Spa Executive | Issue 13 | December 2019

said above about it being a candidate’s
spas out there, and many of them need team
opportunity for advancement, and also that
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market out there.
Find talent where it hangs out.
One you know who you’re looking for, you
can figure out where to find them. What
social networks are they most likely to use,
and in what groups on those networks are
they most active? What connections do you
have to them? Go and find them. Can you
partner with a local school for placement?
There are a lot of ways to reach people
beyond just posting a job online and waiting
for the applications to come in.
Build your employer brand.
You know what this means, right? It’s the
image you present to candidates as an
employer. It’s how you appear on social
media and it’s in the stories you tell. It’s the
thing that makes people say, “That looks like
a great place to work! I want to work there.
Let’s make it happen.” Your employer brand
should be relevant and consistent.
Fix issues in your workplace.
Before you can present your amazing
employer brand, you have to create one. A lot
of businesses out there are trying to present
the image of being a great place to work – it
helps if you actually are one. This means
doing some digging to find out if your current
employees are genuinely happy with their lot
and, if not, why not and what you can do to
fix it.
Identify the reasons people should
want to work for you.
Continuing with the above, if your employees
are happy, why is that? What makes them
happy about working for you? Those are the
things you want to highlight. There are a lot of
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members a lot more than the team members
need them. So, why should someone want to
work for you over anyone else? Is it your
incredible benefits program, your amazing
workplace culture, your mission and values?
Your wildly empathetic and communicative
management team? If you can’t think of
anything, well, there’s one of your problems
right there.
Tap your network and team for
referrals.
According to the 2018 ISPA Workforce study,
“word-of-mouth and/or peer referral” was the
method that had been most commonly
employed by spa management and service
providers to find their current jobs. Just like
job seekers should be tapping their networks
for jobs, so should employers be doing the
same for team members.
Offer referral incentives.
Offer referral incentives to your team. If you
want them to do the work, which will
ultimately benefit your company, they should
be rewarded for it.
Use social media.
Beyond just posting a job on LinkedIn, use
your social channels to find the talent you
seek. They are most definitely out there, since
almost everyone uses some form of social
media. Use social to promote your employer
brand, to get engaged in industry related
conversations, to join relevant groups, and to
connect with people who can connect you to
new talent.
Offer opportunities for advancement.
Research has shown that one of the main
reasons people quit any job is a lack of
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more than 80% of people have to leave one
company for another in order to advance
their careers. Nobody wants to feel like their
life is going nowhere and live the same
experience day in and day out. How can you
create pathways to advancement or at least
the feeling of upward mobility at your place of
work? (We have some ideas here).
Provide a good candidate experience.
Job hunting is hard and can be demoralizing,
and this is compounded by potential
employers who offer a bad candidate
experience. They’re late for their own
interviews and can be rude and dismissive.
Worst of all are the employers who ghost
candidates, even after several rounds of
interviews, and don’t even follow up to let
them know they didn’t get the job. People
often wait for an update, literally for weeks or
months, and meanwhile the employer in
question has hired someone else and totally
forgotten about them. It’s cruel to put people
through this, and it does not make you look
good. They will not forget, and they will not
say nice things about their experience, which
is damaging to that employer's brand.
In spas, we’re looking for team members who
are empathetic, hard-working and have
integrity. We can start by being those people
ourselves. Just that will go along way towards
bringing in the people we want as team
members.
07 | Spa Executive Management