As a salon owner, setting employee goals is essential to the success of your business.
Sometimes, though, it can be tough to get your entire staff on the same page. Still, these efforts are integral to your growth.
To inspire your team and make it easy for them to achieve their objectives, you need to set targets for them that are specific, realistic, and with reasonable deadlines.
Here are some tips on creating targets for your salon and helping your employees reach their potential.
Evaluate Your Business Before Setting Employee Goals
The first thing you need to do, before setting any employee targets, is to review how your business is doing to establish where your greatest needs are.
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
Maybe your team is doing a great job booking clients but could stand to spend more time on the retail side? Or maybe you want to increase the number of spa treatments you book?
By knowing where your business could stand the biggest boost, you can determine which areas to focus on when setting goals.
Set Easily Measurable Goals
It’s fine to say you want to increase the number of new clients you draw to your salon, but for greater success, you should target a specific amount. Then, you need to track and measure your employees’ actions as they work towards these goals.
An easily measurable goal will have a clearly defined outcome or deadline. Along the way, you’ll document actual evidence that your employees are working towards achieving these targeted figures or dates.
Instead of saying you want to book more clients, specify that you’d like to book 10 new clients a week. Rather than simply stating that you want to focus on the retail component of your business, tell your employees you want to increase retails sales by 20% over a one-month period.
This gives your team a more specific goal to be working towards. And you can build on these targets over time.
Establish Different Targets for Services and Retail
Many salons have two aspects of their business – the services they provide and the retail products they sell their clients for use at home.
The services you render – hair cutting, styling, and coloring, among others – will make up the bulk of your business. Still, the retail component is an often-overlooked opportunity to make additional sales.
Since these are two completely different animals, you should set separate targets for both sides of the business each month.
Maybe offer your employees two challenges each month, one service-based, the other retail-based. For instance, who can book the most new clients and who can upsell the most retail shampoo and conditioner sets?
Create Healthy Competition
Get your employees excited about your targets by creating healthy competition among them. You can do this by offering incentives to the top performers or those who meet their targets each month.
This competitive spirit will boost excitement and increase productivity.
It’s important to not let the competitiveness get out of hand though. You’re all on the same team, after all.
Provide Your Staff with the Tools They Need for Success
For your employees to meet their targets, you need to provide them with the tools they need to get there. This is one of the easiest ways to motivate employees and attract top talent to your salon.
First, there are the basics. As their employer, you should provide a comfortable, stunning space to work with clients, high-quality hair-cutting tools, and access to top-of-the-line hair products.
There’s more you can provide to support their success, though. Consider purchasing state-of-the-art salon software for your front desk. These programs offer easy online booking, appointment reminders and updates, and convenient text marketing to engage clients. Some programs might even provide employee goal setting templates.
This technological tool makes it easy to track goals and to lead your employee to success.
Be Available and Accessible to Your Team
If your stylists have any questions or concerns about your salon’s targets, you should be readily available to them as their boss.
It’s important that they know that you have their back and that you’re there to support them.
While they are skilled at cutting hair, they might not do as well with the marketing or upsells. So be prepared to offer insights on how to improve in these areas that might not come naturally to your staff.
Recognize When Additional Training is Needed
By setting goals, you’ll be able to easily determine which employees are leading the pack and which ones are falling behind.
If an employee misses their goals, first, assess the situation. Were there underlying circumstances that affected their outcome – maybe they were on vacation part of the month, or it’s a naturally slow time of year – or is this an indicator of a performance issue?
Tracking your team’s goals is an opportunity to identify who could benefit from additional training and which areas they might need some additional help.
Ultimately, this benefits everyone – both you, as the salon owner, and the employees who are struggling.
Offer Employee Feedback
Consider offering consistent employee feedback regarding your salon’s goals.
This could take place in several forms. You could meet with your employees as a group to discuss the team’s goals and to offer tips for success.
Or you could have a one-on-one conversation with employees about their specific performances. Determine how frequently you’re able to have these meetings though, as they can be time-consuming. These conversations are excellent opportunities to share employee goal setting ideas with them.
Your employees will benefit from the feedback, which they can apply to future efforts.
Ready to Set Goals for Your Staff?
Setting employee goals is vital to your salon’s growth and longevity. Lead your shop on a path to success by establishing clear, concise targets and measuring their outcomes.
This means motivating your team and inspiring them to reach their potential.
Let us help you better manage your staff and front desk management. Our advanced software makes it easy for your stylists to book clients, track sales, and engage their customers in between visits.
Try a 14-day free trial of our software – no credit card needed – and start building your brand.