One of the biggest challenges most business people encounter is recruiting, hiring and building a high performance team. Finding and keeping talented team members is essential to success! In this article, discover five effective spa team training principles to help build your team and elevate your performance.
PRINCIPLE 1: ALWAYS BE RECRUITING
Always be on the lookout for talent. Avoid waiting until you need people to start interviewing, and aim to hire people who already have a position. In the professional sports industry, team recruiters are always scouting for talent. A spa business should follow the same practice. Always be searching for “A Players.” When you wait until you need someone, you end up hiring in a state of desperation, and most likely choose the wrong person.
PRIN CIPLE 2: IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW PROCESS
Spa team training starts with the interview. Establish a system for the interview process if you do not already have one in order to avoid faux pas. The most common mistake spa professionals make when hiring is a lack of clarity in regard to expectations. Often, a detailed position description and a commitment agreement are missing. Both are essential components of a complete hiring system.
Write down all the expectations you have of the employee, and review them in the interview process. For example, if recommending retail products is mandatory, explain this in the interview. If training sessions and team meetings are done on a weekly and monthly basis, let them know up front. Make sure the potential employee understands all other miscellaneous job expectations beyond the service room, such as doing laundry, maintaining inventory, etc. All expectations should be disclosed, clarified, agreed upon in the interview process, put in writing and signed off on by both you and the new employee.
This contract helps you avoid costly mistakes and assists you in hiring A and B players instead of C and D players. Always hire slowly. Take your time and make sure everything is crystal clear prior to offering the position. The cost of hiring mistakes and team turnover is enormous.
PRINCIPLE 3: ORIENTATION
Once you have hired the new employee, the goal is to position them for success. This begins with a professional spa team training orientation. An orientation manual should contain your operating guidelines, organizational structure, culture, policies, procedures and systems. Also, conduct a mini training seminar or have them sit and watch a video. Postorientation, test them to ensure they understand everything that’s required of them. This provides clarity on what it means to be part of your team.
PRIN CIPLE 4: SPA TEAM TRAINING MANUALS
Nobody is going to come to you completely trained, so it’s essential to have spa team training manuals to help you train your team. In order for a business to succeed, there must be effective systems in place, and those systems must be trained until they are perfected. As a business consultant, I have the opportunity to speak to many spa owners and directors. The one thing I notice repeatedly is the lack of spa team training structure. Spa leaders must put on the trainer and coach hat often in order to build a dream team and reach new levels of success.
Sports coaching analogies are useful as they have much in common with managing a successful business. Sports teams spend a lot of time training and sharpening their skills. Coaches are always on the floor watching and coaching their teams. They take time-outs, watch videos, create plays and map-out game strategies. Spa leaders have a team as well, and they need to spend time coaching and training in order to win
A key tool to help spa leaders in their coaching is maintaining a specific training manual for each department. These manuals should include systems, strategies, processes, tools, forms, scripts and an approach on how to deliver a great guest experience.
A. Business Training Manual
Business training is almost non-existent within the spa industry — a big mistake! Make sure you have a complete business training manual that addresses the following:
- Revenue generation (how to increase service and retail revenue)
- Marketing (self and cross promoting to increase awareness)
- Upgrading treatments and promoting series
- Guest experience (increasing retention rate)
- Promoting spa memberships
- Overall revenue generation (increasing revenue per guest)
B. Technical Training
Delivering a great experience is essential to your success. Your team must wow your guests with their skills, techniques and knowledge. Technical training should include:
- Treatment protocols
- Product knowledge (services and retail)
- Guest experience (rituals)
- Contraindications
- Ingredients and their benefits
- The spa menu
- Treatment room upkeep
- Inventory management
- Monitoring product cost per treatment
C. Client Relations Training – Reception Team
Your client relations department can make you or break you. This training manual should include:
- Call management
- Check-In
- Checkout
- Retail sales
- Future appointments
- Membership sales
- Scripts and strategies
- Targets and goals
To be successful, these spa team training manuals should place a big emphasis on both initial and continual training.
Principle 5: Develop Healthy Training Habits
Training Schedule
Develop a training calendar and publish it. Maintaining a training habit is essential to your success. A spa team training session can be as short as 30 minutes. Schedule training sessions for the same day and time on a regular basis.
Training Agenda
Be prepared with an agenda and a purpose in your spa team training. Portray a professional image to your team and keep them engaged.
Evaluating Your Training
Evaluate your training to ensure sessions are productive and obtain valuable feedback.
Assistant Coach
As in sports, the head coach has assistant coaches to help them. Who are your assistant spa team training coaches? If you don’t have any, recruit some key players to assist you.
Setting Goals
Establish targets and goals for each department, and break them down into daily goals.
Measuring Results
Failing to measure results in your spa is the equivalent of getting all the players on the field, starting a game with no objective and then not keeping track of the score. Setting goals and measuring results is imperative to running a successful business.
Success requires planning, self-discipline, motivation, dedication and consistency. Invest in your spa team training and development, and watch your spa business thrive and produce great results.
