One of the keys to success at our salon is the quarterly staff salon meeting. I’ve heard of salons that do monthly meetings and others that don’t do any at all. The latter don’t tend to last long, in my experience.
Salon meetings are a must because they serve multiple purposes. You get the pulse of the salon, assert yourself as captain of the ship, and bring up any big issues that might be stunting salon growth or affecting your staff. Are providers not coming in on time? Are the staff unclear on how to – and who should be – upselling products? Is there a new marketing tool you want everyone to understand? These are all fair game at the meeting.
In our salon we run four staff meetings a year. They are booked on the calendar a year in advance to give everyone plenty of time to adjust their schedules according. Here are some of my tips for running an effective quarterly (or monthly) staff meeting:
1 | Set the agenda ahead of time
You cannot roll into the salon meeting and ask, “Okay, who has an issue they want to talk about?” This is inviting a bitch fest. Trust me when I say you do not want an hour-long bitch fest on your hands.
Send out an agenda by email ahead of time or have some copies printed out for the staff when they arrive. Try to make these meetings proactive and not reactive. I see many salons schedule their salon meeting only to address things that went wrong. This turns meetings into a negative experience. It’s find to bring up issues and problems but balance it out with “ways we can improve the salon.”
2 | Start and end on time
Our meetings are an hour long and the start on time. If you get there five minutes late the doors will be locked and you won’t get in. You cannot let one late employee slow down the whole staff.
Stick to your agenda, stay on point, and wrap up on time. No one likes a meeting that runs over.
3 | Schedule them on days off
We tend to do our salon meetings on Mondays, since the salon is closed that day. Yes, no one likes “working” on a day off, but this is why we schedule it way out in advance and this is also why we keep the meeting to an hour.
We alternate between a morning meeting and an evening meeting, just to break it up, and we don’t always hold it on a Monday. We might schedule on for Saturday evening, so if we close at 7 or 8 p.m. the staff know they’ll be there until 9 p.m. at the latest.
4 | Bring food
If it’s a morning salon meeting I always bring some bagels or breakfast food. In the evening it might be pizza. A fed staff is a happy staff.
Note: I NEVER bring or allow alcohol at the meetings. This is a work meeting – drinking would send the wrong message.
5 | Don’t get personal
We never point fingers at our quarterly meetings. We don’t call out an employee by name. To do so would start the tone of the meeting on the wrong foot. The underlying message is always, “Everyone has room to improve, no matter your level.”
