Hiring Staff: What Are The Benefits And The Disadvantages?

Is your salon booked up weekly and already having a client stop? If so, it may be time for staffing. This is an exciting move and comes with many responsibilities. What are actually the advantages? And are there any disadvantages?

If your schedule is constantly packed and you often have to sell no, a few extra hands can take the pressure off your shoulders and grow your business even more.

Staffing allows you to focus on this growth and improvement of your business. Expanding your team is an investment in the future. It is therefore very important to hire staff at the right time.

Having staff brings a lot of benefits. Check them out below.

1. Efficiency and productivity: with extra hands, you can serve more clients and expand your services. As a result, you increase the productivity of your salon.
2. More skills: your team brings different skills and perspectives. This leads to more creative solutions and better client satisfaction.
3. Customer service: with more staff, you can offer your clients a more personal and faster service. This can increase satisfaction and loyalty.
4. Flexibility: want to take an extra day off or book a week's vacation? Staffing allows you to be more flexible with your working hours and your shifts. This also allows you to schedule a little more time for me-time and your family.
5. Growth and development: hiring staff allows you to focus on growing your business. Your team can handle daily tasks at the same time.

Unfortunately, having staff is not always about roses. It's important to weigh the pros and cons carefully and then decide for yourself whether you think it's worth it.

• Costs: hiring staff involves additional costs, such as salaries, taxes and insurance.
• Management time: managing staff takes time and energy, from recruitment and training to resolving problems and conflicts.
• Responsibility: as an employer, you have more responsibilities, such as complying with labor laws and ensuring a safe working environment.
• Risk of turnover: staff turnover can lead to turmoil and additional costs of recruiting and training new employees.
• People management: dealing with different personalities and work styles can sometimes be challenging and requires strong communication and people skills.

Staffing largely eases the burden on your shoulders, sure, but it also gives you a very important job: management. You need some important management skills to make sure your staff feels completely at home in your company.

1. Communication skills. State your expectations clearly and be open to feedback.
2. In addition, organizational skills are important to make sure the hiring process runs smoothly and new employees are properly inducted.
3. Leadership is also important, as you must be able to inspire and motivate your team.
4. Finally, empathy is essential so that you create a positive work environment where everyone feels valued and flourishes.

Priscilla Nieuwkerk (40) of ByCil chose to hire staff because she was quickly outgrowing her business. She didn't want endless queues for her customers and also missed the sociability of colleagues. Although she is generally very happy with her choice of hiring staff, there were also challenges involved.

Priscilla: "The biggest challenge by far was Corona and the fact that we had to close three times. I did see my resilience and creativity here. I immediately started taking action to still generate income in numerous ways."

"Furthermore, it has happened to me several times that I fully trained staff to be all-round within the salon," says Priscilla. "Then the girls started for themselves and took a large part of the client base with them, and all the marketing of my business was copied. I could take this pretty personally and take a lot of grief for it. I now know that competition does not exist. I attract my own clients and I sail my own course."

Once you have determined that it really is time for personnel after all, you have a lot to take care of.

• A catchy job posting: start by drafting an attractive job description. Tell about your salon, what the job entails and why you would enjoy working here. It often helps to give a salary indication in advance, based on experience. Per hour or per month.

• Post the vacancy: share your vacancy on various platforms, such as social media, job websites and within your own network. The more people you reach, the more likely you are to find the perfect candidate.

• Select candidates: as the applications come in, review the resumes and cover letters. Choose the candidates who are the best fit for your company and invite them for an interview. Write the ones you don't invite a nice rejection.

• Conduct interviews: during the interviews you can get to know the candidates better. Ask about their experience, skills and why they would like to work at your practice.

• Have them work with you for a few hours. You want to make sure you choose the right person. Still a little unsure if your favorite candidate is really any good? Ask about work. Or have her show her skills one morning. Have her bring 1 or 2 models so you can see how she works.

• Make a choice: choose the candidate who best fits your practice. Pay attention not only to skills, but also to personality and whether he or she fits into the team. You can start with a one-year contract, and one month probationary period.

Hiring staff can't be done lightly. You need to be able to take good care of your employees. That is why there are a number of mandatory points that you must adhere to.

• Register with the tax authorities as an employer so that you can pay payroll taxes.
• Make sure you have a good employment contract that clearly sets out the agreements with your employee. You can find many model agreements online; it is best to have the contract checked by a lawyer. It does cost something. But you want to avoid overlooking things and getting into trouble later, should friction arise.
• It is also useful to register your new employee with a pension fund and take out sick leave insurance.
• Get a payroll file from your employer. Perhaps your accountant can provide the monthly paycheck.

There is a lot involved in hiring staff. Is your salon full, but you don't really want to hire permanent staff? Then there are a number of alternative solutions.

Chair rental offers the opportunity for independent eyebrow specialists to work in your salon. In doing so, they rent a chair and treat their own clients. You don't have the many responsibilities as an employer and you provide some extra income.

The downside is that you can't"mold" these people because they are self-employed. If they do a poor job in your salon, it can reflect on you.

Another alternative is a work-learning program. In this, you work with schools and colleges to provide students with a place of practice. They get extra help in your salon while contributing to the education of future brow bosses!