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Disgruntled Employer

For the last 7 years, I have dedicated myself to the profession and built a steady clientele for myself. I expanded into a full day spa in 2008. First I just rented out stations because I was not ready to be a boss to anyone and thought it would be a good thing to provide a variety of services to my clients. I soon found that all it did was add more work for me as they treated me like an employee, taking their calls, cleaning up after them and they even took on that I should pay for their advertising, brochures and etc...

About 1 1/2 yrs ago we (my husband and I) were fed up with working 6 days a week and getting taken advantage of so as the leases ran out, we began hiring employee's. This seems to only add more hours to our days and weeks because of trainings, bookwork, followup and creating incentive programs that don't work. We have had a very high turnover of employee's and seem to be getting an excessive number of complaints from New AND Established customers. I have tried coaching and encouraging the workers daily telling them what they do well, and also when something is not done the way I need it to be, I set aside time to ask them questions, clarify how I want it done and re-train. I talk to my employee's and show interest in their lives, accommodate them when they need or want time off, very seldom actually saying no. We provide training literature and show them where it is and let them read it on down time but seem to be getting nowhere.

It is now my 34th Birthday (as of 22 minutes ago) and I am stuck wide awake because we took our first family trip for a year (and not a big one either). I came online to check my emails and sadly discovered a brand new client came in today received very poor service from the employee that has been with me the longest. This is a service she has done many many times and should not be struggling on, but the client said that she skipped steps and then said she didn't know if it was supposed to be done or not and actually picked up a brochure and began reading it with the client to be sure. ARE YOU JOKING??? Who does that? The email was enough to make me cry.

We have noticed the employee's rate of return customers is very low and have done our best to work with her to improve areas she struggles in. She has also had other complaints about quality. Her level of service seems to go up and down daily so we think, oh good she got it, then we get hit with a whammy. She is currently a hairdresser and started massage classes a few weeks ago with the hopes of working for us after she is done. We have developed a reputation with the MT's in town for being hard to work for and are concerned if we let her go we will never get any new MT's as we are in a small town. The reputation only developed based on ppl who wanted to sit all day texting on their phones, painting their nails and chatting while milking the hourly wage.

So with this background information I would like some advice on the situation. Do I fire her? Continue trying to coach her? (I am a Massage Therapist in my business and take 6 hours of massages a day, and work monday through saturday) Our business is so new that if I don't take that many clients in a day, we cannot make the bills but in order to keep training her I would have to give up several hours. What can I do to improve the quality my employee's give so that I can be with my family before 8pm each night? I have a 4 year old and a 9 yr old at home that I rarely see. They miss me and I miss them. I have never had so many complaints and it hurts when they are received. When I had a sole practice, I never once had a complaint from a customer and it gave me such great pride.

What would you do in my situation?

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on September 4, 2011 at 8:21am

Wait a moment, do I understand correctly? Your longest term employee started massage class a few weeks ago??? On one side you indicate she is experienced but then state she intends to work for you when she finishes school. Which is it? Straighten me out on this please.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Allen on September 4, 2011 at 9:17am

I'm sorry to hear you've had this problem. My first five years as an MT, I was employed by a massage school. In the past 8 years, starting from zero, I have built a practice of independent contractors that include a chiropractor, a certified clinical herbalist, an acupuncturist, a Rolfer, an aesthetic RN, and 7 MTs. I have zero turnover; in all these years I have fired one, lost one due to a terrible car accident, lost one who gave up massage altogether due to burnout, and lost two that I hired with the full knowledge that they wanted to work for me for one year to earn enough money to move to the beach. I have people standing in line to work at my clinic.

I have never hired anyone based on their ability. I hire people based on having a positive, customer-service oriented attitude. And though my people are ICs, I market my business. I pay for the advertising, brochures, etc. If you expect ICs or renters to do that, your business doesn't have any brand. There's no cohesiveness. The public perceives people to be your employees if they are in your space, whether they are or not. I don't want a half a dozen people with different brochures, different business cards etc, in my space. It's bad for business.

At this point in time, I would call a staff meeting. Feed them lunch and pay them for their time if necessary to get these issues out in the open, find out who is going to stay on board and do better, and who you need to show the door to right now. I act as a consultant to other practitioners and businesses. I will make it clear that as I do not know you nor your business you are not to take this personally, but in the years I've been doing this, constant turnover has so far been a case of bad management and/or staff feeling that they are not being treated or compensated fairly, every single time. I was self-employed and an employer in the restaurant business (owned 4 over 20+ years) so I base this on many years of experience over and beyond the massage profession.

The reasons I have such an excellent staff is that I make it clear to them on a daily basis that THEY are the reason for my success. I pay above average, and I thank them frequently for the job they do. I pay them to perform community service and to be out in the community. Staff members make or break your business, every time. You might need to clean house and start all over. Or you may come to the realization that you're better off being a sole practitioner, so you can have the time you need with your children. I'm a workaholic and I spend around 70 hours a week at my clinic, but I'm childless. Your kids are only kids for so long. You don't want to have regrets about neglecting your family time when it's too late. Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Massage Gnome on September 5, 2011 at 8:49pm

To Daniel: Sorry for being confusing. She is a licensed Salon manager and Cosmetologist and was performing a facial not a massage. We run a full day spa that offers hair/nail/skin care/body care and massage services. We gave up on the independant contractors and renters because they never wanted to show up and help run the facility or participate in any fund raisers, events or promotions so we were in a constant state of they take and I give. I did pay for all the advertising and furnished all the amenities in the place but the rent that they paid didn't end up covering the bare necessities and I was paying for all their stuff and mine too and working harder than everyone there (typically 6 days a week from 8am to 8 or 9pm and Saturday 9am to 3 or 4pm). We have done bonuses, compensations, meetings, etc...

I have explained clearly what I expect them to do day to day and pay an hourly wage that I feel is above average and is actually what is killing me. There is no way at this point in my business growth to give anyone a raise because we don't yet have the clientele to support it.

To Laura: I had seen a post from you before and was curious to see how you get your IC's to do more than just show up for a session and then leave. How do you hire not based on ability? If someone cannot perform a good massage, it does not matter how "nice" or "polite and friendly" they are because customers will not come back if they didn't like the actual work being done. In fact in the email from the client that I just received it was saying just that. Below is the exact email from the client tho I will use "The" Spa instead of my business name for propriety. I spoke to my employee after I wrote my post here and she says that she did everything by the books and that the client asked about extractions, not exfoliation. In our service menu we offer one or the other "as determined during client consultation" and will only do extractions if the client requests it as it is not a popular requested service and also more invasive of a procedure. Let me know your thoughts if you can. I am not sure how to handle the provider who claims that the client arrived 30 minutes late for her appointment and that she gave a very detailed consultation prior to the service as well as gave her the full hour despite her lateness...

Hi,

I was at "THE" Spa earlier today and I have to say I was quite disappointed by the service I recieved. Everyone there is pleasant but the facial I had was sub-standard I am sorry to say. I would have probably done the work myself, but the whole idea of coming to the spa is to "get away and be pampered." I paid for the 1hr facial in which the description includes exfoliation and I NEVER got that. I inquired after I was done and the lady who worked on me shrugged her shoulders and said she was not sure whether it was part of it and only did it when asked. It was after she brought the brochure and read the description under the 1hour facial that we saw that it included an exfoliation. I knew I needed one as I have not had a facial for a while. She offered it after the fact, but I was irritated and declined. Please look into this and make sure that assumptions are not made about whether a client needs a certain service or not but that ALL descriptions are met, if they are mentioned and anything else extra can be added at the clients request. I will not be returning and I would not recommend it to anyone. Maybe other services are better like the massage etc, but I will not recommend your spa to anyone needing a facial. I should have stayed home and given myself a facial.