HOW TO CREATE SALON POLICY & PROCEDURES

Home / HABA Blog / HOW TO CREATE SALON POLICY & PROCEDURES

Posted March 6, 2017

Creating your salon policy and procedures manual is no easy feat – from writing to implementation, there are lots of hurdles and steps to take to make lasting change in your salon. It’s really important that you get your senior staff or management team on board with the changes and implementation of a new policy in your salon. Not only are these leaders within your business fantastic examples of what to do for younger staff; but they are going to be your biggest advocates on the salon floor, encouraging staff to take new policies seriously.

Here are the steps to take to create and implement your policies –

1. Planning and consultation

   Create a more collaborative approach to developing policies and procedures by involving your staff in the process. This helps everyone to understand why you are doing what you’re doing, it encourages them to take ownership and advocate for the standards set out in policies and allows you to determine how and when the policies might apply, including different scenarios.

2. Research and define policy terms

   Use the example templates available to HABA members, look into the legislation and legal recommendations or speak to your colleagues in the industry to gather together your own salon policies. By defining key terms in the policy, you ensure there is no room for error in understanding what is and is not acceptable behaviour.

3. Create a draft policy

   It’s always a good idea to take your first draft to your senior management team, as many hands really do make light work. There may be areas or scenarios that you simply didn’t consider that will be relevant to your salon. Your policy should be written in plain English so it can be understood by all staff members, or even consider translating the policy into other languages if many of your staff members are ESL individuals.

4. Implementation

   This is your opportunity to explain to your staff what the policy is, why it is being implemented and the implications of not following the standards set out. Sit your team down together and discuss the policies, ensuring that each staff member gets their own copy of the manual, and it’s important that all new staff members get access to the same document, so all staff are held to the same standard. Make sure that the policies and procedures are available to staff, whether it’s on a shared drive, in a folder for reference or in the staff break room.

5. Compliance

   It’s extremely important that any policy that is implemented in a salon is enforced and compliance is unquestioning. A breach in policy should be dealt with promptly and in accordance to the policy set out by the business – there should be no wavering or folding on big issues or room for negotiation. The responsibility for the consequence for actions is taken on by the staff members once they have reviewed the document, and salon owners should hold their staff to that standard.

Salon policies and procedures are living, breathing documents that should be constantly changing and updating. This allows you to change the policies as they need to be changed as required by the business, whether you are growing, your team changes or your focus changes. Don’t let your policies and procedures get out of date or ignored in a draw, keep your staff updated and your policies updated to ensure that your team, your salon and your business are all running at peak performance.

HABA has prepared a series of templates for writing salon policies and procedures and we invite our members to access and download these templates to write policies and procedures that are created by a team of Industrial Relations experts, written to best practice. If you have any issues around staff or salon policies and procedures, the team at HABA are here to help. Just call (02) 9221 9911 or email info@askhaba.com.au