Before you hire the next staff member for your salon, make sure you perform an audit of your current team.
It’s important that you gain an in-depth understanding of the culture of your existing workforce and what you want your dream team to look like over the long term to support your salon marketing strategies.
The people who you recruit to join your team will become part of the culture of the salon. As such, you need to be clear about how you want to shape that culture. From there, you are in a better position to hire the new team members who will be able to identify with the values you have set and share your beliefs and those of the wider team.
Start by working with your existing team members to brainstorm a list of the values that are important to you. Then prioritize the top 5-7. Examples of values that are commonly identified as being important within organizations are teamwork, creativity, professionalism, honesty, fun, trust, focus, and dependability.
Ask yourself: If you could only focus on achieving one value, what would it be?
Take the list of prioritized values you have identified and define each one with a short statement. This will help everyone on the team to develop a shared understanding of the stated values.
When you are hiring and building your team, look for these characteristics in your candidates. Whose personality, outlook, and past experiences are best aligned with these values?
If a candidate doesn't fit, don’t force it. Move on to the next candidate; don’t waste your time on an individual who is not going to help you achieve your objectives.
Practice and prepare for interviews. Create an interview structure of open questions and stick to it rigidly. Ensure these questions elicit meaningful information that will help you to identify if the person who is attending the interview is the right person for your team.
Some of the questions that you may wish to consider asking candidates during an interview are as follows:
What do you want to achieve from this position? And why? Don’t be afraid to delve deep into the candidate’s motivation.
What do you know about our salon? Find out if the candidate has gone to the effort to research more about your salon and what you do.
What skills do you have that can help the salon? What services can you perform? Find out what specific value the candidate can offer your team and what they are passionate about.
What product lines and services do you like?
What type of environment so you prefer to work in and why?
Do you like attending training courses? In what ways have you extended your skills and industry expertise?
What did you like about your last job? What did you enjoy doing the most? Ask the interviewee to be specific.
Have you ever experienced difficulties working with your colleagues? How did you handle these? You’re interested in learning if your staff will like them and how they will deal with conflict.
Are you open to change and learning new systems?
Explain to each candidate what a typical day looks like in your salon. And be truthful. Layout what training and benefits you offer, the policies you have in place around schedules, and your expectations surrounding goal setting and performance reviews.
At the end of the interview, ask yourself whether the individual you have interviewed will enhance your salon, fit in with your team, and meet your expectations.
You are doing much more than hiring new skills and resources; you are bringing on a team member who you hope will be loyal and stay with you over a long-term basis.