How to measure team performance and manage your findings.
Hairdressing industry expert Nergish Wadia-Austin is the creator of PHAB Standard Ltd, the first performance-based hairdressing industry standard.
Here she explains the need for measuring performance and then acting upon the standards being delivered and reveals what your use of performance stats says about you as a manager.
For a basic hairdressing salon, for example, it could have as few as five departments:
- Cutting
- Colouring
- Treatments
- Volume (perming/straightening)
- Retail.
Unless the salon owner measures their salon's and team's performance (on an individual basis) in each of these departments, the performance of these areas will remain static.
The other basic areas of performance that should be measured is client acquisition and retention. This should include:
- Total number of customers seen per day
- The number of customers that are repeat/regular/returning/recommended or request customers.
These results will identify if the salon is managing to bring their customers back and, most importantly, which of the professionals in the salon are retaining their customers and which ones are driving them away.
KPIs can also tell you about the type of manager you are.
In my experience, I have found there to be three types of manager:
Type 1: These are the really successful managers; they measure all their results, understand what the results tell them about their business and use the results to manage their staff's performance and grow their business.
This method of running a business is the preferred way and reaps great rewards both in terms of revenue generation and keeping staff motivated to deliver great results for their customers.
The key is to keep their team interested and focused on the importance and impact of their results. This will help them to grow their columns year after year and will give their clients what they are paying for and help to keep them loyal. These Type 1 Managers are the leaders of our industry.
Type 2: These are the managers that monitor all their performance results, but don't analyse what they tell them about their business and each individual's performance.
This Type 2 Manager does not realise that their efforts of tracking, recording and storing these results are a waste of their time if they are not used to assist staff in achieving their goals.
These managers should start to read, understand and use the story their results tell them each week about their business and the individuals within it.
Each week they should be reflecting on each department's performance and each individual's performance. Set aside a little time to chat with individuals and work out which areas of their performance need improving. The solutions may take the form of knowledge-based training, skill-based training, revisiting or confidence building.
Currently, the same level of poor performance is allowed to continue day after day, uninterrupted, forming bad habits which eventually set the salon's standard. By not using their recorded results they are causing and enabling this poor standard.
Type 3: These managers don't bother to record any of these crucial results thereby ignoring the business and the individuals within it. The time honoured route to business stagnation.
These managers should divide up their business into departments. At a minimum, they should start recording the basics as mentioned above, for a period of 12 weeks and keep an eye on their results each week.
Weekly results should be discussed with their team just so that they can start to get each individual focused on exactly what happens in their chair after each client's visit. Are they managing to please their customers? Are they bringing them back to their chair? Are they being recommended to their friends? Are they delivering haircare advice during that visit?
Soon a pattern will emerge and they will be better placed to make employment decisions based on fact rather than 'gut instinct' or 'feelings'. They will also be able to plan training in their salon based on these findings.
