Everyone loves a day at the salon or a trip to the spa.
Spas and salons are places where clients can relax, forget their cares, and focus on feeling good. When wellness is your business, you may assume the focus is also on healthy employees. But as any spa owner knows, keeping employees happy and healthy is challenging for every business. When employees are well, customers receive better service and leave more content. Keep your staff focused on healthy habits for salons and spas with these nine steps.
Wellness has always been essential to the beauty, esthetics, alternative health, and cosmetology industries. After all, there’s nothing so personal as massage, hair care, waxing, or other beauty treatments found in salons and spas. It’s all about helping clients look and feel their absolute best.
But for an industry focused on health, it’s easy to let healthy habits for salons and spas slide, especially when practicing what you preach. Many stylists and therapists work tough jobs on their feet all day long. The environment can be punishing and competitive. They interface intimately with customers and must be friendly and “on” even when they might not feel it.
Keeping employees and staff well is crucial to the success of your operation. Because of those intimate, close connections with customers, it’s vital that employees feel their best for optimal performance. This means following best practices and adopting healthy protocols to keep everyone safe and feeling well. Follow these nine tips to ensure your spa or salon focuses on healthiness.
1. Set Up a Safety Plan
If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we must have a safety plan in place for any business. Spas and salons are no exception to this rule. Chances are that dealing with the COVID outbreak resulted in a robust safety plan for your operation, but it’s essential to keep your plan ready to use in the future, too.
Natural disasters, building emergencies, and regular flu season can all affect your business. You must have a safety plan to ensure that you and your employees are prepared no matter what comes your way. Consider your evacuation procedure. What would you do in the case of an accident or a health emergency?
Many salons and spas employ practitioners who have had some first-aid experience during their training. When doing bodywork, it’s not uncommon to see minor injuries. Some services, like massage and acupuncture, require a great deal of familiarity with body systems and health. All services require licensure and adherence to state safety guidelines.
If it’s been a while since you’ve discussed these topics with staff, it’s a good time to revisit them. Identify who is in charge during emergencies and ensure everyone knows how to handle a crisis.
2. Communicate with Your Employees
Communication is critical in almost any business and should be a top priority. Even if practitioners rent a chair or a table in your facility (and technically aren’t employees), it’s important to communicate clearly with everyone under your roof. Your business should have standard emergency procedures and steps that everyone follows, regardless of their employment status.
Regular communication helps to ensure that there’s no confusion in an emergency. If your practitioners are all employees, you should convey your policies for scheduling, cancellations, and any other client processes. Let employees know what they should do if they aren’t feeling well.
Communication also helps build a sense of teamwork and camaraderie—essential factors in creating a healthy work environment. Healthy habits for salons and spas should include mental health measures, too. Avoid toxic cosmetology culture by building community ties at your facility.
3. Follow the Health Official’s Instructions and Guidelines
No matter the situation, it’s crucial to follow the guidelines by health officials for a public health crisis, which typically come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Regulatory bodies like OSHA and FEMA also offer guidance during weather emergencies.
Beauty industry publications like Salon Today may also be great resources to help you plan in a crisis or public health emergency. Check with your local government office for rules and regulations surrounding salons and spas at the local and state level. The Department of Safety is the typical overseer of licensure so they may offer additional information about emergency guidance.
No one can prepare for every possible crisis, but when your employees work closely with the public, it’s important to follow regulations. Plan as much as possible, and make sure your employees are adequately trained and always licensed—this step is a smart way to prevent many issues.
4. Keep the Environment Extra Clean
Salons and spas must be extremely clean, regardless of the situation. If you want to create a healthy spa or salon environment, hygiene is crucial. Proper cleaning and sanitation require hot water in any industry. You may also need sanitized tools, work areas, massage tables, and more in the professional beauty industry.
Your salon should have a strict policy on sanitizing all the tools of the trade. Employees should engage in regular hand washing and wear gloves for specific procedures. Linens should be sterile. An air purifier can help reduce irritants in the cosmetology and beauty environment.
A clean facility is also critical for customer satisfaction. Your clientele will feel comfortable visiting a hygienic, clean, safe salon. Comfort and cleanliness go hand-in-hand, and hygiene should be vital to the spa experience. It’s a good idea to keep alcohol-based hand sanitizer in the reception area as an added measure to protect clients and staff.
5. Inform Clients of Expectations and Protocol
During the COVID-19 outbreak, we learned the importance of masks and other PPE. Many salon and spa owners also learned how important it is to share policy information with their clientele. This lesson on client communication is helpful in any situation.
Clients who understand the salon’s policies are more likely to be friendly and satisfied with their experience. Often, what upsets clients is the unknown and the misunderstood. When a client doesn’t understand why they need to use the salon’s tools or why they might need to follow safety procedures and take hygiene precautions during their treatments, they can become frustrated and upset. Inevitably, this leads to a less-satisfactory day at the spa.
Preventing customer misunderstandings is as simple as posting your regulations and rules clearly and sharing them widely. Salon owners should consider adding a sickness cancellation policy to help prevent the spread of germs if a client is ill at the time of their appointment. If you require online bookings or limit the number of clients on the floor, explain the policy on your website, via social media, and to your customers when they arrive.
More healthy habits for salons and spas include posting signage around your facility so customers know what to expect before, during, and after beauty salon visits. When they know what to expect and have a great time, they’re much more likely to book their next appointment at the front desk before they leave.
6. Keep Stress Levels Low
How do you create healthy habits for a salon or spa? Lower workplace stress levels, of course! Make work a fun, enjoyable place to be. The last thing you want is a spa staff that hates being at work. After all, beauty professionals, whether working in a hair salon, nail salon, or massage spa, are helping people reduce stress. Making an effort to reduce employee stress is key, especially since stress can weaken the immune system.
Many bosses worry that employees will run amok if they let up on the reigns. This is rarely the case, especially in a job driven by tips and customer satisfaction. In the professional salon industry, it’s critical that clients are happy, or they will go elsewhere. Salon professionals know this and work hard to keep their clients satisfied.
The best way to keep clients happy is to encourage employees to have a good time. Start dance parties on the floor. Offer discounted services and special activities. Even small healthy treats like coffee or fresh fruit can give employees a little pick-me-up during the day. Find ways to blow off steam and make work a positive, low-stress experience.
7. Encourage Physical Health and Wellness
Many salon and spa employees are so busy during the day that they rarely have a minute to eat, let alone exercise. But working on your feet all day and leaning over clients can take a toll on anybody. Plus, working with specific beauty products can present many health hazards.
Help employees focus on their health by offering wellness resources and workplace activities. Offer salon break room guidance on mental health, quitting smoking, eating well, and other healthy practices. You can create a game out of it or set out a health challenge to create friendly competition. Have healthy snacks available for breakfast since it’s the most important meal of the day. It’s a great way to show your team you care.
Wellness can take on many forms, but when people feel good, they often work harder and present a friendlier face to clients. Encourage employees to practice self-care and pamper themselves and their customers!
8. Foster a Healthier Workplace
Little additions to your facility can make a big difference. Switch to organic, healthier products to keep your facility clean and fresh. Spas and salons are known for their calm, relaxing scents, but diffusing natural oils rather than synthetic fragrances can keep the air healthier.
Many spas aim to use as many natural, “clean” products as possible, but information on these products constantly evolves. Keep up with the latest research to know which products are safest for your practitioners and customers. You must practice hygiene around your facility’s footbaths, hot tubs, and other water-based tools.
Finally, consider the air quality in your salon or spa. Ventilation is crucial, and filters need frequent changing with product residue all around. Don’t neglect the HVAC at your facility—keep the air clean and flowing freely so everyone can breathe easily.
9. Make Employees Feel Valued
Without your staff, your spa or salon will surely fail. By collaborating with your employees and setting goals for individuals, the team, and the business as a whole, has a purpose. Working to make sure everyone understands their role and the part they play in the company’s success is crucial.
Recognizing their achievements is a great way to ensure employees feel valued. Use words of affirmation and praise when you see employees working hard. When sharing photos of a stylist’s work on social media, tag them in the post. Scale your rewards based on the level of effort and the size of the goal.
Building healthy habits for salons and spas is essential. You can keep employees and customers healthy and happy with minor changes and adjustments to your practices. At Reliable Water Services, we know hot water is an integral part of hygiene, and we’re here to ensure your salon or day spa has access to hot water 24/7.
