Finding the perfect training partner

Craig Davies, director of education, Francesco Group talks about finding a training partner. What are the key areas that should be looked at when researching training providers?

• There should be a strong emphasis on practical hands-on hairdressing training.
• The training provider should be delivering training that is modern, current and relevant that meets the needs of your business.
• The apprentice should be working towards a nationally recognised qualification.

Any other advice to a salon owner looking for a provider? Ask to visit the Providers premises; so many salon owners have never seen the inside of the provider’s business. Do their training salons reflect current industry standards? Would you be happy training in their environment? Do you see standards and practices that you would want your apprentice to aspire to? Remember that the apprenticeship programme can only be a success if you, the salon owner, are dedicated to training and developing your apprentices.  It’s not the sole responsibility of the training provider to get your apprentice through their training. Setting time aside for weekly training sessions in salon is a great way to support the Apprentice’s education. Explain your process when a potential college approaches your group. When a new college approaches us we typically meet at our Head Office and Academies for the College to gain an insight into how the Partnership program works. We then visit the College to assess the suitability of the college’s environment for our Graduate Salon concept. Sometimes the College may need a minor refit or refurbishment to create the necessary requirements of the Graduate Salon other times we may work with the College on a brand new design for their hairdressing salon. As for any anyone entering into a new partnership or business relationship, it is important that both parties fully understand their responsibilities, the objectives and benefits of what is to be achieved. It is important that there is complete transparency and honesty in these discussions so that both parties understand each other. Every Partnership is different but there are often common challenges that each partnership faces, that may mean lack of models for the students to practice on, low income from the commercial salon or lack of progression into employment. Once both parties are happy to proceed we will prepare a business plan to support the venture. We have immense experience in this field having worked with college’s for over 19 years and currently have eighteen College Partnerships. The only real secret to guaranteeing a flawless service is effective communication, it is important at every stage to achieve productivity and maintain the strong working relationship at all levels of the Partnership. How do you work with the chosen partnership to evolve student’s education? In the first instance we will work with the chosen college’s lecturers and assessors and deliver a high- quality program of continuous program of development (CPD). We will share and explain our culture of high-quality customer service and demonstrate the methodology of our classic cutting techniques that are the backbone of hair cutting education. It is important to motivate the front line educators and ensure that they are delivering the latest up to date techniques to their students. How often do you visit your partnerships to ensure everything is on track? Our college development team spends two days every month with the college partner. Each partnership salon will be working towards agreed set targets and performance standards. The team will support both the Lecturing team and the students to achieve these goals. Reports on progress after each monthly visit are shared with Senior Management. We will have review meetings quarterly to appraise performance.