The big debate: to employ or not to employ?

With the recent upsurge in the self-employment sector, more salons than ever are taking the opportunity to recruit self-employed staff as opposed to the traditional structure of employing staff. As with all non-traditional business models their are positives and negatives. In the big debate two business owners discuss the pros and cons of having self-employed staff.

For Self-employed Staff

Sue Whitehead, founder and managing director of Jacks of London group says: "Over the past 25 years I’ve tried various approaches to running my business and I’ve found offering self-employment works best for me and the barbers. It’s what they want, and in a highly competitive recruitment environment you need to give them reasons to stay. There are downsides, but these are offset by guaranteeing the best working environment for the team, and at Jacks we do that. The primary reason any owner would choose the self-employed route is motivation. If you have a team who understand the more clients they have, the more money they get in their bank account, they will not only power through the crowd waiting in reception, but will also ensure they give the best service to keep them coming back.

 I’ve found offering self-employment works best for me and our barbers

At Jacks of London, the cost of a cut is £24 and we pay our barbers a high percentage of that which is already higher than most other barbers. The result? We both earn more. Barbers choose self-employment because it allows them to earn more money, but it also gives them greater freedom than employment. We offer flexibility and shorter shifts. We also have long opening hours – 8am to 8pm and we’re open on Sundays. This means our team work just 7.5 hours a day, and they choose what days to work and whether to come in early or late. We have a relaxed approach about the team swapping shifts among themselves and the same with clothes. There’s a black dress code we ask them to follow, and we provide various items to protect their clothes. We can’t enforce a dress code with self-employed staff, but branding is so strong at Jacks, and our team recognise that. Barbers also want to be busy and not just because of the money. They don’t want to be bored. To make sure the reception is always heaving and the team is occupied rather than sitting around waiting for customers, we invest heavily in marketing. The Jacks brand is highly visible in the south-east and growing. At the end of the day, it’s almost always about the money. We have a tax adviser who helps with the financial side, so we’ve made our business as easy and profitable as it can be.”

Against Self-Employed Staff

Christian Wiles, owner of Christian Wiles Male Grooming "As a passionate salon owner with a commitment to hairdressing excellence I have always had a policy to employ a team rather than to rent chairs out to other stylists. I run a profitable and successful business that is built on strong foundations and relationships. My approach is simple: in order to manage, influence and empower my team, I need to employ them. To gain competitive advantage, I believe that salons must show a united front: I feel that a salon full of self-employed individuals will all be working with different goals and to different standards. In the 20+ years that our salon has been in business, we’ve identified that our focus on development and education is a key element to our success. We have weekly team meetings, monthly appraisals and reviews and regular team building exercises. The team is given exceptional opportunities such as being involved with key industry events, the opportunity to develop their careers as educators and access to internal and external technical education. We invest in our team to continuously improve the levels of service and I don’t think this would be possible if we rented chairs out.

My approach is simple: in order to manage, influence and empower my team, I feel I need to employ them

It could be very easy to rent out space as there is less commitment required in terms of time and financial investment. I would find it difficult to achieve our company goals if I had a salon full of stylists who worked the hours that suited them, who weren’t regularly investing their energy in developing their education and who were more focussed on their individual goals rather than our brand goals. Client expectations are high, and we have adopted a uniformed approach to satisfy the demands of today’s clientele. I know there are other companies that have been really successful in adopting this approach, but my personal fear would be setting myself up for dissatisfied clients, mixed brand messages and a high staff turnover."