23. How to say goodbye - firings and resignations in your salon

Hi everyone, this is the weekly Build Your Salon podcast with me, Phil Jackson. I'm here with the tools you need to generate the profits you deserve so that you can lead a fuller life. Welcome, and today we're talking about when it's time to say goodbye. We're talking about when an employee decides to leave or when you need to terminate their employment. Hurts, doesn't it? Why is it we take it so personally? Why does it hit us so hard emotionally when it's time to say goodbye to a member of our team? Well, I think the big reason is that when you look at what we do, whether you're a hairdresser or a beauty therapist or a nail technician, what we're doing all day every day is nurturing and building excellent relationships with our clientele. The problem is that's not something you can just switch off when it's time to go into the staff room. Add to that the fact that salons tend to be quite small teams where we're working in very intimate circumstances. When you think about it, we're not in huge multinational corporations where we can hot desk in the office next door or work from home three days a week. It's an emotionally charged environment and we tend to get to know each other very well on a personal as well as a professional level. So you're allowed to take it personally. Your salon is your baby. You've nurtured it and grown it. So when somebody tells you they don't want to work for you anymore, it feels like they're rejecting your baby. Of course that hurts. And I'm going to let you let that hurt. I'm going to allow you one day and one night for grieving and then you need to move on. You need to learn how to put that behind you and start managing your business again. When you think about it, there's been a massive shift in the employment market over the last 20 years. The days of people taking a job straight from school and then working there until they retire are gone. We're not immune to that in the salon business. We have to get our heads around the fact that there is a trend towards people working for us for a shorter and shorter amount of time. We can't keep taking it that personally and letting it affect us that much otherwise it's going to start adversely affecting our businesses as well. So what are the circumstances when it's time to say goodbye? Well, the first is when a member of your team is not hitting the required salon standards. And they could be performance standards or they could be standards of dress and attitude. All sorts of things that you should have in place in your salon to ensure that your customers are getting an excellent standard of service. You should also have in place a capability procedure.

So what to do if somebody physically can't do the job that you've employed them to do. And also a disciplinary procedure. If you haven't got those two in place, I urge you at the end of this video, make that the number one priority. The thing you have to get in writing for your employees straight away. So unless there's a massive external reason why somebody isn't performing properly. And I would call those reasons something like they're grieving because of the loss of a loved one. Or they're going through a very messy divorce. Something like that which is affecting their performance. Without those things, it will be one of three. It's either a training issue. Or it's a capability issue. Or the one that salons are really slow to get on board with is the disciplinary procedure. It's really important that you start to nip these things in the bud straight away. Because there is an iceberg effect going on. If you're aware of a drop in performance, if you're aware of a negative attitude, I promise you you're seeing 10% of the problem. There will be a lot more going on underneath the surface that you are unaware of. The second time it's time to say goodbye, well that's when they quit. And I know that sounds very obvious, but if they're going to resign, I promise you it's time to say goodbye. I've worked in my salon now for 15 years. I've been in the hairdressing industry for 20 years. I've been a coach and a mentor as well. I've spoken to tens, probably hundreds of salon owners over the years. And I promise you, if somebody gets to the stage where they have resigned, you will not save them in the long term. Even if you can persuade them to stay, I promise you they will not be there in five years' time. To get to the stage where they're actually resigning from a position is a really big mental process for an employee to go through. They won't do it lightly. And when they've got to that stage, it's done. It's too late. Either that, or they're doing it for dramatic effect and trying to get something out of you. And you don't need that kind of drama in your salon. And the third time it's time to say goodbye is when it becomes all about the money. Nobody comes into our industry expecting to earn millions. Nobody stays in hair and beauty because of the cash that it generates. It's a really inefficient way of making your fortune. So if an employee comes to you and they're threatening to leave or you have to give them a pay rise,

by all means give them the pay rise, but know that that employee will be back asking for another pay rise in a year's time. Pay your staff as much as you can possibly afford. And then the conversation when they ask for an extra pay rise over and above that is very short indeed. The answer is no. And it's time to let that employee go. So there are four golden rules for when we're dealing with employees resigning or us terminating their employment. And the first one is we are never surprised. There's a very strong guideline in my salon that all of my employees are aware of very early in their careers. And that is that I will not take a meeting unless I know what's on the agenda. I will not take a phone call unless I know what the content of the phone call is. That gives me a chance to be prepared. So if a stylist comes to you and says that they're thinking of resigning and they'd like a meeting about it, it gives you a chance to go and look at their contract, go and get some legal advice, start planning ahead. So you go into that meeting fully prepared and fully armed. But of course, by the time they come to you with that proposition, it's a bit too late. So when I talk about being prepared, you need to start listening to the gossip in the salon. You need to start being aware of when there's a shift in someone's attitude. You need to start looking at the tone of people's text messages to you and start looking out for those alarm bells, looking out for those things that might just give you a little bit of an edge on what someone's thinking. Golden rule number two is that you must have a plan. You should have an ideal termination date in place before you go into the meeting with the employee. You should have a plan on what you're going to be telling all of their clients. You should have a marketing plan. Are you going to be putting something on Facebook? Are you going to be contacting each client individually? Are you going to be writing to them, recommending a different member of the team? And you should also have an overall team plan. So are you going to be replacing that member of the team? Or are you going to be promoting somebody who's perhaps more junior into that position? Or is it time to look at the numbers and slightly downsize the number of employees you've got? Golden rule number three is all about the meeting itself. When it's time to say goodbye, do it quickly. It's like ripping an elastoplast off your leg. It's much better if you can get it over and done with. So here's how the meeting goes in my salon. I never go into that meeting unless I've got somebody with me. So if I'm going to be terminating Betty's employment because of some sort of disciplinary procedure,

Gerald will be with me. And Gerald will be a trusted member of my team that understands the complete situation and that I have faith in. Firstly, he's there to cover my arse. He's my witness. He knows exactly what's going to be said in the room. And I expect him to be taking some notes as well. But secondly, he's going to be Betty's shoulder to cry on. So I will go into the meeting. I will have Betty's termination letter in my inside pocket. The conversation I have with Betty is very short, pretty much one sentence. I would say something like, we've had several conversations about this lack of performance in this area of your career. I'm afraid it's time for us to part ways. This is your letter of termination. And then I stand up and I say, Gerald's going to look after you. We'll be in touch. And I leave the room. That's how short that conversation is. It's in a very emotional time for Betty. And it's very easy to turn it into a horrible catfight argument. So I get out of that room straight away. And Gerald's job then is to be firstly the shoulder to cry on. And secondly, to make sure Betty leaves the premises straight away without taking half of my stock on the way out. And golden rule number four is all about termination dates. And I'm afraid this one is a toughie. It's a really hard one to swallow. But the second somebody resigns from your employment, they are gone from the premises. So if they come in and give me a letter of resignation, then I'm afraid that is the last time I will see them in my salon. They go straight away. They can do so much harm being in your salon as a demotivated member of the team. They can do so much harm to your clientele by handing out cards on the slide telling them where they're going. It's really much better if you pay them their notice period. We call that gardener leave. Pay them their notice period and get them out of the salon as soon as you possibly can. There is one tiny exception to that and the only time I break that rule is if somebody is literally leaving the country. So if I've got somebody who, it happened a couple of years ago, one of the members of my team was going to go travelling for 18 months. She gave me a nice long notice period and actually she couldn't do any harm in that notice period at all. So she stayed with me, worked up to the notice period and then went travelling. But that's the only time I would do it is if they're literally leaving the country. I hope that's been useful to you. If it has, don't forget to subscribe to this channel and I will see you again next Monday.

Take care. Hey everyone, it's Phil again. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please subscribe and be sure to tell your friends. For more help and information on running your salon and your life, head over to buildyoursalon.com I'll see you there.