Salon Staff Quit? Do THIS In The First 48 Hours

The days of somebody working for you for 30 to 40 years are long gone, my friend. Eventually, they're going to move on. I once went to a stylist engagement party and came back from the party to find she'd handed her notice in. That moment taught me a rule that I've followed ever since, and it's probably the opposite of what you might expect. All On Build Your Salon a slightly different flavour, just so we don't get moneyed out. But today's episode has the potential to be a bit on the gloomy side. I'm going to try my best to keep things light. We're talking about the moment that every salon owner dreads, and it's the moment when someone you depend on decides that they're leaving, whether that be a stylist or a therapist or an aesthetics practitioner, a chair renter, a freelancer. They look you in the eye and say they're going. Look you in the eye, he says, with a smirk. That happens very, very rarely indeed. But how you handle the next 48 hours decides whether this is going to be a smooth transition or a whole load of damage that you didn't really anticipate. And I have been through this an awful lot. You can imagine in 20 years of salon ownership, I think we're on 25 years of salon ownership now. We've got through a lot of team members and we used to recruit an awful lot of apprentices and people that weren't quite right for the industry but didn't know it yet. So we've probably been through over 100 different team members at different stages. And today I'm going to give you a few little pointers and a rule that I follow, why I follow it and what to do in the first couple of days after that awful news. And the first thing, and this is hard, because a resignation feels personal. Of course it does. You've trained this person, championed them, perhaps you've paid for their courses, you've given them a second chance where nobody else would. You've cried with them, laughed with them, watched their kids grow up, and now they've decided they're leaving.

It feels like betrayal, even though it's not. Most of the time people leave because they've just got something else that suits them a little bit better. That's life. People are allowed to do that. In the same way as your clients weren't born, your clients, they were going somewhere else, you got them from somewhere. Well, that happens with recruits as well, but you are allowed to feel hurt. What you're not allowed to do, in the same way as we were talking about negative reviews, you're not allowed to act on the hurt. Because what happens in the next couple of days is going to be remembered by the person leaving, by the team that you've got, by the clients that are on their list. And if you're really unlucky, by the lawyer later down the line. So the first job is to take the emotion, take the personal bit and put it in a box and just lock it away for two days. You can take it out of the box and cry about it later. But for now, you're the boss. You need to behave like one. I need you to be Alexis. And if you don't know what that means, well, we can't be friends anymore because you're way too young. Here's where I get some pushback, though, and I don't care, but this is what I do. As soon as somebody resigns from the salon, they are out. That doesn't mean I'm going to breach the contract. We're putting them on what we call gardener's leave. If the contract says that they have to give you a week's notice for that week, you are paying them to stay at home. They will not be in my salon, not for a week, not for two weeks, not at the end of their notice period. They are gone and paid in full for that notice period. Now, get some legal advice. Obviously, check with payroll. But if they've got any leave, any annual leave owing, they can be taking that during that week as well. And I know it's an absolute nuisance because they're going to have a week full of clients and you're going to have to find somewhere to put those clients. And they're going to be need to be rescheduled and maybe no one's got any space in their columns and you're going to end up working late and blah, blah, blah. And you don't want to have all those conversations with your clients telling them what's going on in your business. But you need this person out of the building, off the booking system, away from till access, off the salon Instagram, off the WhatsApp group, out. Because the damage a resigning team member can do between them resigning and actually leaving is enormous. Now, some of it is deliberate. Most of it isn't. They're not the team member you trained anymore. Their head is somewhere else.

They've already checked out. They've already left. Best case, they start half listening. They stop tidying up their section a little bit and they take longer breaks. Worst case, they're actively undermining you, poisoning clients, poisoning team members, telling clients where they're going and why. They're swapping phone numbers in front of you on your time and clients are being rebooked over their Instagram account rather than in your salon. I've seen both. First one's frustrating. Second one is absolutely devastating. So the rule is simple. Well, as soon as you resign, you are paid up to the end of your notice, but you are gone today. Years ago, I had a top stylist, senior stylist in my salon who I genuinely thought was one of mine. I thought she was a good one. Always did pretty well. She hadn't always been the easiest person to manage, but we invested a lot of time in her, invested a lot of time in her training. She had been promoted and we all got invited to her engagement party. So I went to her engagement party, met her family, bought a card, stuffed it with cash because they were going on holiday the next day. So I gave him some holiday spends for her and her new fiance and danced badly with everybody else and went home quite happy, went into the salon the next day and her notice was on my doormat. And it wasn't just a calm, professional. I quit. It was vicious. It didn't say anything about any of the stuff that I'd done, just the stuff where she wanted to really, really hurt me. And she'd been planning this for months. She'd already decided where she was going to be going. She'd already lined up where she was going to be working. She'd already told all her clients about it. Before I knew what was happening, the clients were calling me to cancel. I didn't even need to call them. And we lost a lot, not because she was particularly amazing or because the new salon was any better, but because they'd already heard from her and she'd already poisoned them, to be honest with you. And already, I'm sure, given them a great big fat load of bullshit about what an arsehole I was. So that's one of the reasons that as soon as you resign, you are out, is the rule in my salon. And I don't want you to be paranoid. I'm not saying that your person resigning is going to be as malicious as all that. But you can't tell which is which in the moment. And what ends up happening is you get it wrong and then you overreact emotionally. So treat them all the same. Out today. Paid in full. No hard feelings. Just no access either.

Quick note for the solos listening or anyone that works with renters or freelancers, same principle applies. A chair renter who's leaving in three weeks has three weeks to undermine you in your salon. So have a look at your contracts. And I know there are lots and lots of business owners out there who have very long notice periods put into their contracts. They think it's protecting them and protecting the salon by saying you have to give me a month's notice. That just means you're going to pay them gardener's leave for a month. It doesn't do you any favours. So instead, I would shorten that to a week. Now, you can't necessarily push a renter out the door. They might have a contract that says otherwise. But you can absolutely start cutting off access to systems, to client data, and start watching your stock as well. Because I have had a few little sticky fingers as people have been leaving my business. What do we do in that first 48 hours? Here's the playbook. They tell you they're leaving. You say, OK, thanks for letting me know. I appreciate you doing it face to face, though they never do. It's always going to be a text message. And that's all you say. We're not going to get into negotiation. There's no counter offer. Once someone's got to the point where they're willing to quit, they're going to go. Even if you save them with a pay rise, it's not going to last for long. And already they've started to check out. And then we need to get on with the access things that I've already hinted at. So in my salons, that's immediate. We need to switch off access to the systems. If they've got keys, we need to change the locks. Don't trust them on giving your keys back. I had one lady who worked for me, and she was adorable. Really, really liked her. She went on good terms. We were good buddies right to the end. If I see her in the street, we stop and have a chat now. But my God, some of the guys she slept with were so awful. And I thought, it's not her that I have a problem with the keys. It's the guy that she's waking up next to. I don't know what he's like. So we change the locks whenever anyone who's a key holder leaves. And yes, it's expensive, but you start to learn how to change locks yourself as well, by the way. And that needs to happen straight away. Then we're going to make a list of everything they know that the salon needs. So regular clients and their record cards, for example. Any outstanding orders, any specialist treatments that they did, where they bought certain products, anything that's not in your systems, we need them to hand over that information. If they're cooperative, you'll get it from them. If not, you're going to have to piece it together yourself. Then you decide what's going to happen to the clients and what you're going to tell them.

Don't lie. Just tell the truth. If a client wants to find a particular therapist or stylist, they're going to find them in these days of social media. There's no point in pretending that you don't know where they've gone to. So just be the bigger person in that moment. And you start telling the clients and rearranging appointments. And I don't get too heavily involved in this stuff. I mean, it can be really easy that you start playing bat and ball with clients. So I tend to say I'm really sorry, but Betty has decided to leave us so she won't be doing your appointment on Thursday. I've moved your appointment into so-and-so's column at the same time. Unless I hear from you, otherwise, I'll assume that's going to be OK. Otherwise, you're playing telephone tag with people for way too much time. Tell the team in person, together, short and factual. I just want to let you know that Betty's handed in a notice. We're sorting out the handover. Her clients are going to be looked after. If anyone asks you about it, this is what we're saying. That's it. And then you take care of the details. Don't slag her off, however tempting it might be. Don't tell them why she's leaving. It's not your place to. And actually, you shouldn't be sharing information about an employee to someone else. They're still an employee, of course, because they're still on the payroll for that gardener leave. And then we start phoning the client list. Either you or your front desk person. We're not going to email. We're not going to text. And you know what you're going to be saying because we've already hit on that note. A phone call, I prefer to a message for this one. I think it gives people the opportunity. Most people don't answer. But at least we know what we're going to say in the voice note. That resignation is your stress test. It shows you where your systems are weak, which clients are loyal to the salon, and which team members are watching to see how you behave. And this can be contagious if you get it wrong. You can't stop people leaving, but you can help steer how you respond. And you can start steering the business off the back of it. So today's episode was not a money fix. It was a bit of a Friday breather. If the money fix series is switching you on, it's the reason that we've got all the Mondays put aside this month. You've got five money fixes, and you can get all of those fixes in cheat sheet form, in audio and in video over at 10minutemoneyfix.com.

About an hour of your time, nine quid. And I've put the link in the show notes as well. So I will see you on Monday for fix number four. And until then, take care.