Q: What are some ways to help keeping employees motivated?
Motivation is something everyone needs to succeed, but not everyone knows how to achieve. As salon owners and managers, it is your responsibility to keep your staff motivated in order to see their success as well as the success of your business.
There is no proven method of motivational success, but there are ways to keep your employees engaged through specific goals.
Running a business without setting goals is like trying to sail a ship without water—you aren’t going to get very far. Goals, when properly implemented, practiced, and monitored, propel you to your desired service and retail revenue. However, in order to reach your service and retail goals, your employees need to reach their individual goals.
Before you can make the process of achieving individual goals fun, you need to educate your employees on the importance of goals. Be transparent with your employees—what does it mean in terms of revenue when they can bring in each of their clients one more visit per year? We created a program at Millennium called “What If”, which helps you show your employees how small changes in retail and service can make a huge difference overall. This system allows for weekly conversations with your staff to keep them on target: “If you pre-book your clients, and they come in just 1 extra time, that could mean an increase of $X in revenue.”
After your employees understand the value behind goal setting, think of ways to make the process of reaching them a little more fun. Include your team in the process to find out what they believe will help keep them motivated. Sometimes, it’s as easy as asking them.
- Create contests by pairing service providers with front desk professionals to see which teams end the week with the most pre-books.
- Set team goals on productivity, average ticket, etc.
- Set goals on employee growth and educate them on the best ways to achieve them.
- Reward incentives like educational trips, bonuses, gift cards, etc.
Create goals for your employees around the following growth indicators or KPIs:
- New Guest Retention
- Repeat Guest Retention
- Average Ticket
- Frequency of Visit
- Productivity
Not every employee you have is going to be self-motivated in achieving their individual goals. Continuously work on ways to keep your team motivated through contests, rewards, and continuing education to see what works best for your team.
John Harms
Millennium Systems International, Founder and CEO
About: John Harms, Founder & CEO of Millennium Systems International, creator of Millennium Software, has been designing industry leading salon scheduling software and educating the beauty & wellness industry since 1987. Today Millennium is utilized in thousands of businesses in over 38 countries and operating with approximately 150+ employees worldwide. Millennium currently runs its corporate headquarters out of New Jersey and its international office is based in the U.K.