their will be times when a 100% stock take is required to be managed.

Some salons have great habits of conducting monthly style sessions as additional training time and also quarterly team member appraisals, if not the opportunity to schedule weekly 1-2-1's to address certain team member requirements.

The list of course can go on, with marketing, reporting, seasonal planning, banking, industry awards, photo shoots, team scheduling, pays, bills, general maintenance.

This all becomes a huge juggle for managers who service repeat clientele and can be a bigger headache for salon owners to calculate reasonable bonus targets and pay commissions when weeks vary so much.


Nexus Revolution comes to the rescue in a number of ways.

* We provide salons with an equitable Salon Progress Ladder, which can be used to quickly and easily calculate individual targets for service, retail, productivity, rebooking, retention, clients (whatever you need to measure) for any level in your salon structure, be they an assistant, graduate, senior, manager, director - based on the actual floor hours they spent servicing clients, so you can always fairly reward the team against the actual time they were split to provide client services. see - http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/More-Profit.aspx

* We provide salons with a documented Operations Manual, backed up by easy to follow checklists to make every management task mentioned above an easy to follow procedure, saving the time it takes to train, delegate and complete the various management responsibilities, the way owners want them done. Which also makes it possible to spread tasks within roles, across team members who might otherwise have idle appointment times. see - http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/Less-Headache.aspx

* We provide position descriptions for the entire salon structure, with specific duties for reception, assistant managers, managers, trainers and owners - which can also include specific admin related performance bonuses to further compensate team members who need to come off the floor from servicing clients. see - http://www.nexusrevolution.co.uk/I-Need/Less-Headache.aspx

One final tip: If you haven't yet - invest in a computer that allows you to schedule admin tasks and team sessions in advance on your quite days / times and then take client booking around these. This way if you do need to open the time back up for client appointments you can see at a glance where you can either reschedule the salon task or weigh up its administrational importance to leave it in place to ensure it gets done.