Scheduling Issues

Our Salon Manager, who is also a stylist, is responsible for preparing the schedule for all our technicians. Our salon has never had a full-time manager - it's always been someone who is also behind the chair. The prior manager (before I owned the salon) took advantage of her scheduling responsibilities by giving herself every Saturday off and cutting back to four days a week. You can imagine how that went over with the troops - nothing like leading by example!

Our current manager has scheduling policies to follow to assist in preparing the schedule. She also has certain staffing requirements she tries to maintain (like a minimum number of stylists on a Saturday). In spite of policies and good intentions, there are still sometimes issues with the schedule. Any time you have someone with their own column in the book preparing the schedule it leaves you open for criticism.

We've decided to tackle this issue (and others) by moving our lead front desk person into an administrative position. In addition to supervising the front desk, she will be responsible for scheduling (with input from the salon mgr). Since the administrator has no skin in the game, she can be more impartial than a technician could be. Plus it frees up my salon manager to work more closely with the team instead of being cooped up in the office trying to figure out how to staff Saturdays and vacations.

Our goal here is to put people in positions that best utilize their strengths. My salon manager is a people-person. She is a great coach and motivator. She catches people doing something well and praises them. She addresses little issues before they become big issues. The person we are shifting from the Front Desk is a great administrator. She is organized and thorough and very task-oriented. Putting people in positions where they can excel is one thing we can do to help our business succeed and grow.