For a progressive salon, a Training Plan is one of the most important things to have in place. Ryan Fox, Salon Management Consultant talks about how to develop and implement one.

Background

We have been told for years that you must develop your people if you want to progress and stay current with the trends. That means you need to organise regular learning and development opportunities for the team. Over the past 12 years of working with salons however, I have discovered that very few salons actually do this regularly and one of the key reasons is they don’t have a training & development plan that keeps them on track.

“Fail to plan, plan to fail”

This famous quote my Bejamin Franklin, one of the men who helped discover electricity, sums the situation up for me. Many salons have good intentions of developing both the individuals, the team and the salon as a whole and many have a great culture and ethos, but very few have a structured plan that offers a consistent approach with regular training and communication sessions that nurture these good intentions into action.

What is a Training and Development Plan

A good salon training plan covers all aspects of training and development from technical hairdressing skills like cutting and colouring, soft skills like customer service, communication and managing people and business skills like managing money and information. It lists the core subject areas that need to be covered and defines the who, when, where, what and how. It should also include a training needs analysis to discover what the gaps are in people’s learning and what they need to focus on as individuals. Following this exercise, any subject gaps can be woven into the overall training plan. It’s also a good idea to keep ongoing records of what training everyone has completed.

Stick to the schedule

Once you have made a schedule it’s important to stick to it. Planning out your training for the year is just the first step. You then need to communicate it so that everyone knows what’s coming and can plan their own lives around it. Involve everyone in the process so they feel part of it then stick to it. Like most things, if as a salon owner you practice what you preach it will be taken seriously and people will turn up, if however you cancel too often then it will just be another flash in the pan idea that the team will ignore.  Its fine to be flexible, but rearrange, don’t cancel and only when you really need to.

Different strokes for different folks

Take the time to get to know everyone’s individual aspirations and training needs. Through 121’s discover where each person’s path lies. Are they going the creative route to art team or artistic director? Do they have management potential and a sense of business? Are they good at training and developing others? Are they happy being a supportive team player? These are the questions you need to uncover about your team. Everyone has different training needs and everyone has something to offer, find their strengths and let them flourish.

Electricity

Once you get things going you will find it will transform your culture into one of continuous improvement, where everyone wants to learn and develop. Once you get it started its infectious. Done well, everyone starts to feed off each other’s skills and in such a dynamic and creative environment it’s like electricity.

Conclusion

My personal opinion is that this is the missing piece in many salons now and as the economy is improving, it’s a great place to start to develop your own growth plans. When things were tighter two or three years ago, training and development was an obvious expense to cut back on which was probably right for most salons at the time. However, things have changed already this year, as a training and development consultant I’m busier than ever, so investing in your team has never been more important.

Order your Salon Training Plan