*This article was repurposed with permission from meettippy.

Happy, motivated service professionals are the heart and soul of any salon or spa. As a salon owner, though, it's easy to focus on 5-Star Service instead of team happiness. After all, your guests bring in the money, but truly it's about being an extraordinary leader to the people who work for you so that you can keep your talent.

It's true that an amazing guest experience is vital to retaining your guests, growing referrals, and increasing revenue. However, the reality is your team are the ones who keep things running smooth as silk. Now more than ever, your team matters in the wake of the indie culture and rising costs of doing business with inflation. If you don't create a positive culture, you're missing out on critical opportunities to support your team - and better your salon.

How Does Team Happiness Impact My Salon?

The key to your success as a salon owner revolves around focusing not only on your guests but also on your salon team. But why should happiness make a difference to your salon? Happy service professionals feel pride and accomplishment in their work, and they like what they do.

This sense of meaning has a positive feedback circle-that sense of happiness reduces stress, which can in turn positively affect service professional productivity. The team experience in your salon informs numerous other aspects of your business, including salon culture, guest satisfaction, staff retention, and the bottom line - profit! Simply put, your salon is more likely to profit and retain guests when you invest in your team culture.

3 Simple Ways to Transform Your Team's Happiness

You don't need to give your salon a complete makeover to improve your team's happiness. Instead, it would be best if you were open to listening, learning, and making simple changes. Here are three easy ways to improve your team's lifestyle.

1.  Listen to your Team

The last few years challenged the entire world at work and home. A Gallup poll found that only 32% of U.S. employees are engaged in the workplace. Discovering what your team needs and wants is a simple way to solve this disengagement. Start by sending an anonymous email survey asking employees about salon education, team building activities, new products or service offerings, schedules, and compensation.

Once you have compiled and analyzed your survey results, you'll be able to identify the areas where your salon or spa needs the most work. You must move quickly and meet with your team one-on-one to share the results and work together on an action plan. Don't forget to regularly share the progress at a team meeting or huddle.

2.  Expand your Benefits

One valuable lesson learned during the pandemic was benefits are essential. Offering better benefits is a way to show you care for your team. Having a wider variety of benefits also helps lower stress levels. Think beyond excellent health insurance, as that is a given in 2022. You may also want to consider:

Mental Health benefits like flexible scheduling, paid mental health days, or 20-minute paid breaks after every 90-120 minutes behind the chair or in a treatment room. As reported by CNBC, the brain can only focus for 90 minutes before it needs to rest before your next task. Double-check how you can build this payroll expense in your service pricing structure.

According to a recent survey, you might be surprised that 64% of U.S. adults currently are living paycheck to paycheck. Financial wellness benefits, like offering instant tips disbursement with technology solutions like Tippy, instant payments powered by Branch, also help support your team as inflation heats up.

Tips are essential and can amount to 20-30% of a service professional's income! Tippy, not only, encourages salon guests to tip more, but it also helps service professionals save for a vacation, life event, or special occasion. Say goodbye to the days of burning through those cash tips, and go digital with Tippy!

Kayla Baker, Esthetician, Lords & Ladies

I want to thank Tippy for making it possible to save my goal amount before maternity leave! Tippy allowed me to sit comfortably at home with my baby with zero worries.

 

 

3.  Invest in Technology

High performers flourish working in forward-thinking salons that embrace new technology and make it easier to manage their day-to-day workflow. When your salon shows a willingness to invest in technology for team development, you're demonstrating a willingness to invest in your team's future.

More than four in five consumers worldwide said a quick and easy checkout was the most valued aspect of the salon experience. Service professionals are quick to share client feedback about the checkout process at the front desk, and the end goal is to keep the professionals happy. With Tippy's simple user interface, consumers can choose from various tipping options set up by the salon-either in percentages or dollar figures-making it one of the best tip tracking apps to help service professionals increase tips.

Tippy's all-in-one guest checkout kiosk now integrates with many point-of-sale software's to digitally send tips directly to service professionals in the salon or spa. Consumers can view itemized service and retail totals on the guest facing kiosk allowing full transparency before collecting payments with your existing processor.

Happy Service Professionals Translates to Higher Retention

Transforming your team's happiness is critical for salon growth and staff retention. Don't fret if you're not sure where to start the process. Begin with the feedback collected from your survey and look at your salon or spa as a garden. What are the things you need to fertilize your garden and help it grow? And what are weeds that threaten to take over your garden if you allow them to happen? Even making one change to start can have a positive chain reaction.

About Tippy

Tippy, a digital tipping system built for service industry professionals by industry professionals, is a disruptive technology offering a suite of tools to reduce processing fees and improve service professional's tips. Tippy, helps businesses to meet and exceed financial goals and caters to a variety of sectors including beauty, hospitality, and fitness. For more information, visit MeetTippy.com.